The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake

The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake
Author: Henry Timberlake
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2007
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807831263

This is the first modern scholarly edition of what is considered the most detailed ethnographic account of Cherokee life in the late 18th century. Timberlake•s memoirs describe the months he spent living with the Cherokees then escorting a delegation to London to meet King George III. He provides details of daily life, including ceremonies, games, the role of women, the preparation of food, and the creation of weapons, baskets, and pottery. This edition pairs the original text with extensive footnotes and annotiations, a new introduction, index, and more than 100 illustrations, including artifacts, maps, period artwork, and contemporary artwork.

Peace and War on the Anglo-Cherokee Frontier, 1756--63

Peace and War on the Anglo-Cherokee Frontier, 1756--63
Author: John Stuart Oliphant
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2001-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780807126370

In the winter of 1760, Cherokee warriors attacked the South Carolina frontier, driving British settlements back over one hundred miles. Intrusive colonists, the failing deerskin trade, and the treachery of a British governor all contributed to the collapse of trust between the two vastly different cultures, and Cherokee leaders and imperial commanders struggled to reestablish a fragile middle ground, negotiating a peace based on protection and consensus. Previous works have suggested that extreme cultural differences between Indians and whites and especially colonial expansionism led inevitably to the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1759--1761, but in this original study, John Oliphant emphasizes the central role of individuals in shaping the course of relations between the two societies. Oliphant argues that in a world where four colonial governments, an over-burdened Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and the increasingly important military commanders all competed for a share of southern Indian relations, determined individuals could--and did--have an immense influence over Anglo-Amerindian relations. As Oliphant shows, war and treaty increased the Cherokee's chances of stabilizing their South Carolina frontier, and thanks to an imperial policy of protection and conciliation and dogged individuals such as James Grant, John Stuart, Cherokee leader Attakullakulla, and their collaborators, rivals, and colleagues, a firmly defined boundary was finally attained in 1766. An important addition to the history of American Indians and British agents, Peace and War on the Anglo-Cherokee Frontier, 1756-1763 will be of interest to all scholars and students of colonial America.

The Enslaved and Their Enslavers

The Enslaved and Their Enslavers
Author: Edward Pearson
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 521
Release: 2023-12-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1512824399

In The Enslaved and Their Enslavers, Edward Pearson offers a sweeping history of slavery in South Carolina, from British settlement in 1670 to the dawn of the Civil War. For enslaved peoples, the shape of their daily lives depended primarily on the particular environment in which they lived and worked, and Pearson examines three distinctive settings in the province: the extensive rice and indigo plantations of the coastal plain; the streets, workshops, and wharves of Charleston; and the farms and estates of the upcountry. In doing so, he provides a fine-grained analysis of how enslaved laborers interacted with their enslavers in the workplace and other locations where they encountered one another as plantation agriculture came to dominate the colony. The Enslaved and Their Enslavers sets this portrait of early South Carolina against broader political events, economic developments, and social trends that also shaped the development of slavery in the region. For example, the outbreak of the American Revolution and the subsequent war against the British in the 1770s and early 1780s as well as the French and Haitian revolutions all had a profound impact on the institution's development, both in terms of what enslaved people drew from these events and how their enslavers responded to them. Throughout South Carolina's long history, enslaved people never accepted their enslavement passively and regularly demonstrated their fundamental opposition to the institution by engaging in acts of resistance, which ranged from vandalism to arson to escape, and, on rare occasions, organizing collectively against their oppression. Their attempts to subvert the institution in which they were held captive not only resulted in slaveowners tightening formal and informal mechanisms of control but also generated new forms of thinking about race and slavery among whites that eventually mutated into pro-slavery ideology and the myth of southern exceptionalism.

The First Way of War

The First Way of War
Author: John Grenier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2005-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781139444705

This 2005 book explores the evolution of Americans' first way of war, to show how war waged against Indian noncombatant population and agricultural resources became the method early Americans employed and, ultimately, defined their military heritage. The sanguinary story of the American conquest of the Indian peoples east of the Mississippi River helps demonstrate how early Americans embraced warfare shaped by extravagant violence and focused on conquest. Grenier provides a major revision in understanding the place of warfare directed on noncombatants in the American military tradition, and his conclusions are relevant to understand US 'special operations' in the War on Terror.

