During the Great Depression, 8-year-old Native American Little Tree (Joseph Ashton) loses his mother and father. Little Tree is sent to live in the Smokey Mountains with his grandparents (James Cromwell, Tantoo Cardinal), who show the young boy how to live in the wilderness. They introduce him to Willow John (Graham Greene), a medicine man who teaches Little Tree about his Cherokee heritage. But when the local government makes the boy attend a state school, his world is turned upside down.