Creek Paths and Federal Roads: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves and the Making of the American South

Acknowledgments

xi Acknowledgments I grew up on the road. Whether we were moving from one southern state to another or taking road trips to see family scattered from Louisiana to Virginia , Florida to Tennessee, I saw most of it from the window of my parents’ car. I came to know the South as a migrant and still don’t know exactly how to answer when people ask me where I’m from. So I have a peculiar appreciation for the familiarity of home and the strangeness of travel, for going and coming back, and going and not coming back, until travel feels familiar and home feels strange. And I have been privileged to spend most of my life in the woods, plains, forests, riversides, and wetlands that were home to the people described in this book. I share very little with them except the coincidental inhabitance of southern places and the experience of constant movement on the roads that bind them all together. The process of researching this book also occasioned many journeys to places new and old, to libraries, collections, homes, and fields (both literal and academic), and I was fortunate to have the guidance and assistance of a number of institutions and individuals. I have benefited tremendously from funding provided by the American Antiquarian Society, the American Philosophical Society, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders at Yale University, the Newberry Library, the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, the Office of the Vice President for Research at Texas A&M University , and the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I am also deeply indebted to innumerable archivists, librarians, and scholars who enabled and enlivened my research at the following archives: the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the American Antiquarian Society, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives at Texas A&M University, the Duke University Special Collections Library, the Georgia Department of Archives and History, the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia, the Hoskins Special xii acknowledgments Collections Library at the University of Tennessee, the National Archives and Records Administration branches in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and College Park, Maryland, the Newberry Library, the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, and the Tennessee State Library and Archives. I must especially acknowledge and thank for their patience and expertise Philip J. Lampi at the American Antiquarian Society, Laura Clark Brown at the Southern Historical Collection, and Rickie Brunner at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Along the way, I also have relied on the advice and wisdom of many other individuals deserving of notice. I feel proud and humbled to have benefited from the mentorship of John Mack Faragher, Matthew Frye Jacobson, Seth Fein, Alicia Schmidt Camacho, Alyssa Mt. Pleasant, George Miles, Stephen Pitti, Timothy Powell, and Nancy Shoemaker. Each of these scholars has counseled me in their own inimitable ways as I have navigated this winding path and I am indebted to them for their directions. I have also been privileged to share my work, my frustrations, and my successes with a wide variety of friends and colleagues. Each of these individuals opened their minds, their hearts, and/or their homes to me during the process of researching and writing this book, nourishing me both physically and intellectually. For that I most heartily thank Lamont Brock, Katherine Charron, Chris Covert, Lisa Pinley Covert, Fiona Creed, Mark Dauber, Tasha Dubriwny, Laura and Josh Echols, Kate Carte Engel, Paul Grant-Costa, April Hatfield, Kate Reed Hauenstein, Michael Hauenstein, Tara Hottenstein, Michael Howard, Shannon Lewis, Clayton McGahee, Molly McGehee, Jennifer Meehan , Pat Oldfield, Jason and Pascale Parker, Theda Perdue, Jeff Pfefferkorn, Rebecca Hartkopf Schloss, Victorine Shepard, Ashley Riley Sousa, John Sousa, Melissa Stuckey, Roxanne Willis, Jeff and Marisa Winking, and Matt Woods. In addition, my editor, Mark Simpson-Vos, has ably shepherded me through a sometimes harrowing process, answering more questions than he may have bargained for and always doing so with grace and professionalism. I reserve a special word of appreciation for two individuals who have read more drafts, critiqued more arguments, and suggested more possibilities than all others. For her friendship, her honesty, her encouragement, and her sparkling wit, Tammy Ingram deserves and has my unending gratitude. In her intellectual generosity and her unyielding support of my career...