Unlike Emmet Starr's better known and much longer "History of the Cherokee Indians" (originally published in 1921), this 1917 work focuses on Cherokee life, culture, politics, and self-governance, not genealogy and biography. Mr. Starr, whose grandparents had settled in the Cherokee Nation "West" (Arkansas Country) by 1832, explained in his preface to the book that, with this volume, he strived to "present many of the phases of Cherokee Indian history that might not be preserved and understood."