Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763

by Daniel J. Tortora

In this engaging history, Daniel J. Tortora explores how the Anglo-Cherokee War reshaped the political and cultural landscape of the colonial South. Tortora chronicles the series of clashes that erupted from 1758 to 1761 between Cherokees, settlers, and British troops. The conflict, no insignificant sideshow to the French and Indian War, eventually led to the regeneration of a British-Cherokee alliance. Tortora reveals how the war destabilized the South Carolina colony and threatened the white coastal elite, arguing that the political and military success of the Cherokees led colonists to a greater fear of slave resistance and revolt and ultimately nurtured South Carolinians' rising interest in the movement for independence.Drawing on newspaper accounts, military and diplomatic correspondence, and the speeches of Cherokee people, among other sources, this work reexamines the experiences of Cherokees, whites, and African Americans in the mid-eighteenth century. Centering his analysis on Native American history, Tortora reconsiders the rise of revolutionary sentiments in the South while also detailing the Anglo-Cherokee War from the Cherokee perspective.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Native American

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 10, 2015

Reviews

[Ms211 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the book, Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists, and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763, Daniel Tortora provides a chronological narrative and discusses the political impact of the Cherokee warfare with the Carolina colonists. This short, eleven-chapter book provides extensive research notes and military history facts about the Cherokee and colonist conflict. Throughout the book, Tortora sticks to a factual, and effective discussion of the numerous conflicts from colonial sources. As a result, the reader gains a true sense of this Anglo-Cherokee conflict. “It is at once a study of South Carolina Cherokee affairs, Carolina society and politics, the deerskin trade and intercolonial diplomacy, the effects of smallpox, the possibilities that war opened to African slaves, the military campaigns of the French and Indian war in South Carolina, the meaning of the war through Cherokee eyes, and the political origins of the American Revolution. “ Reading this quote by Tortora, the reader is impressed by the magnitude and scope of the book’s ambition. Ultimately, the book does not live up to its own high expectations. Tortora’s inclusion of smallpox disease, African American slavery, and his argument of the impact of these conflicts to American revolutionary sentiment in South Carolina are under developed, do not fit the narrative, or are rushed. He ends with an overview of the destruction to the Cherokee. This review will outline the strength of his narrative history while touching on some of the book’s weaknesses.
Throughout the book, Tortora lays the groundwork of the cultural and political history of the Cherokee people. He highlights several leaders well-known to Cherokee historians throughout his narrative including, Attakullakulla, Oconostota, and Seroweh. Tortora extensively uses primary sources from newspapers, Carolina settlers, traders, and British leaders. His review of these players in his narrative come from the writings of varying primary source accounts. There are no written accounts from the Cherokee so Tortora relies on an accurate memory of words spoken and rendered by white colonists. Even with these limitations, he has spun an excellent narrative of the political history of the Cherokee people and their decentralized leadership. Tortora weaves his effective argument about decentralization as a cause of political misunderstanding between the colonists and Cherokee people throughout this book about failed peace and ensuing warfare.
Chapters two through ten, apart from Chapter five, are a fully researched narrative that details the military events and the political impact of the Anglo-Cherokee war. His research is best conveyed in this writing about the various conflicts. “But Cherokees killed two hundred white and black South Carolinians and captured between fifty and one hundred more.” While these numbers seem small by today’s standards, he teaches us that the Cherokee were successful in pushing the frontier out by one hundred miles. Tortora excels in collating military statistics and his retelling of conflict by the primary sources. His extensive research of the Anglo-Cherokee war help his argument that this warfare greatly impacted the white settlers through death and dislocation. That said, his narrative about impact of the war on African slaves at the coastal regions is an under developed over reach.
Tortora has missteps beyond just this mention of slave impact in his book. He dedicates a chapter to the smallpox outbreak in 1760 in the middle of his grand historical narrative about violence. While this chapter does inform the reader of the outbreak’s devastating impact to the Native population during warfare, it seemed very out of place in his narrative. The final chapter and conclusion in Tortora’s book are also missteps. Tortora rushes the reader through extensive information about the peace treaty with the British and then reviews the fallout from the Anglo-Cherokee geo-politics as a cause of revolutionary sentiment. It is all tied up too neatly and too quickly for a book that never skimped on detail in previous chapters.

[JT Dwyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eminently readable, meticulously documented, and remarkably cohesive. I have a few minor quibbles, mostly due to the author’s presumption that the reader would be familiar with historical specifics such as the nature and purpose of “wampum” or what a “maroon” was. But in the whole, a tremendous, balanced and nuanced view of the mid-century events that helped set the Southern stage for the American revolution. A brilliant work.

[Jessica Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The type is small and thick on the pages. It makes 200 pages feel like 400. There is good and interesting information in this look at the Carolina frontier,but it is not a fast read. I am glad I picked it up at the gift shop when I visited Fort Loudoun.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent examination of the relationship between the Cherokees and southern colonists in the years before the Revolution and the profound impact on the future events of the region. Great read!