Brothers Of Coweta

In Brothers of Coweta Bryan C. Rindfleisch explores how family and clan served as the structural foundation of the Muscogee (Creek) Indian world through the lens of two brothers, who emerged from the historical shadows to shape the forces of empire, colonialism, and revolution that transformed the American South during the eighteenth century. Although much of the historical record left by European settlers was fairly robust, it included little about Indigenous people and even less about their kinship, clan, and familial dynamics. However, European authorities, imperial agents, merchants, and a host of other individuals left a surprising paper trail when it came to two brothers, Sempoyaffee and Escotchaby, of Coweta, located in what is now central Georgia. Though fleeting, their appearances in the archival record offer a glimpse of their extensive kinship connections and the ways in which family and clan propelled them into their influential roles negotiating with Europeans. As the brothers navigated the politics of empire, they pursued distinct family agendas that at times clashed with the interests of Europeans and other Muscogee leaders. Despite their limitations, Rindfleisch argues that these archives reveal how specific Indigenous families negotiated and even subverted empire-building and colonialism in early America. Through careful examination, he demonstrates how historians of early and Native America can move past the limitations of the archives to rearticulate the familial and clan dynamics of the Muscogee world.

Although the Creeks constitute a sovereign nation today, the concept of the nation meant little to their ancestors in the Native South. Rather, as Steven Peach contends in Rivers of Power, the Creeks of present-day Georgia and Alabama conceptualized rivers as the basis of power, leadership, and governance in early America. An original work of Indigenous ethnohistory, Peach’s book explores the implications of this river-oriented approach to power, in which rivers were a metaphor for the subregional provinces that defined the political textures of Creek country. The provinces nurtured leaders who worked to mitigate dangers across the Native South, including intertribal war, trade dependence, settler intrusion, and land erosion. Rivers of Power describes a system in which these headmen forged remarkably malleable coalitions within and across provinces to safeguard Creek country from harm—but were in turn directed, approved, and contested by local townspeople and kin groups. Taking a unique bottom-up approach to the study of Native Americans, Peach reveals how local actors guided and thwarted Indigenous headmen far more frequently and creatively than has been assumed. He also shows that although the Creeks traced descent through the maternal line, some became more comfortable with bilateral kinship, giving weight to both the paternal and maternal lineages. Fathers and sons thus played greater roles in Creek governance than Indigenous scholarship has acknowledged. Weaving a new narrative of the Creeks and outlining the contours of their riverine mode of governance, this work unpacks the fraught dimensions of political power in the Native South—and, indeed, Native North America—in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By privileging Indigenous thought and intertribal history, it also advances the larger project of Native American history.

As one of the most fundamental aspects of culture, gender had significant implications for military and diplomatic relations. Understood differently by each side, notions of kinship and proper masculine and feminine behavior wielded during negotiations had the power to either strengthen or disrupt alliances. The collision of different cultural expectations of masculine behavior and men's relationships to and responsibilities for women and children became significant areas of discussion and contention. Native American and British leaders frequently discussed issues of manhood (especially in the context of warfare), the treatment of women and children, and intermarriage. Women themselves could either enhance or upset relations through their active participation in diplomacy, war, and trade.

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About the Book Names examines an alternate explanation for the sudden disappearance of the Long Warrior and concomitant sudden appearance of King Thomas Paine who nobody knew anything about before 1786. It also explores the unusual education of Billy Bowlegs II and his sister. Dr. William Simmons saw them at Horatio Dexter’s place and mentioned them being cared for at his home. Edward Wanton, the clerk at the Picolata Indian Store kept meticulous records and names of the Alachua Chiefs with the amount of debt they owed Panton, Leslie and Company. Sitarky, the second in command under Billy Bowlegs II may have been the son-in-law of Oconee King Thomas Paine. This different perspective on where Oconee King Thomas Paine may have come from stresses the value of being open to new information and paradigms. Many hold the perspective that history is finished with nothing more to be added. The author seeks to inspire people to be willing to entertain new ideas with fresh looks at old data. About the Author H. Stephen Hale, PhD was the first anthropologist to do archaeology among the Kuna in the Comarca de San Blas in Panama. While there he helped transcribe Kammu (flute) music, pictographic books, and study midden (refuse mound) formation. Hale studied Nahuatl in Mexico while mapping Totonac temple sites. He also translated for Kuna Natives of Panama studying Tenrikyo in Japan. Hale presently serves on a prescribed fire burn team for the Florida Park Service and a specialist for the removal of invasive, non-native plants from park properties. He is a trained First Aid Responder. Hale continues to support many of his Kuna friends in Panama and maintains friendships with people he met in Tenrikyo, Japan.