THE COLONIAL PERIOD
"Carolina" by Herman Moll. 1732. Courtesy of Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3870.np000147/?r=0.372,0.254,0.371,0.17,0
The colonial period in South Carolina covers a wide range of topics in Native American history. It begins with the arrival of Europeans and quickly progresses into many hardships for the native populations. Not only did they endure disease, enslavement, and multiple wars; but also a loss of tribal identity as they were continually forced westward. By the end of the era, they would be almost entirely removed from the lower portions of our state; with remaining populations struggling to maintain their way of life.
NATIVE AMERICAN ENSLAVEMENT
Books containing information regarding the enslavement of Native Americans in our state.
The Indian Slave Trade by
This study focuses on the traffic in Indian slaves during the early years of the American South. The Indian slave trade was of central importance from the Carolina coast to the Mississippi Valley for nearly 50 years, linking southern lives and creating a whirlwind of violence and profit-making, argues Alan Gallay. He documents in detail how the trade operated, the processes by which Europeans and Native Americans became participants, and the profound consequences for the South and its peoples.
THE YEMASSEE WAR
For information regarding the Yemassee War.
A colonial complex : South Carolina's frontiers in the era of the Yamasee War, 1680-1730 by
In 1715 the upstart British colony of South Carolina was nearly destroyed in an unexpected conflict with many of its Indian neighbors, most notably the Yamasees, a group whose sovereignty had become increasingly threatened. The South Carolina militia retaliated repeatedly until, by 1717, the Yamasees were nearly annihilated, and their survivors fled to Spanish Florida. The war not only sent shock waves throughout South Carolina's government, economy, and society, but also had a profound impact on colonial and Indian cultures from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River. Drawing on a diverse range of colonial records, A Colonial Complex builds on recent developments in frontier history and depicts the Yamasee War as part of a colonial complex: a broad pattern of exchange that linked the Southeast's Indian, African, and European cultures throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the first detailed study of this crucial conflict, Steven J. Oatis shows the effects of South Carolina's aggressive imperial expansion on the issues of frontier trade, combat, and diplomacy, viewing them not only from the perspective of English South Carolinians but also from that of the societies that dealt with the South Carolinians both directly and indirectly. Readers will find new information on the deerskin trade, the Indian slave trade, imperial rivalry, frontier military strategy, and the major transformations in the cultural landscape of the early colonial Southeast.
Indians' Revenge by
Many myths and half truths have been formed and perpetuated through the centuries. The author, a 1961 history major from Tulane University, has carefully read many original sources and was able to create a factual and complete history of the Yemasee war. In addition, we are given an apple to apple comparison between Indians and white men of the 18th century. South Carolina's relations with the French in Louisiana and the Spanish in Florida are interwoven into the narrative. This book does not try to prove any theories, but is a factual account of the war.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Below are primary source materials available at CLS. Some are works that contain annotated versions of the original source.
A New Voyage to Carolina by
John Lawson's amazingly detailed yet lively book is easily one of the most valuable of the early histories of the Carolinas, and it is certainly one of the best travel accounts of the early eighteenth-century colonies. An inclusive account of the manners and customs of the Indian tribes of that day, it is also a minute report of the soil, climate, trees, plants, animals, and fish in the Carolinas. Lawson's observation is keen and thorough; his style direct and vivid. He misses nothing and recounts all -- from the storms at sea to his impressions of New York in 1700, the trip down the coast to Charleston, and his travels from there into North Carolina with his Indian guides. The first edition of this work was published in London in 1709. While various editions followed in the eighteenth century -- including two in German -- this edition is a true copy of the original and is the first to include a comprehensive index. It also contains "The Second Charter," "An Abstract of the Constitution of Carolina," Lawson's will, and several previously unpublished letters written by Lawson. A number of DeBry woodcuts of John White's drawings of Indian life, sketches of the beasts of Carolina which appeared in the original 1709 edition, and Lawson's map contribute additional interest to this volume.
