Steven C. Hahn
The story of Mary Musgrove (1700â€“1764), a Creek Indianâ€“English woman struggling for success in colonial society, is an improbable one.,As a literate Christian, entrepreneur, and wife of an Anglican clergyman, Mary was one of a small number of â€œmixed bloodâ€ Indians to achieve a position of prominence among English colonists. Born to a Creek mother and an English father, Maryâ€™s bicultural heritage prepared her for an eventful adulthood spent in the rough and tumble world of Colonial Georgia Indian affairs.,Active in diplomacy, trade, and politicsâ€”affairs typically dominated by menâ€”Mary worked as an interpreter between the Creek Indians and the colonistsâ€”although some argue that she did so for her own gains, altering translations to sway transactions in her favor. Widowed twice in the prime of her life, Mary and her successive husbands claimed vast tracts of land in Georgia (illegally, as British officials would have it) by virtue of her Indian heritage, thereby souring her relationship with the colonyâ€™s governing officials and severely straining the colonyâ€™s relationship with the Creek Indians.,Using Maryâ€™s life as a narrative thread, Steven Hahn explores the connected histories of the Creek Indians and the colonies of South Carolina and Georgia. He demonstrates how the fluidity of race and gender relations on the southern frontier eventually succumbed to more rigid hierarchies that supported the regionâ€™s emerging plantation system.
Biography,History
The Life and Times of Mary Musgrove