The Role of Beaver Habitats in Native American Settlement of Alabama’s Black Prairie

Until recently, the Black Prairie (Black Belt) of Alabama was not widely considered for the potential location of the Native American fortified town of Mabila, the long-lost battle site involving Hernando de Soto’s army. Revived interest in this region for the possible location, however, has generated new questions about how the soils of this region could have produced the amounts of corn necessary to support a rural Indian population and sustain a major Indian town. This paper explores one of the major issues regarding this neglect and concludes that the North American beaver may have played a previously unrecognized strategic role in the location of Mabila on the Black Prairie.