The History of the American Indians: Particularly those Nations Adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia

A trader who lived and worked for four decades among Native Americans and became a keen observer of their languages, customs and politics, James Adair (fl.1735–75) studied the Catawba, Cherokee, Muscogee, Chickasaw and Choctaw, compiling extensive ethnographic information. Upon publication in 1775, this work was unique in its treatment of these peoples as well as their interaction with white traders and colonists. The book also propounds a theory, popular at the time, that the ancestors of ...