Alabama and the Borderlands: From Prehistory To Statehood
Alabama and the Borderlands: From Prehistory To Statehood
edited by R. Reid Badger and Lawrence A. Clayton contributions by William S. Coker, Michale C. Scardaville, Wilcomb Washburn, James B. Griffin, Marvin T. Smith, Bruce D. Smith, Richard A. Krause, Eugene Lyon, Charles Hudson, Jeffrey P. Brain, Chester B. DePratter and Hazel P. Coker
University of Alabama Press, 1985 Cloth: 978-0-8173-0208-5 | Paper: 978-0-8173-1277-0 | eISBN: 978-0-8173-8307-7 Library of Congress Classification F326.5.A39 1985 Dewey Decimal Classification 976.1
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Brings together the nation's leading scholars on the prehistory and early history of Alabama and the southeastern US
This fascinating collection was born of a concern with Alabama's past and the need to explore and explain that legacy, so often hidden by the veils of time, ignorance, or misunderstanding. In 1981 The University of Alabama celebrated its 150th anniversary, and each College contributed to the celebration by sponsoring a special symposium. The College of Arts and Sciences brought together the nation's leading scholars on the prehistory and early history of Alabama and the Southeastern United States, and for two memorable days in September 1981 several hundred interested listeners heard those scholars present their interpretations of Alabama's remarkable past.
The organizers of the symposium deliberately chose to focus on Alabama's history before statehood. Alabama as a constituent state of the Old South is well known. Alabama as a home of Indian cultures and civilizations of a high order, as an object of desire, exploration, and conquest in the sixteenth century, and as a borderland disputed by rival European nationalities for almost 300 years is less well known. The resulting essays in this collection prove as interesting, enlightening, and provocative to the casual reader as to the professional scholar, for they are intended to bring to the general reader artifacts and documents that reveal the realities and romance of that older Alabama.
Topics in the collection range from the Mississippian Period in archaeology and the de Soto expedition (and other early European explorations and settlements of Alabama) to the 1780 Siege of Mobile.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
R. Reid Badger is emeritus director and professor of American Studies at The University of Alabama.
Lawrence A. Clayton is professor emeritus of history at The University of Alabama.
REVIEWS
“A useful and attractive book...contains some of the very best thinking on a variety of subjects improtant to southeastern archaeologists.”
—Southeastern Archaeology
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“Interesting for the general reader as well as valuable to researchers...provides both synthetic articles and provocative new material and should be read by those itnerested in prehistory and the early history of the southeast.” —-American Indian Quarterly
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“Consisting of 11 essays, this work is a study of the often-neglected U.S. southeast....Thoroughly documented and carefully arranged with a perceptive introduction, meaningful illustrations, and extensive bibliography.”
—CHOICE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
PART I THE PREHISTORIC BACKGROUND 14
1 Richard A. Krause
Trends and Trajectories in American Archaeology: Some Questions about the Mississippian Period in Southeastern Prehistory
2 fames B. Griffin
Changing Concepts of the Prehistoric Mississippian Cultures of the Eastern United States
3 Bruce D. Smith
Mississippian Patterns of Subsistence and Settlement
PART II THE AGE OF EXPLORATION
4 John H. Parry
Early European Penetration of Eastern North America
5 Jeffrey P. Brain
The Archaeology of the Hernando de Soto Expedition
6 Chester B. DePratter, Charles M. Hudson, and Marvin T. Smith
The Hernando de Soto Expedition: From Chiaha to Mabila
7 Charles H. Fairbanks
From Exploration to Settlement: Spanish Strategies for Colonization
PART III COLONIZATION AND CONFLICT
8 Wilcomb E. Washburn
The Southeast in the Age of Conflict and Revolution
9 Eugene Lyon
Continuity in the Age of Conquest: The Establishment of Spanish Sovereignty in the Sixteenth Century
10 William S. Coker and Hazel P. Coker
The Siege of Mobile, 1780, in Maps 162
11 Michael C. Scardaville
Approaches to the Study of the Southeastern Borderlands
Notes
Bibliography
Contributors
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Reconstruction of the Gypsy Joint Site 15
Distribution of Middle Mississippi Valley Group of Aboriginal Pottery 46
Main Features of a River-Valley Floodplain 66
Seasonal Utilization of Wild and Domesticated Food Sources by Mississippian Groups 7 3
Distribution of a Mississippian Population within a River-Valley Floodplain 76
Reconstruction of the Powers Fort Site 78
Hernando de Soto Claiming the Mississippi 81
Official Route of the De Soto Expedition Commission, Superimposed on Amalgamated Field of Alternate Hypotheses 98
Some Probable Hernando de Soto Artifacts rn4
Distribution of Clarksdale Bells rn6
Zimmerman's Island, 1925 n2
Zimmerman's Island, Enlargement 113
Chief Coosa Welcomes the Hernando de Soto Expedition 119
Hernando de Soto's Expedition: Chiaha to Mabila 125
The Hernando de Soto Expedition Encounters Chief Tascaluza 135
Bernardo de Galvez 141
Preparations for the Mobile Campaign, August 17, 1779-January 11, 1780
Expedition Sails from New Orleans to Mobile, January 12-February 21 1780
Expedition Puts In at Mobile Pass, February 1780
Reinforcements from Havana and Move to First Spanish Encampment, February 18-25, 1780 175
Preliminary Negotiations with British and Move to Second Spanish Encampment, February 26-March 51 1780 177
Reinforcements from Pensacola and Construction of Spanish Battery, March 5-11, 1780 179
Bombardment and Surrender of Fort Charlotte and Arrival and Departure of Spanish Fleet, March 12-May 20, 1780 181
