In this concise but sweeping study, James Axtell depicts the complete range of transformations in southeastern Indian cultures as a result of contact, and often conflict, with European explorers and settlers in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Stressing the dynamism and constant change in native cultures while showing no loss of Indian identity, Axtell effectively argues that the colonial Southeast cannot be fully understood without paying particular attention to its native inhabitants before their large-scale removal in the 1830s. Axtell begins by treating the irruption in native life of several Spanish entradas in the sixteenth century, most notably and destructively Hernando de Soto's, and the rapid decline of the great Mississippian societies in their wake. He then relates the rise and fall of the Franciscan missions in Florida to the aggressive advent of English settlement in Virginia and the Carolinas in the seventeenth century. Finally, he traces the largely symbiotic relations among the South Carolina English, the Louisiana French, and their native trading partners in the eighteenth-century deerskin business, and the growing dependence of the Indians on their white neighbors for necessities as well as conveniences and luxuries. Focusing on the primary context of interaction between natives and newcomers in each century -- warfare, missions, and trade -- and drawing upon a wide range of ethnohistorical sources, including written, oral, archaeological, linguistic, and artistic ones, Axtell gives a rich sense of the variety and complexity of Indian-white interactions and a clear interpretative matrix by which to assimilate the details. Based on the fifty-eighth series of Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures, The Indians' New South is a colorful, accessible account of the clash of cultures in the colonial Southeast. It will prove essential and entertaining reading for all students of Native America and the South.
Anthropologists and Indians in the New South is a clear assessment of the growing mutual respect and strengthening bond between modern Native Americans and the researchers who explore their past.
Out of print for years and after thousands of copies sold, NewSouth brings an important resource for young readersThe World of Southern Indiansback into print.
The authors of these essays are an interdisciplinary team of anthropologists and historians who have combined the research methods of both fields to present a comprehensive study of their subject.
One of the most remarkable stories of immigration in the last half century is that of Indians to the United States.
Considered to be one of the all-time classic studies of southeastern Native peoples, Powhatan's Mantle proves more topical, comprehensive, and insightful than ever before in this revised edition for twenty-first century scholars and ...
Given the vast network of paths that connected the various talwas in both the Upper and Lower sections, it was unlikely that any given ... particularly for east-west travel.19 Although Native peoples invested time in clearing paths ...
In a moving account, anthropologist Paula L. Wagoner tells the story of Bennett County, using snapshots of community events and crises, past and present, to reveal the complexity of race relations and identities there.
"If you have ever wondered about the Indian tribes who lived in the American Southeast at the time of European settlement, this book is for you.
This absorbing book is the first ever to focus on the traffic in Indian slaves during the early years of the American South.
A broad introduction to the prehistory, social institutions, and history of the native people of the southeastern United States