American Indians in the Lower Mississippi Valley: Social and Economic Histories (Indians of the Southeast) - Tapa blanda

"For anyone interested in understanding the historical basis of American Indian cultural persistence, American Indians in the Lower Mississippi Valley is essential reading." William and Mary Quarterly "All historians interested in Native Americans and in the multi-cultural history of the South will want to read it." Georgia Historical Quarterly

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Native peoples inhabiting the Lower Mississippi Valley confronted increasing domination by colonial powers, disastrous reductions in population, and the threat of being marginalized by a new cotton economy. Their strategies of resistance and adaptation to these changes are brought to light in this perceptive study. An introductory overview of the historiography of Native peoples in the early Southeast examines how the study of Native-colonial relations has changed over the last century. Daniel H. Usner Jr. reevaluates the Natchez Indians' ill-fated relations with the French and the cultural effects of Native population losses from disease and warfare during the eighteenth century. Usner next examines in detail the social and economic relations the Native peoples forged in the face of colonial domination and demographic decline, and he reveals how Natives adapted to the cotton economy, which displaced their familiar social and economic networks of interaction with outsiders. Finally, Usner offers an intriguing excursion into cultural criticism, assessing the effects of popular images of Natives from this region. Daniel H. Usner Jr. is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783.