Louisiana and the Gulf South Frontier, 1500–1821 by F. Todd Smith (review)

For this work, F. Todd Smith relies on his expertise in southern Indian history to incorporate the most recent approaches to frontier history in his discussion of the relevant secondary sources about early Louisiana. The originality of the book is implied in its title, as Smith labels the territory that stretched from East Texas to West Florida and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arkansas and Tennessee Rivers “the Gulf South frontier.” Previously, most historians have examined this region as fragmented geopolitical provinces defined by European settlements such as French Louisiana, Spanish Florida, and British West Florida. Smith argues that these zones were interrelated and that scholars should study the region, regardless of its contested colonial boundaries, as a whole. As he emphasizes the distinctiveness of the Gulf South frontier, the author makes two audacious arguments. First, Smith argues that because of its wet and fertile soil, the region had the potential to be one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. Second, Smith emphasizes that the Indians of the area were some of the most powerful indigenous groups in North America. Smith also points to the diversity of Louisiana’s population—French and Spanish Catholics, Germans, Acadians, Canary Islanders, Anglos, and a large slave population—as another distinctive characteristic of the region.

A synthesis, the work examines the “demographic, economic, social, and cultural concerns” of the region over two centuries (p. 4). Well structured, the book is divided into seven chronologically organized chapters. In the first part, Smith uncovers the stories of the various native inhabitants of the area on the eve of European arrivals at the turn of the sixteenth century. Next, he opens a window into the first encounters between the natives, Spanish explorers, and Franciscan missionaries, followed by a comprehensive analysis of the first European settlements established at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Smith also discusses British Carolina, French explorations of the continent, and the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic that ravaged the southeastern natives. The author offers an overview of the establishment of Louisiana during the first three decades of the eighteenth century, giving a thorough examination of the geopolitical conflicts between Europeans and natives, including the Natchez and Chickasaw wars against the French. Smith closes this part of the book with an analysis of the socioeconomic maturation of the Gulf South and the events surrounding the Seven Years’ War.

The second part covers the geopolitical transformations in the region after the Treaty of Paris (1763) and the French and American Revolutions. Smith also highlights British diplomatic and economic alliances with the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws on the eastern borderlands and uncovers colonial and native resistance to Spanish control of Louisiana. He also analyzes the “Anglo Protestant influx” after the American Revolution and the spread of plantation slavery in the region (p. 163). The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 signaled the end of an era and the beginning of American hegemony over the newly acquired region. Smith closes his examination with the removal of the Indian groups of the Gulf South frontier to Indian Territory.

This work is a needed and welcome comprehensive account of the region. Grounded in extensive and recent literature on the subject, Louisiana and the Gulf South Frontier, 1500–1821 is excellent for undergraduate college courses and also appropriate for the general reading public. A significant contribution, the study should be of interest to scholars and students of the early American frontiers and borderlands, colonial Louisiana, and the South.