Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500–1850 by Cameron B. Strang (review)

Frontiers of Science: Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf South Borderlands, 1500–1850 is a careful assessment of the contingency of numerous forms of early modern natural knowledge. Cameron Strang argues that imperialism shaped the acquisition and circulation of knowledge in early America, a conclusion in line with similarly astute works about the history of science. A view of science from the Gulf South is transformative for appreciating the persistent intensification of the alliance between knowledge production and imperial ventures. The horrific consequence of this intertwining of natural knowledge and political agendas is multivalent modes of violence, including U.S. reinforcement of racial hierarchies established by the Spanish, French, and British empires.¹

Each chapter explores a new topic while moving forward in time from early contact to the U.S.–Mexican War of 1846–1848. The introduction's discussion of geographical and conceptual frontiers in knowledge proceeds to a first chapter explaining ways early Spanish colonialism and scientific and global commodity networks intertwined. The only misstep in the volume concerns the early end of the time span, 1500. Throughout the book, Strang complements a deep dive into archival materials with a comprehensive grasp of relevant historiography; the absence of citations of archaeological research for pre-Columbian periods is an unfortunate anomaly. Robin Beck's seminal work on southeastern chiefdoms and Robbie Ethridge and Sheri Marie Shuck-Hall's influential "Shatter Zone" model should have been considered in Strang's analysis of early colonial ethnogenesis in the Southeast during the disruption of colonial entanglement. Strang reaches further back in time and geographically farther away, to Cahokia, in southern Illinois, for pre-Columbian models and consequently sidesteps the very interesting developments around 1500 in the Gulf South itself. More relevant to the focus of this book are the elaborate and impressive contemporaneous Middle Mississippian (1100–1350 ACE) centers of Etowah, south of Cartersville, Georgia, and Moundville, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as well as the Late Mississippian (1350–1550 ACE) center of Coosa (Little Egypt site 9MU102) located in Murray County, Georgia. Decades of research on these communities attest to the circulation of rare and quotidian materials as well as political, religious, and social power that depended upon management of natural knowledge. At its peak, Moundville was America's largest city north of Mexico. Late Mississippian depopulation of large centers including Cahokia, Etowah, and Moundville signaled a rising independence and strength of multiple regional centers, one of which, Coosa, built political alliances across a large area of the Gulf South by the time of the De Soto entrada in 1540. These places closer to home and in time for the book had developments that would have complemented Strang's interpretations, including how the scholarship of certain centers of knowledge production have overshadowed the crucial contributions to natural knowledge by diverse actors in the Gulf South.²

Strang elucidates the social context of knowledge production to demonstrate that before, during, and after the shift to U.S. governance, local cooperation and knowledge in the Gulf South was important for the development of science. The book is full of balanced, detailed, even picaresque discussions of individuals. These intimate portrayals reveal how a person's preferences and experience shaped their acquisition of information and whether or not their information made it into systems of respected knowledge. Chapter 4 delves into the lives of people who illustrate how the "lines between science, fortune seeking, and intrigue were unclear" (163) and knowledge go-betweens played upon local and imperial rivalries. Strang's work challenges previous studies of knowledge in early America that focus on Anglo actors on the Atlantic seaboard.

Chapter 2 investigates obstacles to knowledge circulation. A 1773 poisoning case...