Deerskins and Duffels

By Kathryn E. Holland Braund

ISBN 0-8032-1226-7

306 pages, hardcover: $34.95

Reviewed by Jim Kindred

Many of us interested in the Eastern frontier get caught up in the dramas of Tennessee, Kentucky and areas north of the Ohio, while we ignore the same dramas being carried out in the southern tip of the thirteen Colonies.  One of the principal players in these dramas of the colonial period was the Creek Nation (Muscogulges), who occupied what we now call Alabama and Georgia.  Three old-world nations -- England, France and Spain -- all courted the Creeks through the deerskin trade and sought to control them through the Creeks' economic dependence on European goods.  The English were finally the only ones to establish this dependency through their greater production capability.  Kathryn E. Holland Braund's book has provided us an outstanding look into the Creek culture and the deerskin trade from its early beginnings as a private venture to a government-sponsored trade under the U.S. government and its eventual contribution to the destruction of this once powerful Indian nation.

    Of particular interest in this work are the many period descriptions given by the participants themselves.  These descriptions include the use and construction of skin boats, observations on Creek societal structure and daily life, how the hunt was conducted, wildlife management, what value was p laced on the skins and how the trading process worked.  One very interesting feature of Deerskins and Duffels is the appendix, which provides a reprinting of England's
Regulations for the Better Carrying on the Trade with the Indian Tribes in the Southern District."  These regulations give one an understanding of the rules traders were bound by and how the trade was supposed to work, although it often did not.

    By giving us an in-depth view of Creek society, we are able to see how the rapid changes brought on by the expansive deerskin trade eventually led the Creeks from subsistence hunters to commercial hunters and contributed to the eventual deterioration of Creek Society.  By overhunting and a rapidly growing dependence on European goods, the Creeks put themselves and their way of life on the fast road to destruction at Horseshoe Bend. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Southern Colonial frontier.  It is a superb work detailing this exciting period in Southeastern history and giving us a view of the vents that put Great Britain, France, Spain and later the United States in the economic and diplomatic struggle for the lands occupied by the Creek nation.

    Contact the publisher for ordering information.  University of Nebraska Press, 901 North 17th Street, Lincoln, NE  68588-0520.

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