Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Cashin has produced the first attempted full biography of Lachlan McGillivray....a work long overdue. Following Lachlan's career from Indian trader, Indian diplomat, merchant, plantation owner, and politician, one also tracks the progressive evolution of the Georgia colony itself during the 18th Century and its turbulent relationships with neighboring Indian nations.
It is fascinating to learn of Lachlan's diligent efforts to see to the well-being of his Scottish clan members while forsaking the well-being of his own Creek wife and children. Lachlan's only son became the great Creek chief, Alexander McGillivray.
Cashin's work is not without some errors; especially, involving Lachlan's Scottish family tree. However, these errors are do to confusing genealogical records as opposed to poor scholarship.
One glaring error is Cashin's assertion that Lachlan's wife, Sehoy, could not be the daughter of a French military officer by the name of Marchand because no such officer served in the region. One may dispute whether or not Sehoy's father was the Frenchman but there is historical documentation that Commander Marchand did exist at the right place and time to be the husband of the Indian princess.
Another unfortunate aspect of the book is that Cashin adopts the McGillivray family legend that Lachlan arrived in Georgia as an indentured servant and lived in Darien for awhile before moving to Charleston and becoming involved in the Indian trade. Evidence would suggest that Lachlan was never indentured and that he went directly to Charleston to be employed by kinsman Archibald McGillivray's trading company.
Despite these points, Cashin's work is a valuable piece of historic literature.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Lachlan McGillivray, Indian Trader: The Shaping of the Southern Colonial Frontier
On the southern colonial frontier--the lands south of the Carolinas from the Savannah to the Mississippi rivers--Indian traders were an essential commercial and political link between Native Americans and European settlers. By following the career of one influential trader from 1736 to 1776, Edward J. Cashin presents a historical perspective of the frontier not as the edge of European civilization but as a zone of constant change and interaction between many cultures.
Lachlan McGillivray knew firsthand of the frontier's natural wealth and strategic importance to England, France, and Spain, because he lived deep within it among his wife's people, the Creeks. Until he returned to his native Scotland in 1782, he witnessed, and often participated in, the major events shaping the region--from decisive battles to major treaties and land cessions. He was both a consultant to the leaders of colonial Georgia and South Carolina and their emissary to the great chiefs of the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws.
Cashin discusses the aims and ambitions of the frontier's many interest groups, profiles the figures who catalyzed the power struggles, and explains events from the vantage points of traders and Native Americans. He also offers information about the rise of the southern elite, for in the decade before he left America, McGillivray was a successful planter and slave trader, a popular politician, and a member of the Savannah gentry. Against the panorama of the southern colonial frontier, Edward J. Cashin affirms the importance of traders in regional and international politics and commerce.
Get 19% OFF
0 comments:
Post a Comment