Fire Ant Books – serie

Reelfoot Lake has been a hunting and fishing paradise from the time of its creation in 1812. This work tells of how, in 1908, with the loss of their homes to capitalists, rural folk donned hoods and gowns and engaged in ""night riding"", spreading mayhem and death as they sought justice.

This important book comprises two articles that appeared in the 1904 and 1906 volumes of Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society. In ""Life of Apushimataha,"" Gideon Lincecum tells the story of Choctaw chief Pushmataha, who was born in Mississippi in 1764. A fearless warrior, his name literally means ""one whose tomahawk is fatal in war or hunting."" As a charismatic leader, his foresight in making an alliance with General Andrew Jackson brought the Choctaws into war with the Creek Nation and into the War of 1812 but served to their benefit for many years with the United States government. In 1824, Pushmataha traveled to Washington, D.C., to negotiate the Treaty of Doak's Stand as pressure grew for Choctaw removal to Oklahoma Territory, but he fell ill and died there. He was buried with full military honors in the Congressional Cemetery at Arlington. In ""Choctaw Traditions about Their Settlement in Mississippi and the Origin of Their Mounds,"" Lincecum translates a portion of the Skukhaanumpula - the traditional history of the tribe, which was related to him verbally by Chata Immataha, ""the oldest man in the world, a man that knew everything.

The grassroots effort to preserve Alabama's Wilderness Areas spanned a period of thirty years, from 19 to 19. The first battle, to establish the Sipsey Wilderness in the Bankhead National Forest, was the catalyst for a profound reform of national policy regarding public land preserves in the eastern United States. It, and the later campaigns - to establish the Cheaha Wilderness, to enlarge the Sipsey, and to create the Dugger Mountain Wilderness - are all classic tales of citizen activists overcoming the quagmire of federal bureaucracy and the intransigence of hostile politicians. By mandate of the 1964 Wilderness Act, an area that has been designated as part of the National Wilderness Preservation system (by an Act of Congress) cannot by commercially developed and must remain forever roadless. Such designation protects remnants of America's natural heritage in their original state, for their own worth. But early political opposition to proposed designation or expansion of wilderness areas in Alabama was based on the belief that limiting development of these lands would negatively impact the state's powerful timber industry. In response to such opposition, serious environmental activism was born in Alabama. Using quotations from newspaper reports, Congressional testimonies, personal interviews, and his own recollections, John Randolph traces the development of Alabama's environmental movement from its early beginnings with the founding of The Alabama Conservancy in the late 1960s and early '70s to the continuing preservation efforts of present-day activist groups, such as the Alabama Environmental Council, the Cahaba River Society, and the Alabama Wilderness Alliance. The Battle for Alabama's Wilderness permits all of the players - pro and con - to speak for themselves, but the obvious heroes - people like Mary Burks, Blanche Dean, Joab Thomas, and Pete Conroy - are embodiments of the vision, determination, hope, and persistence required of those who ultimately succeed in their preservation efforts. Randolph's account is, in the broad sense, a practical, step-by-step testament to the power of grassroots citizen groups who are committed to a common cause and inspired by a shared ideal.

With a wonderful ear for dialogue and in flowing narrative style, Karni Perez weaves together oral histories collected from early hatchery owners, catfish farmers, processors, and researchers to recount the important contributions made by Alabamians to the channel catfish industry. Perez describes the struggles and glories of fish culture from its early days as an experimental venture to the thriving present-day commercial enterprise that supplies warmwater fish for the American food industry. As Perez states, ""The catfish industry started out in Alabama as a do-it-yourself and figure-it-out-yourself kind of enterprise."" We hear how men who were mostly cattle farmers learned to nudge male and female fish into spawning in crudely constructed aquaria, how growers discovered the dissolved oxygen needs of their ""herd"" when big die-offs occurred, how Lenson Montz and Otis Breland designed the first paddle aerator to remedy the problem, how farmers eventually trained a bottomfeeding species to rise to the water surface to eat so their numbers could be better estimated. In one dramatic story, we learn how an early processor experimenting with a skinning machine lost a piece of his hand in front of a crowd of horrifield locals but, after it was retrieved from the skin basket, it was reattached by a town doctor and healed perfectly. The machine was modified accordingly and became an essential component of modern fish processing. In addition to telling the remarkable stories of individual contributions by farmers and researchers, Perez explains the positive effects played by improved public infrastructure, continued biological research, state legislation, and federal recognition of aquaculture as agriculture. From Chapter Three: ""You're crazy,"" the bank officer declared with a friendly chuckle. ""Why, the Warrior River is full of catfish for anyone who wants them. There are more in there than people will ever eat. And you think you're going to go sell them when folks can go get them for nothing? That's just a bunch of dreams!"" From Chapter Two: ""A crop duster's error, a visit by a curious feed company researcher, a fluke of the weather, a coincidental encounter at a gas station...How could the three men, or anyone else for that matter, guess that these chance circumstances would play into the birth of an industry that would mushroom over the next forty or so years into one of the largest contributors to the state's economy and that of the entire southeastern United States?

