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This study investigates the role played by the rivalry between English Carolina and Spanish Florida in the history of the colonial Southeast from the mid-seventeenth century through the 1720s. It contends that, from standpoint of the local inhabitants, Native American and European, both the perceived and the actual threat that Spanish Florida and Carolina posed to one another was the dominant concern and motivation of the actions of both during the roughly fifty year period from the founding of Charleston to the final events of the Yamassee War. at the local level, government officials, Indian traders, Franciscan missionaries, the various Indian tribes, runaway slaves, and all others living in this borderland region contended daily with the rivalry between Carolina and Spanish Florida. Only with the resolution of this threat could Carolina and thus the British emerge as the dominant colonial power in the Southeast. The dissertation seeks to reanalyze the events of this period within the framework of this rivalry and to do so by blending comprehensive research in the available documentary evidence available for both South Carolina and Spanish Florida.

"Ambiguous Alliances" examines the revolutionary era in the Ohio Valley from a Native American perspective. Rather than simply considering them as British pawns or troublesome mischief-makers, this account describes how Wyandots, Shawnees, Ottawas, Delawares, Miamis, and their native neighbors made decisions about war and peace, established alliances with Europeans, Americans, and distant Indian nations, and charted specific strategies for their political and cultural survival. They also suffered devastating personal and property loss and encountered significant disruption to their societal routines. Yet much about their daily lives remained unchanged, and their communities continued to foster a strong Indian identity.;This dissertation explores native objectives for the period 1768--1795, specifically looking at what the various nations were hoping to accomplish in their relationships with the British and the Americans. While preserving land and sovereignty were the Indians' clearest aims, this study also emphasizes that the underlying goal of protecting their rights and property was to retain their cultural distinctiveness. Furthermore, these twin objectives were inextricably linked. The Indians' ability to remain viable diplomatic partners with the Europeans depended on the maintenance of their landed independence.;Along with analyzing native objectives, this dissertation discusses Indian strategies to attain these goals and looks at how the Revolution assisted or hampered their execution. Some tribes actively recruited British or American allies; some attempted to remain neutral; others endeavored to form a united Indian front; and still others alternately extended their allegiance to both parties in an effort to secure both autonomy and protection.;Despite its heavy emphasis on native alliances and military maneuvers, this work also examines the Revolution's challenges to the rhythms of daily life. In addition to physical destruction, wartime agendas altered native.economic patterns and sometimes even invaded cultural practices, threatening to constrict gender roles for women or to prevent nations from adopting captives to replace their deceased relatives. Although the era's disruptions brought emotional distress, physical displacement, and political ambiguity, the tribes persisted in sustaining both their daily existence and their national identities.

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The Seven Years' War on the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontier was a devastating struggle. About two thousand colonists died, almost as many were captured, and tens of thousands fled for safety in the east. The British and their colonists proved unable to mount an effective military defence: colonial forces proved unfit for warfare in the frontier environment and military efforts resulted only in intense discord between civil and military authorities. as a result of the destruction of the raids both Virginia and Pennsylvania were unable to contribute to the war effort in the northern theater, on the St. Lawrence, Lake Champlain, and Acadia.;The French and their Indian allies achieved this success with few resources. The French were unable to commit over a few hundred men to the Ohio Valley, while the Indians experienced an acute shortage of arms and supplies caused by the disruption of their traditional trading network. to achieve their success the French and their Indian allies did not raid randomly, but with an intentional strategy and with specific targets.;The Indians who fought on both sides, fought, not as European pawns, but with their own specific war-aims: the Susquehanna Delawares sought independence from Iroquois overlordship; the Cherokees joined the Virginians in an attempt to break the South Carolinian control of their trade; the Ohio Indians struggled to keep European settlements out of the Ohio Valley.;Eventual success for the British in the theater was achieved not by the superiority of their forces in the theater--in each regular battle British troops were routed, at Fort Necessity, Braddock's Field, and Major Grant's defeat outside Fort Duquesne in 1758--but through attrition caused by British superiority in other theaters. In particular British naval superiority deprived the French, and in turn their Indian allies, of needed supplies.

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This dissertation examines the people who brokered cultural exchange among the various groups in and around Georgia from 1733--1765. Populating the territory were Europeans, Indians, and Africans who interacted frequently with one another despite disparate cultural traits. Cultural brokers not only brought members of each society together but did so in a manner that allowed the groups to achieve a level of understanding that would have been otherwise impossible.;The project concentrates on four categories of cultural brokers: Indian traders, military personnel, missionaries, and the Indians themselves. Members of each of these groups played critical roles as intermediaries between the natives and the newcomers. In addition to directing the material exchange between the two groups, they conveyed ideological values and diplomatic information as well. Cultural brokers served as interpreters, escorts, and emissaries. They relayed messages, invitations, and military intelligence. They explained one side to the other, interpreting language, protocol, and meanings. They consequently had an invaluable effect on maintaining positive relations between the Indians and the colonists during Georgia's first thirty years.;All of these mediators lived and worked on the frontier, but that does not mean that they were on the fringe of society. In fact, Georgia's cultural brokers enjoyed a favored position, respected for their abilities to move between Indian and colonial worlds. They were equally comfortable in each society and were fully accepted by both.