THE SAVAGE Nellakawi is uprooted from the life she has known and sent to an Indian reservation in East Texas. A teenage Indian girl who has lived with and worked for a white family after her parents died, she does not fit in with the Indians there. Her language, clothes, and ideas are too much like those of the white people. Jacob Jonathan Lyon is a plantation owner in East Texas. The Civil War begins, and he is facing a difficult decision: will he join the Confederate army to fight for the only way of life he has ever known, or will he stay behind to care for his family and plantation. His wife has not regained her strength after her last pregnancy and his two children are little. The decisions these two people make eventually involve them in each other's lives. There are those in East Texas who feel that Blacks are inferior and Indians are savages. These prejudices affect the lives of both Nellakawi and Jacob Jonathan.