Maya maritime trade networks sites on Ambergris Caye, Belize. Archaeologists are unsure exactly when the Maya inhabited the coastal areas of Belize, but ample evidence exists to support an extensive maritime trade network along the coast by A.D. 600. This volume focuses on the maritime trade network sites on Ambergris Caye, Belize where excavations have revealed remnants of very small villages, or camps, along the Caribbean coastline.

This is the Calusa's historic rejection of 16th-century Spanish occupiers.Beginning with their battle against the forces of Ponce de Leon, the Calusa Indians of southwest Florida entered a dark period of European invasion and native resistance, which changed the nature and course of life on the North American continent.""Song of the Tides"" is a work of anthropological fiction set during the Spanish entrada into southwest Florida and their encounters with the Calusa. Relying on letters and memoirs, especially those of explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles, shipwrecked captive Escalante Fontaneda, and the Jesuit priest Juan Rogel, Joseph has woven a tale of vivid historical detail and compelling human drama. Working with Calusa scholars, the author has created a superbly written account of the clash of two proud and dominant cultures. Told through the voice of Aesha, daughter of the great Calusa chief Caalus, as well as those of other political and spiritual leaders, the fictional narrative spans half a century of conflict with Spanish soldiers and Jesuits, infighting between bands, struggle to preserve their culture, and eventual defeat of the Spanish through wit and deceit.

In April 1735, twenty-year-old William MacGregor, possessing little more than a bottle of Scotch whiskey and a set of Shakespeare's plays, arrives in Charles Town, South Carolina, to make his fortune in the New World. The Scottish Highlands, while dear to his heart, were in steep economic decline and hopelessly entangled in dangerous political intrigue. With an uncle in Carolina, the long ocean voyage seemed his best chance for a new start. He soon discovers that the Jacobite politics of Scotland extend to Carolina, and when his mouth gets him in trouble with the Charles Town locals, dimming his employment opportunities, he seizes the one option still open for him and takes a job as a frontier packhorseman. Soon young MacGregor is on the Cherokee trail to Indian country, where he settles in as a novice in the deerskin trade.Along the way William learns not only the arts of managing a pack train and trading with the Indians, but of reading the land and negotiating cultural differences with the Cherokee - whose clan system is much different from the Scottish clans of his homeland. William also learns that the Scottish enlightenment he so admires has not made much headway in the Carolina back-country, where the real challenges are to survive, day to day, during the tense times after the Yamasee War and to remember that while in Indian country...it is their country. A scholar of the native Southeast, Charles Hudson has turned his hand to this work of historical fiction, bringing to life the pack-horsemen, Indian traders, and southeastern Indians of the early 18th-century Carolina. With a comfortable and engaging style, Hudson peoples the Carolina frontier with believable characters, all caught up in a life and time that is historically well-documented but little-known to modern popular readers.

The Very Worst Road was originally published by the Historic Chattahoochee Commission in 1998. ""The Very Worst Road"" contains sixteen contemporary accounts by travelers who reached Alabama along what was known as the 'Old Federal Road'. More of a network of paths than a single road, it ran from Columbus and points south in Georgia for more or less due west into central Alabama and to where the confluence of the Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers forms the Alabama River. These accounts deal candidly with the rather remarkable array of impediments that faced travelers in Alabama in its first decades as a state. They also describe with wonder, interest, and, frequently with some disgust, the road, the inns, the travelling companions, and the few and raw communities they encountered as they made their way, often with difficulty, through what seemed to many of them uncharted wilderness.

This is the story of an uncommon woman - high school cheerleader, campus queen, airplane pilot, wife, mother, politician, businesswoman - who epitomizes the struggles and freedoms of women in 20th-century America, as they first began to believe they could live full lives and demanded to do so. World War II offered women the opportunity to contribute to the work of the country, and Nancy Batson Crews was one woman who made the most of her privileged beginnings and youthful talents and opportunities. In love with flying from the time she first saw Charles Lindbergh in Birmingham (October 1927), Crews began her aviation career in 1939 as one of only five young women chosen for Civilian Pilot Training at The University of Alabama. Later, Crews became the 20th woman of 28 to qualify as an 'Original' Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) pilot, employed during World War II shuttling P-38, P-47, and P-51 high-performance aircrafts from factory to staging areas and to and from maintenance and training sites. Before the war was over, 1,102 American women would qualify to fly Army airplanes. Many of these female pilots were forced out of aviation after the war as males returning from combat theater assignments took over their roles. But Crews continued to fly, from gliders to turbojets to J-3 Cubs, in a postwar career that began in California and then resumed in Alabama. The author was a freelance journalist looking to write about the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) when she met an elderly, but still vital, Nancy Batson Crews. The former aviatrix held a reunion of the surviving nine WAFS for an interview with them and Rickman, recording hours of her own testimony and remembrance before Crews' death from cancer in 2001. After helping lead the fight in the 70s for WASP to win veteran status, it was fitting that Nancy Batson Crews was buried with full military honors.