Coastal encounters : the transformation of the Gulf South in the eighteenth century

Coastal Encounters opens a window onto the fascinating world of the eighteenth-century Gulf South. Stretching from Florida to Texas, the region witnessed the complex collision of European, African, and Native American peoples. The Gulf South offered an extraordinary stage for European rivalries to play out, allowed a Native-based frontier exchange system to develop alongside an emerging slave-based plantation economy, and enabled the construction of an urban network of unusual opportunity for free people of color. After being long-neglected in favor of the English colonies of the Atlantic coast, the colonial Gulf South has now become the focus of new and exciting scholarship. Coastal Encounters brings together leading experts and emerging scholars to provide a portrait of the Gulf South in the eighteenth century. The contributors depict the remarkable transformations that took place—demographic, cultural, social, political, and economic—and examine the changes from multiple perspectives, including those of Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans; colonizers and colonized; men and women. The outstanding essays in this book argue for the central place of this dynamic region in colonial history. (20090101) Introduction / Richmond F. Brown -- The Significance Of The Gulf South In Early American History / Daniel H. Usner, Jr. -- Escape Of The Nickaleers : European-indian Relations On The Wild Coast Of Florida In 1696, From Jonathan Dickinson's Journal / Amy Turner Bushnell -- Supplying Our Wants : Choctaws And Chickasaws Reassess The Trade Relationship With Britain, 1771-72 / Greg O'brien -- The Founding Of Tensaw : Kinship, Community, Trade, And Diplomacy In The Creek Nation / Karl Davis -- A Nation Divided? Blood Seminoles And Black Seminoles On The Florida Frontier / Jane G. Landers -- My Friend Nicolas Mongoula : Africans, Indians, And Cultural Exchange In Eighteenth-century Mobile / David Wheat -- Scoundrels, Whores, And Gentlemen : Defamation And Society In French Colonial Louisiana / Shannon Lee Dawdy -- Afro-creole Women, Freedom, And Property-holding In Early New Orleans / Virginia Meacham Gould -- Spanish Bourbons And Louisiana Tobacco : The Case Of Natchitoches, 1763-1803 / H. Sophie Burton -- A History Of Ranching In Nuevo Santander's Villas Del Norte, 1730s-1848 / Armando C. Alonzo -- Maintaining Loyalty In The West Florida Borderlands : Land As Cause And Effect In The West Florida Revolution Of 1810 / Andrew Mcmichael -- Afterword / Ida Altman. Edited And With An Introduction By Richmond F. Brown. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [241]-302) And Index. __Coastal Encounters__ opens a window onto the fascinating world of the eighteenth-century Gulf South. Stretching from Florida to Texas, the region witnessed the complex collision of European, African, and Native American peoples. The Gulf South offered an extraordinary stage for European rivalries to play out, allowed a Native-based frontier exchange system to develop alongside an emerging slave-based plantation economy, and enabled the construction of an urban network of unusual opportunity for free people of color. After being long-neglected in favor of the English colonies of the Atlantic coast, the colonial Gulf South has now become the focus of new and exciting scholarship. __Coastal Encounters__ brings together leading experts and emerging scholars to provide a portrait of the Gulf South in the eighteenth century. The contributors depict the remarkable transformations that took place—demographic, cultural, social, political, and economic—and examine the changes from multiple perspectives, including those of Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans; colonizers and colonized; men and women. The outstanding essays in this book argue for the central place of this dynamic region in colonial history.