The Yamasee War: A Study of Culture, Economy, and Conflict in the Colonial South (Indians of the Southeast)

William L. Ramsey provides a comprehensive reappraisal of the Yamasee War, a major conflict of the colonial era comparable to King Philip's War in New England and Pontiac's Rebellion. He argues that the Yamasee War may represent a defining turning point in the formation of the Old South, challenging traditional explanations of the war's origins and examining Native American concerns before the conflict in relation to recent scholarship on the Indian slave trade and the Atlantic economy. The Yamasee War was a violent conflict between southeastern American Indian tribes and English colonists in South Carolina from 1715 to 1718. Ramsey's analysis extends beyond coastal fighting between Yamasees and Carolinians to evaluate regional diplomatic issues that involved Indian nations as far away as the Choctaws in present-day Mississippi in a broad anti-English alliance. By tracing the decline of Indian slavery in South Carolina during and after the war, the book documents shifts in white racial ideology driven by wartime concerns, including fears of a "black majority," which influenced attempts to restore Anglo-Indian trade, manage the enslaved population, and secure the southern frontier.