cgerona@hts.gatech.edu 

At first glance, Bowen Emanuel’s 1748 New Map of Georgia, with part of Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana suggests that Georgia extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the western banks of the Mississippi. This was, of course, wishful thinking; the English colony of Georgia could make no such claims. Indeed, as the map also suggests, the powerful Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee Confederacies still dominated most of the territory that is considered part of today’s state of Georgia. Additionally, Spanish Florida and French Louisiana surrounded the small British colony on the Atlantic. Georgia was thus a quintessential early American borderland: a place where European, African, and American peoples communicated with each other, traded goods and services, and fought over labor and resources.

The fact that no one group could claim complete control of the region -- but many hoped to do so -- provides the central theme for this seminar. From the first moment of contact to the American Revolution and beyond, early America was a contested place. Explore this new way of looking at American history in a class that combines readings, discussions, field trips, as you conduct your own independent research project about any aspect of early American history up to the Civil War.