This section contains 8,751 words (approx. 30 pages at 300 words per page) |
![]() |
SOURCE: Bellin, Joshua David. “Wicked Instruments: William Bartram and the Dispossession of the Southern Indians.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 51, no. 3 (autumn 1995): 1-23.
In the following essay, Bellin analyzes Bartram's view of native Americans and their use of land compared to the European settlers.
I
On June 1, 1773, William Bartram witnessed the Treaty of Augusta, in which Creek and Cherokee Indians, constrained by trade debts, ceded two million acres of land to the Crown.1 While accompanying government agents and tribal chiefs on the surveying mission, Bartram noted a “remarkable instance of Indian sagacity” which “nearly disconcerted all our plans, and put an end to the business” (58). Bartram writes:
The surveyor having fixed his compass on the staff … just as he had determined upon the point, the Indian chief came up, and observing the course he had fixed upon, spoke, and said it was not...
This section contains 8,751 words (approx. 30 pages at 300 words per page) |
![]() |