Click here to view a digital copy
(Only 1rst volume covering years 1710-1715)
Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, ... Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions; ... Embellished with Copper-Plates. by William Bartram by
Originally published in 1791 under title: Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, east & west Florida, the Cherokee country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the country of the Chactaws.
Bartram spent three years traveling through the backcountry and visiting Native Americans. While this account does not mention much about South Carolina tribes, it sheds light on what life was like for Native Americans at the time.
A digital copy is available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/63678/63678-h/63678-h.htm
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
For information regarding South Carolina's Native Americans in the Revolutionary War.
Adair's History of the American Indians by
First published in London in 1775 and printed in the U.S. in 1930, this is a detailed and fascinating account of the principal tribes of the Indians of the Southeast and of their countries. It is regarded by ethnologists and historians as reliable authority on Southern history. Author lived with the Indians as a friend and brother.
A digitized copy can be found at: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015000523871
The Indian World of George Washington by
"In this sweeping new biography, Calloway uses the prism of Washington's life to bring focus to the great Native leaders of his time - Shingas, Tanaghrisson, Bloody Fellow, Joseph Brant, Red Jacket, Little Turtle - and the tribes they represented: the Iroquois Confederacy, Lenape, Miami, Creek, Delaware; in the process, he returns them to their rightful place in the story of America's founding."
Calloway's book is an important study on Washington and Southeastern Native Americans. It includes a few mentions of Catawba leaders along side others from tribes such as the Cherokee, Lenape, Creek, etc. It also includes maps and lists of prominent Native American leaders. This is the best resource for understanding Washington and his relationship with Indigenous America.
The American Revolution in Indian Country by
This study presents a broad coverage of Indian experiences in the American Revolution rather than Indian participation as allies or enemies of contending parties. Colin Calloway focuses on eight Indian communities as he explores how the Revolution often translated into war among Indians and their own struggles for independence. Drawing on British, American, Canadian and Spanish records, Calloway shows how Native Americans pursued different strategies, endured a variety of experiences, but were bequeathed a common legacy as result of the Revolution.
Peace and War on the Anglo-Cherokee Frontier, 1756-63 by
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.
HISTORIES
Works containing general histories of Native Americans in Colonial South Carolina.
Colonial Challenges by
In this examination of British colonial practices, Robin Fabel investigates the reactions of native populations to British imperialism in the two decades before the American Revolution. Specifically, he looks at the Cherokees, the small tribes of the Mississippi, and the Black Caribs of the Windward Islands - all groups whose territories bordered on British settlements, all groups who first cooperated with and later resisted British diplomatic and military instrusions.
The Indians' New South by
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.
Creating and Contesting Carolina by
The essays in Creating and Contesting Carolina shed new light on how the various peoples of the Carolinas responded to the tumultuous changes shaping the geographic space that the British called Carolina during the Proprietary period (1663-1719). In doing so, the essays focus attention on some of the most important and dramatic watersheds in the history of British colonization in the New World. These years brought challenging and dramatic changes to the region, such as the violent warfare between British and Native Americans or British and Spanish, the no-less dramatic development of the plantation system, and the decline of proprietary authority. All involved contestation, whether through violence or debate. The very idea of a place called Carolina was challenged by Native Americans, and many colonists and metropolitan authorities differed in their visions for Carolina. The stakes were high in these contests because they occurred in an early American world often characterized by brutal warfare, rigid hierarchies, enslavement, cultural dislocation, and transoceanic struggles for power. While Native Americans and colonists shed each other�s blood to define the territory on their terms, colonists and officials built their own version of Carolina on paper and in the discourse of early modern empires. But new tensions also provided a powerful incentive for political and economic creativity. The peoples of the early Carolinas reimagined places, reconceptualized cultures, realigned their loyalties, and adapted in a wide variety of ways to the New World. Three major groups of peoples�European colonists, Native Americans, and enslaved Africans�shared these experiences of change in the Carolinas, but their histories have usually been written separately. These disparate but closely related strands of scholarship must be connected to make the early Carolinas intelligible. Creating and Contesting Carolina brings together work relating to all three groups in this unique collection.