A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida

Romans’s Copper Plate Illustrations, Maps, and Table

Romans’s Copper Plate Illustrations, Maps, and Table Romans planned twelve copper plate illustrations to accompany his book, but only eleven were ultimately included in the ¤nal work. Unfortunately, the twelfth plate, a map of the southern Indian nations, was lost in transit between the engraver and the publisher. The eleven copper plates that illustrate A Concise Natural History are especially valuable to historians, particularly ethnohistorians and others interested in the southeastern Indians.While they support Romans’s written account of the Indians, they also provide pictorial evidence about such important matters as dress, personal decoration, and hairstyles not mentioned in the text.Given the rarity of drawings of the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws from the eighteenth century, their value is inestimable.Others,including William Bartram,William Bonar,and Georg Friedrich von Reck, provided portraits of Creeks from the period; however, the Romans drawings are virtually the only renditions of Chickasaws and Choctaws from the period by a British subject.1 The eleven plates, reproduced with this volume, are as follows. Frontispiece,Volume 12 This allegorical drawing,with its mixed images from classical mythology and the Americas, is notable for a number of reasons. The female ¤gure, perhaps Athena representing knowledge, holds a long rod, which supports a liberty cap. An Indian is placing a rolled map before her. A youthful angel uses a compass to compute distances on a navigational chart while waters stream forth from large casks labeled “Mississippi.” Through the portal—of knowledge —distant bays, cities, and lands await the informed. What appears to be “SPQA” (Senate and People of the American Republic?) is found on the shield of the seated goddess. Dedicatory Plate The dedicatory plate honors John Ellis, Romans’s patron. Avena aquatica Sylvestris Romans provided an incomplete description of this fresh-water marsh plant but states it was commonly known as wild oats by the “western” Indians, meaning those along the Mississippi River. This plant, Zizania aquatica, is more likely to be called Indian rice or wild rice today, but it is also still known as wild oats. Romans was describing one of the two native varieties of wild rice. The southern variety seen by Romans is today found primarily in eastern Arkansas, Louisiana, northern Florida, coastal Georgia, and Alabama in quiet marshes and is also found in the Carolina wetlands. It ®owers from July to September. Like the better-known wild rice of the northern lakes, it is not true rice. These grass seeds swell just as rice does when boiled, but the seeds may also be ground into ®our, hence the name wild oats. This is the manner in which Romans reported that the Indians used the seeds. Unfortunately, he did not relate the method used by the southern Indians to harvest the grain. Most likely, they did it in the same way northern tribes still do, by gently tapping the ripe stalks with a stick so that the grains fall into a container or even the bottom of a boat.3 Characteristic Chickasaw Head This “typical” warrior wears a traditional hairstyle, in which all hair from the forehead and sides of the head has been plucked.A central swatch of hair along the back of the head is ornamented with a beaded headdress. The man also wears a necklace made of tubular beads. Prior to trade with Europeans, this type bead was manufactured from small,hollow animal bones.The mantle , shown on the left shoulder of the ¤gure, provides insuf¤cient details for proper identi¤cation as either animal skin or European trade cloth, and it might even have been a traditional feather mantle. The portrait also illustrates deformed,elongated earlobes,which were popular among many southeastern tribes, including the Creeks and Cherokees. This style was produced by piercing and subsequent stretching of the lobe with a variety of objects. The practice, which was popular during the eighteenth century, was in decline by the end of the century. Romans does not elaborate on the practice, but other writers made clear that the operation was often painful and laborious . According to James Adair, Chickasaw men “cut a hole round almost the extremity of both of their ears, which till healed, they stretch out with a large tuft of buffalo’s wool mixt with bear’s oil: then they twist as much small wire round as will keep them extended in that hideaous form.”He also reported, “I have been among the Indians at a drinking match, when several of their beaus have...