Crisis & Conflict

"Crisis and Conflict" is the fifth book in the Peasant to Patriot series, tracing several interconnected and allied families through major upheavals from the post-Revolutionary era into the nineteenth century.
The central theme is how repeated political, military, social, and personal crises shaped ordinary families: the Articles of Confederation, Shays's Rebellion, the Constitution, the War of 1812, westward migration, slavery, Native American removal, and European revolutions.
The narrative connects large historical events-Treaty of Paris, Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, the Napoleonic wars, the New Madrid earthquake, the Trail of Tears, and German emigration-to intimate family decisions about land, survival, faith, marriage, loss, and migration.
Missouri emerges as a key meeting point where family lines converge amid frontier violence, slavery, land disputes, Native American conflict, and the expansion of the United States.
The book emphasizes that national ideals of liberty and equality were repeatedly undermined by slavery, broken treaties, forced removals, political factionalism, and violence, while families continued seeking stability and hope through upheaval.