Surveys of Ambition: Carolina in the Colonial Imagination, 1700-1721

Dixon, Bradley Joseph. “Surveys of Ambition: Carolina in the Colonial Imagination, 1700-1721.” (Under the direction of Dr. Judy Kertesz.)

The prevailing historiography characterizes the growth of the British empire in the early American Southeast as a process driven by the Indian trade in indigenous slaves and European goods. The place of Native Americans within the British empire was predicated on a hub of trading and military alliances with Charlestown, South Carolina as its center. This thesis considers one alternative to this model proposed by the land surveyor and natural historian, John Lawson (1674?-1711), in his 1709 book, A New Voyage to Carolina.