The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763
Drawing on archaeological evidence and often-neglected Spanish source material, The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763 explores the political history of the Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama and the emergence of the Creek Nation during the colonial era in the American Southeast. In part a study of Creek foreign relations, this book examines the creation and application of the "neutrality" policy-defined here as the Coweta Resolution of 1718-for which the Creeks have long been famous, in an era marked by the imperial struggle for the American South. Also a study of the culture of internal Creek politics, this work shows the persistence of a "traditional" kinship-based political system in which town and clan affiliation remained supremely important. These traditions, coupled with political intrusions by the region's three European powers, promoted the spread of Creek factionalism and mitigated the development of a regional Creek Confederacy. But while traditions endured, the struggle to maintain territorial integrity against Britain also promoted political innovation. In this context the territorially defined Creek Nation emerged as a legal concept in the era of the French and Indian War, as imperial policies of an earlier era gave way to the territorial politics that marked the beginning of a new one.
The Natchez Diaspora: A History of Indigenous Displacement and Survival in the Atlantic World
Author(s): Smyth, Edward Glenn | Advisor(s): Westerkamp, Marilyn | Abstract: In 1731, the French colonists of Louisiana and their Native American allies defeated the Natchez after a bloody conflict and drove the Natchez survivors from their ancestral homelands. The dissertation responds to the question: what happened to the Natchez survivors after 1731? Instead of thinking about the year 1731 as an end to Natchez history, I argue that the war with the French marked the beginning of a new phase of Natchez history that is best characterized as a diaspora. Indeed, the Natchez established many new communities after 1731: some Natchez eventually settled in colonial South Carolina while others established Natchez communities among the Chickasaws, Cherokees and Creeks. This is the first project to explore Natchez history after the 1730s and it enlarges the temporal scope of Natchez history and its significance to larger colonial processes in the Atlantic World. Through the use of French and English sources, as well as Natchez oral history that I have collected by working with contemporary Natchez communities in Oklahoma and South Carolina, this project examines Natchez communities in an extended Indigenous diasporic network. This network enabled Natchez people to survive multiple colonial displacements and to establish a network of contacts with several different European and Native American populations during the eighteenth century and beyond. In tracking the diaspora, the dissertation departs from scholarship that focuses on the adaptation of Native American polities, culture, and society in response to European colonialism. Rather than only looking at how Natchez adapted to European colonialism, which clearly had a major impact on Natchez history, this project also examines how Natchez people responded to living with other Native American groups. The diasporic Natchez communities reveal that the Natchez adapted to changes in multiple directions, not just in response to European colonists, but also in response to their interactions with Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees. By examining how each Natchez community integrated themselves into new areas and with new peoples, the dissertation argues that the limited choices that were available to the Natchez were as much conditioned by Native American societies as European colonization.
Fieldwork in geography teaching: A critical review of the literature and approaches
Abstract Virtually all lecturers in geography recognise the importance of fieldwork as a vital mode of teaching in the subject. This paper draws on material produced as part of a HEFCE review of teaching and learning in the field and assesses the implications of recent changes in higher education for field studies in geography. The literature on the development of, and recent changes in, fieldwork practice is reviewed and assumptions about appropriate forms of teaching and assessment are challenged. The need for carefully integrated preparation of project‐orientated fieldwork is stressed and the importance of debriefing and feedback after field visits is emphasised. Various suggestions for guidelines on good practice are presented. Finally, a range of future issues and problems in fieldwork is identified and discussed.