In this sweeping regional history, anthropologist Robbie Ethridge traces the metamorphosis of the Native South from first contact in 1540 to the dawn of the eighteenth century, when indigenous people no longer lived in a purely Indian world but rather on the edge of an expanding European empire. Using a framework that Ethridge calls the “Mississippian shatter zone” to explicate these tumultuous times, From Chicaza to Chickasaw examines the European invasion, the collapse of the pr...

Reconstructing the human and natural environment of the Creek Indians in frontier Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, Robbie Ethridge illuminates a time of wrenching transition. Creek Country presents a compelling portrait of a culture in crisis, of its resiliency in the face of profound change, and of the forces that pushed it into decisive, destructive conflict.Ethridge begins in 1796 with the arrival of U.S. Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins, whose tenure among th...

Forging Southeastern Identities explores the many ways archaeologists and ethnohistorians define and trace the origins of Native Americans’ collective social identity.Forging Southeastern Identities: Social Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Mississippian to Early Historic South, a groundbreaking collection of ten essays, covers a broad expanse of time—from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries—and focuses on a common theme of identity. These ess...

One of the most profound events in sixteenth-century North America was a ferocious battle between the Spanish army of Hernando de Soto and a larger force of Indian warriors under the leadership of a feared chieftain named Tascalusa. The site of this battle was a small fortified border town within an Indian province known as Mabila. Although the Indians were defeated, the battle was a decisive blow to Spanish plans for the conquest and settlement of what is now the southeastern United State...

Social history of the native peoples of the American South, bridging prehistory and historyThe past 20 years have witnessed a change in the study of the prehistory and history of the native peoples of the American South. This paradigm shift is the bridging of prehistory and history to fashion a seamless social history that includes not only the 16th-century Late Mississippian period and the 18th-century colonial period but also the largely forgotten--and critically...

"At the end of the Trail of Tears there was a promise," United States Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the decision issued in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma. And that promise, made in treaties between the United States and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation more than 150 years earlier, would finally be kept. With the Court's ruling, the full extent of the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation was reaffirmed—meaning that 3.25 million acres of land in Oklahoma were recognized as "Indian ...

“At the end of the Trail of Tears there was a promise,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the decision issued on July 9, 2020, in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma. And that promise, made in treaties between the United States and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation more than 150 years earlier, would finally be kept. With the Court’s ruling, the full extent of the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation was reaffirmed—meaning that 3.25 million acres of land in Oklahoma, including part of ...

The 20th anniversary edition of the study that first revealed De Soto's path across the 16th century American South includes a forward by Robbie EthridgeBetween 1539 and 1542, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto led a small army on an expedition of almost four thousand miles across Southeastern America. De Soto's path had been one of history's most intriguing mysteries until the publication of Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun. Using a new route recon...

Between 1539 and 1542, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto led a small army on an expedition of almost four thousand miles across Southeastern America. De Soto's path had been one of history's most intriguing mysteries until the publication of Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun. Using a new route reconstruction, anthropologist Charles Hudson maps the story of the de Soto expedition, tying the route to a number of specific archaeological sites.De Soto's journey cut a b...