A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733–1816

The story told here is a critical yet unknown chapter in the creation of the American Republic. Claudio Saunt vividly depicts a dramatic transformation in the eighteenth century that overturned the world of the powerful and numerous Creek Indians and forever changed the Deep South. By 1800, some Creeks, whose most valuable belongings had once been deerskins, owned hundreds of African-American slaves and thousands of cattle. Their leaders, who formerly strove for consensus, now ruled by force. New property fostered a new possessiveness, and government by coercion bred confrontation. A New Order of Things is the first book to chronicle this decisive transformation in America's early history, a transformation that left deep divisions between the wealthy and poor, powerful and powerless.

Claudio Saunt, formerly a Mellon Fellow in History at the Society of Fellows, Columbia University, is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Georgia.