Four Centuries of Southern Indians
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Four Centuries of Southern Indians

Edited by Charles M. Hudson

Title Details

Pages: 184

Trim size: 5.500in x 8.500in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 12/01/2007

ISBN: 9-780-8203-3132-4

List Price: $28.95

Four Centuries of Southern Indians

Edited by Charles M. Hudson

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  • Description
  • Reviews
  • Contributors

The Indians of the Southeast had the most highly centralized and complex social structure of all the aboriginal peoples in the continental United States. They lived in large towns and villages, built monumental mounds and earthworks, enjoyed rich religious and artistic achievements, and maintained a flourishing economy based on agriculture and complemented by time-honored hunting and gathering techniques. Yet they have remained relatively unknown to most scholars and laymen, in part because of a lack of collaboration between historians and anthropologists.

Four Centuries of Southern Indians is a collection of nine essays which allow both historians and anthropologists to make their necessary contributions to a fuller understanding of the southern Indians. The essays span four hundred years, beginning with French and Spanish relations with the Timucuan Indians in northern Florida in the sixteenth century and ending with the modern Cherokees transported to Oklahoma. The interim topics include the social structure of the Tuscaroras of North Carolina in the eighteenth century, the role southern Indians played in the American Revolution, the removal of the southern Indians to the Indian Territory, and Cherokee beliefs about sorcery and witchcraft. This collection of essays and the cooperation between historians and anthropologists which it incorporates signify the beginning of what will undoubtedly prove a fruitful approach to the study of southern Indians.

A very successful collection of important papers . . . The nine papers presented in Four Centuries of Southern Indians suggest the rich possibilities for research in Southeastern Indian history and culture. Prefaced with a fine introduction by Professor Hudson, the papers explore the variety of past and present issues touching the lives of many tribes.

American Indian Quarterly

Makes a valuable contribution to the study of Indians in the South, even though the subjects are diverse and brevity militates against full development of some themes.

American Historical Review

John H. Peterson

Raymond Fogelson

James W. Covington

Douglas W. Boyce

James H. O'Donnell

Jack D. L. Holmes

Arthur H. DeRosier

Albert L. Wahrhaftig

Charles Crowe

About the Author/Editor

CHARLES M. HUDSON (1932–2013) was the Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History at the University of Georgia and was one of the foremost authorities on the history and culture of the Indians of the U.S. Southeast. His books include Black Drink and The Forgotten Centuries (both Georgia).