Review by Choice Review
Archaeologist Smith uses excavation results and contemporary narratives to assess the impact of early historic European contact on native chiefdoms of the interior Southeast from 1525-1670. The peoples of eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia, and Alabama experienced only sporadic exposure to explorers in the 16th century. Still, the deadly course of introduced diseases was swift and unmitigated: cataclysmic population decline, disrupted settlements, and consequent disintegration of chiefdoms. But unlike coastal tribes that simultaneously endured the demographic effects of deculturation and acculturation, interior peoples faced these disruptions sequentially. The absence of an organized Southeastern fur trade initially denied them direct access to European goods. The few items that filtered through native trade channels found only limited sociotechnic roles in their society. Only after 1670 did direct pressure from disrupted northern tribes and European slavers bring about the Creek Confederacy, consolidating remnants of once powerful Southeastern chiefdoms for mutual defense and interaction with Europeans. This detailed analysis of interior Southeastern culture change compares to recent studies of Northeastern acculturation by James Bradley (Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois, CH, Jan '88) and Barry Kent (Susquehanna's Indians, 1984), and complements Jeffrey Brain's coastal Southeastern work (Tunica Treasure, 1979). For undergraduate and graduate collections.-W.A. Turnbaugh, University of Rhode Island
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
