The Shaftesbury Papers, first published in 1897 as volume five of the Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society, is the most important and sweeping accumulation of correspondence relating to South Carolina's founding as a proprietary colony. It is composed largely of the papers of Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury and foremost of the proprietors responsible for the colony's founding. It details, as no other published document can, the proprietary colony's struggle to survive the Lowcountry's harsh environment and establish a civilization that in many ways resembled England's wealthiest Caribbean colony, Barbados. The Shaftesbury Papers is an invaluable resource for historians, genealogists, and those interested in South Carolina's early years. This reprint edition includes a preface by Robert M. Weir, professor emeritus of history at the University of South Carolina, and an introduction by Charles H. Lesser of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
Unknown to many outside of their small communities, there are still many Alabamians who identify as Native Americans. Indian people of Alabama who stand together with their fellow citizens while maintaining their own cultural and ethnic heritage. This work examines the many tribes of the state including the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama, the Cherokees of Northeast Alabama, Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe of Alabama, the Southeastern Mvskoke Nation, Cher-O-Creek Intra-Tribal Indians, Inc. (Aka Cherokees of Southeast Alabama), the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians, the Piqua Shawnee Tribe and the United Cherokee Ani-Yun-Wiya Nation. As well as investigation of the status of non-state recognized groups and now dispersed communities such as the Wildfork Indian community of Escambia County, Alabama.