Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors

First published in 1922, copies of this respected classic have been coveted, hoarded, and worn ragged ever since by archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians across the Southeast and beyond. Also appealing to a general audience, the book documents the coalescence of the Creek Indians out of the remnants of the many separate societies that dominated Alabama and Georgia in the early colonial period (pre-1700). The author provides important, basic ethnographic and historical information on the Creeks and all the neighboring Indians, including those from Florida, Mississippi, and adjacent areas, tracing the tribes’ movements from earliest times until they were caught up into the stream of colonial history.  In the introduction, Swanton explains that he was able to obtain information from about 9,000 living Indians, some of whom he quotes directly.John R. Swanton, who was curator of North American archaeology in the anthropology department of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History for five decades, is widely regarded as the most distinguished ethnographer of American Indians. Between 1911 and 1952 he wrote eight major reference books, seven on the southeastern Indians.