Indians, settlers & slaves in a frontier exchange economy

by Daniel H. Usner

In this pioneering book Daniel Usner examines the economic and cultural interactions among the Indians, Europeans, and African slaves of colonial Louisiana, including the province of West Florida. Rather than focusing on a single cultural group or on a particular economic activity, this study traces the complex social linkages among Indian villages, colonial plantations, hunting camps, military outposts, and port towns across a large region of the pre-cotton south. Usner. Begins by providing a chronological overview of events in the area from the establishment of a French outpost on the Gulf coast in 1699 to Spanish acquisition of West Florida after the Revolution. He then shows how early confrontations and transactions shaped the formation of Louisiana into a distinct colonial region with a social system based on mutual needs of subsistence. In this area, as in other early colonial regions of North America, Indians, settlers, and slaves. Interacted with each other and contributed to t