Britain’s colonial empire in southeastern North America relied on the cultivation and maintenance of economic and political ties with the numerous powerful Indian confederacies of the region. Those ties in turn relied on British traders adapting to Indian ideas of landscape and power. In An Empire of Small Places; Robert Paulett examines this interaction over the course of the eighteenth century; drawing attention to the ways that conceptions of space competed; overlapped; and changed. He encourages us to understand the early American South as a landscape made by interactions among American Indians; European Americans; and enslaved African American laborers.Focusing especially on the Anglo-Creek-Chickasaw route that ran from the coast through Augusta to present-day Mississippi and Tennessee; Paulett finds that the deerskin trade produced a sense of spatial and human relationships that did not easily fit into Britain’s imperial ideas and thus forced the British to consciously articulate what made for a proper realm. He develops this argument in chapters about five specific kinds of places: the imagined spaces of British maps and the lived spaces of the Savannah River; the town of Augusta; traders’ paths; and trading houses. In each case; the trade’s practical demands privileged Indian; African; and nonelite European attitudes toward place. After the Revolution; the new United States created a different model for the Southeast that sought to establish a new system of Indian-white relationships oriented around individual neighborhoods.
#1620111 in Books University of Georgia Press 2004-12-09 2004-12-09Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.02 x 1.54 x 5.98l; 2.16 #File Name: 0820323950704 pages
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. ...a fascinating haunting journey through timeBy Joan TerrellThis book prompted me to also purchase Drums and Shadows - survival studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. Assuming the contents of this book is true; it is an haunting journey through time. Our local library had only one copy. I first read snipits about this book in the bibliography of several other books on the antebellum south. The library is undergoing renovation and that one copy has been misplaced. That prompted me to turn to .com in the hopes I could purchase my own book. Thanks .com for your inventory. My grandparents and their siblings came from Georgia (my father was 3 years old when they left). This book gives me some context of what that part of the United States was like. It helps me in my search to hopefully find other family members. The picture of Katie Brown resonated deeply with me as that was the maiden name of my grandmothers (on my mother and father side). Her features are akin to my father's mother. Thanks again .com!0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. I like the bookBy Kerry FairFrom what I have read so far; I like the book . It has opened up new avenues for me to research. The historical connections are very interesting.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy John TrussellAn excellent insight to slavery and the seeds of the civil war.
