Second, Smith emphasizes that the Indians of the area were some of the most powerful indigenous groups in North America.

First, Smith argues that because of its wet and fertile soil, the region had the potential to be one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world. As he emphasizes the distinctiveness of the Gulf South frontier, the author makes two audacious arguments.

Smith argues that these zones were interrelated and that scholars should study the region, regardless of its contested colonial boundaries, as a whole.

The originality of the book is implied in its title, as Smith labels the territory that stretched from East Texas to West Florida and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arkansas and Tennessee Rivers “the Gulf South frontier.” Previously, most historians have examined this region as fragmented geopolitical provinces defined by European settlements such as French Louisiana, Spanish Florida, and British West Florida. Todd Smith relies on his expertise in southern Indian history to incorporate the most recent approaches to frontier history in his discussion of the relevant secondary sources about early Louisiana.

Download frontier first encounters