Broken Trail

A sequel to The Way Lies North, this historical adventure story is set in 1780 when the British are fighting the Americans for control of the United States. The Oneida people, from north of the St. Lawrence, are loosely allied with the British. Broken Trail, a white boy who has been raised by the Oneida, is enlisted by the British to carry a vital message south to the British commander near Charlotte, North Carolina. Broken Trail journeys alone, surviving in the wilderness thanks to his Oneida upbringing. Along the way, he befriends a Cherokee boy, with whom he shares his anger at the settlers taking over aboriginal land. In Charlotte, he encounters his own white brother, who has been wounded, and nurses him back to health. Broken Trail is confused. Is he of the aboriginal world or the white world?

Caution: A disturbing scene of a family scalped leads to Broken Trail realizing his task is to “find a better way”.

A sequel to The Way Lies North, this historical adventure story is set in 1780 when the British are fighting the Americans for control of the United States. The Oneida people, from north of the St. Lawrence, are loosely allied with the British. Broken Trail, a white boy who has been raised by the Oneida, is enlisted by the British to carry a vital message south to the British commander near Charlotte, North Carolina. Broken Trail journeys alone, surviving in the wilderness thanks to his Oneida upbringing. Along the way, he befriends a Cherokee boy, with whom he shares his anger at the settlers taking over aboriginal land. In Charlotte, he encounters his own white brother, who has been wounded, and nurses him back to health. Broken Trail is confused. Is he of the aboriginal world or the white world?

Caution: A disturbing scene of a family scalped leads to Broken Trail realizing his task is to “find a better way”.

Broken Trail, a 13-year-old Oneida boy at the time of the American Revolution, has undertaken a vision quest to find his oki, his spirit protector. He wants nothing more than to become a warrior like his uncle, Carries a Quiver. He wants to forget that before he was Broken Trail, adopted son of an Oneida couple, he was Moses Cobham.

A British soldier interrupts Broken Trail’s vision quest, accidentally shooting him in the leg. At the British camp, after his wound is dressed, the general asks him to take a message to the British commander at Kings Mountain, far to the south, in exchange for a rifle

At Kings Mountain, Broken Trail comes face-to-face with his past and with the knowledge that it may not be so easy to forget who he once was. Perhaps, in fact, it will be important to the future of the Oneida that he remember.

Author Jean Rae Baxter has written an engaging, absorbing story — well-plotted, full of detail and full of sympathy and understanding of human nature. Broken Trail’s quest for his true identity is one every adolescent can identify with.

This novel is the second in the Loyalist trilogy that began with The Way Lies North. Baxter is working on a third novel with the same characters.

In the middle of the American Revolution, 13-year-old Broken Trail is caught between conflicting worlds. Having been born British but raised by the Oneida, Broken Trail is faced with a difficult decision when he finds his long-lost older brother. Do his loyalties lie with his brother and the British or with the First Nations people who adopted him? Or can he find a way forward that will benefit both peoples?