The Colonial Towns of Piedmont North Carolina

The Colonial Towns of Piedmont North Carolina
Author: Christopher E. Hendricks
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2024-11-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1621909026

How do towns come into existence? What circumstances determine whether they succeed or fail? In The Colonial Towns of Piedmont North Carolina, author Christopher E. Hendricks looks at one region in eighteenth-century America to explore answers to these questions. He examines the establishment and development of eleven towns in the Piedmont, classifying them into three types: county towns formed by the establishment of government institutions, such as a courthouse; trade towns formed around commercial opportunities; and religious towns such as the three towns developed in Wachovia, a region where Moravians settled. He uses these classifications to tell the stories of how these towns came into being, and how, in their development, they struggled against economic, cultural, and political challenges. Ultimately, The Colonial Towns of Piedmont North Carolina deepens our understanding of the influence that American towns had on the settlement of the backcountry. Hendricks tells the poignant story of the Moravians’ struggle to maintain their neutral stance during the Revolutionary War, surviving exploitation and brutality from both the Continental Army and the British. The author also integrates the history of Native Americans into this mix of competing forces and shows how they were challenged by—and resisted—the newcomers. He emphasizes the role of individual initiative as well as the impetus of government, specifically courthouses, in establishing towns. By utilizing a variety of rarely examined primary sources, methodological approaches ranging from geographic theory to material culture studies, and a deep examination of local history, Hendricks provides a comprehensive analysis of the emergence of these towns on the frontier.

The Swamp Fox

The Swamp Fox
Author: John Oller
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2016-10-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0306824582

This comprehensive biography of Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, covers his famous wartime stories as well as a private side of him that has rarely been explored In the darkest days of the American Revolution, Francis Marion and his band of militia freedom fighters kept hope alive for the patriot cause during the critical British "southern campaign." Employing insurgent guerrilla tactics that became commonplace in later centuries, Marion and his brigade inflicted enemy losses that were individually small but cumulatively a large drain on British resources and morale. Although many will remember the stirring adventures of the "Swamp Fox" from the Walt Disney television series of the late 1950s and the fictionalized Marion character played by Mel Gibson in the 2000 film The Patriot, the real Francis Marion bore little resemblance to either of those caricatures. But his exploits were no less heroic as he succeeded, against all odds, in repeatedly foiling the highly trained, better-equipped forces arrayed against him. In this action-packed biography we meet many colorful characters from the Revolution: Banastre Tarleton, the British cavalry officer who relentlessly pursued Marion over twenty-six miles of swamp, only to call off the chase and declare (per legend) that "the Devil himself could not catch this damned old fox," giving Marion his famous nickname; Thomas Sumter, the bold but rash patriot militia leader whom Marion detested; Lord Cornwallis, the imperious British commander who ordered the hanging of rebels and the destruction of their plantations; "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, the urbane young Continental cavalryman who helped Marion topple critical British outposts in South Carolina; but most of all Francis Marion himself, "the Washington of the South," a man of ruthless determination yet humane character, motivated by what his peers called "the purest patriotism." In The Swamp Fox, the first major biography of Marion in more than forty years, John Oller compiles striking evidence and brings together much recent learning to provide a fresh look both at Marion, the man, and how he helped save the American Revolution.

The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism

The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism
Author: Thomas J. Little
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2013-10-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1611172756

During the late seventeenth century, a heterogeneous mixture of Protestant settlers made their way to the South Carolina lowcountry from both the Old World and elsewhere in the New. Representing a hodgepodge of European religious traditions, they shaped the foundations of a new and distinct plantation society in the British-Atlantic world. The Lords Proprietors of Carolina made vigorous efforts to recruit Nonconformists to their overseas colony by granting settlers considerable freedom of religion and liberty of conscience. Codified in the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, this toleration ultimately attracted a substantial number of settlers of many and varying Christian denominations. In The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism, Thomas J. Little refutes commonplace beliefs that South Carolina grew spiritually lethargic and indifferent to religion in the colonial era. Little argues that pluralism engendered religious renewal and revival, which developed further after Anglicans in the colony secured legal establishment for their church. The Carolina colony emerged at the fulcrum of an international Protestant awakening that embraced a more emotional, individualistic religious experience and helped to create a transatlantic evangelical movement in the mid-eighteenth century. Offering new perspectives on both early American history and the religious history of the colonial South, The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism charts the regional spread of early evangelicalism in the too-often neglected South Carolina lowcountry—the economic and cultural center of the lower southern colonies. Although evangelical Christianity has long been and continues to be the dominant religion of the American South, historians have traditionally described it as a comparatively late-flowering development in British America. Reconstructing the history of religious revivalism in the lowcountry and placing the subject firmly within an Atlantic world context, Little demonstrates that evangelical Christianity had much earlier beginnings in prerevolutionary southern society than historians have traditionally recognized.