Steven C. Hahn - Böcker

Drawing on archaeological evidence and often-neglected Spanish source material, The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670–1763 explores the political history of the Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama and the emergence of the Creek Nation during the colonial era in the American Southeast. In part a study of Creek foreign relations, this book examines the creation and application of the "neutrality" policy—defined here as the Coweta Resolution of 1718—for which the Creeks have long been famous, in an era marked by the imperial struggle for the American South. Also a study of the culture of internal Creek politics, this work shows the persistence of a "traditional" kinship-based political system in which town and clan affiliation remained supremely important. These traditions, coupled with political intrusions by the region's three European powers, promoted the spread of Creek factionalism and mitigated the development of a regional Creek Confederacy. But while traditions endured, the struggle to maintain territorial integrity against Britain also promoted political innovation. In this context the territorially defined Creek Nation emerged as a legal concept in the era of the French and Indian War, as imperial policies of an earlier era gave way to the territorial politics that marked the beginning of a new one.

Drawing on archaeological evidence and often-neglected Spanish source material, The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670–1763 explores the political history of the Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama and the emergence of the Creek Nation during the colonial era in the American Southeast. In part a study of Creek foreign relations, this book examines the creation and application of the "neutrality" policy—defined here as the Coweta Resolution of 1718—for which the Creeks have long been famous, in an era marked by the imperial struggle for the American South. Also a study of the culture of internal Creek politics, this work shows the persistence of a "traditional" kinship-based political system in which town and clan affiliation remained supremely important. These traditions, coupled with political intrusions by the region's three European powers, promoted the spread of Creek factionalism and mitigated the development of a regional Creek Confederacy. But while traditions endured, the struggle to maintain territorial integrity against Britain also promoted political innovation. In this context the territorially defined Creek Nation emerged as a legal concept in the era of the French and Indian War, as imperial policies of an earlier era gave way to the territorial politics that marked the beginning of a new one.

In 1718 the British crown in the Bahamas pardoned 209 mariners accused of piracy. In A Pirate's Life No More, Steven C. Hahn explores the lives of these "retired” pirates. While there are a number of "famous" names on that list—Benjamin Hornigold, Charles Vane, and Palsgrave Williams, for example—the vast majority of the pardoned are "mostly nobodies." By focusing holistically on pirates—and on the pirates who aren’t famous—the book reclaims their humanity, connects the story of piracy at sea with the land-based communities that sometimes supported it, and illuminates the entangled histories of far-flung places in the Atlantic world. This study reveals that, for most individuals, forays into piracy were fleeting and opportunistic. Moreover, class, age, and regional divisions beset the pirate community, thereby precluding adherence to any single ideology justifying their actions. The pardon was most attractive to mariners possessing greater social and economic capital, which explains why so many of them were able to return to their homes and quickly return to honest maritime work.In addition to the standard sources employed by maritime historians, Hahn utilizes local administrative records from Britain and its American colonies, such as property, court, and church records. In so doing, he sheds new light on the ordinary activities in which the sailors were engaged when not involved in piracy and explores how they coped in the Bahamas and elsewhere after being pardoned. What emerges in this collective biography, then, are pirates who were mariners—of course—but also husbands, fathers, parishioners, and property owners.