SOURCE: Waselkov, Gregory A. “Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida. …” In William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, edited by Gregory A. Waselkov and Kathryn E. Holland Braund, pp. 25-32. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

In the following essay, Waselkov examines the evolution of the manuscript of Bartram's Travels and its general reception.

William Bartram's Travels has been dubbed “the most astounding verbal artifact of the early republic.”¹ Indeed, Bartram's work, which “presents itself at various times as a travel journal, a naturalist's notebook, a moral and religious effusion, an ethnographic essay, and a polemic on behalf of the cultural institutions and the rights of American Indians,” is a true classic of American literature.² Travels is based on Bartram's field notes, journals, and remembrances that accrued during his tour of the southern backcountry, from 1773 to 1777. The time when Bartram decided to polish his diaries and produce...