Demopolis Public Library presents seminar on Creek Indians

The public is invited to “’The Original Great Tye’ and How It Was Broken: Creek Indian History in Three Acts,” a talk by Auburn University professor Kathryn Braund on Friday, March 4 at noon at the Demopolis Public Library.

Alabamians rightly take pride in the early history of their state, including the exotic and complex history of the Creek people who once claimed this land as their own. In this retrospective, Kathryn H. Braund will look at the major eras of Creek Indian history, touching on their link to the British through the deerskin trade, their material culture and economy, and the changing nature of tribal authority as plantation agriculture and herding replaced trade as the “way to wealth” in the Indian nation.

Kathryn Holland Braund is Hollifield Professor of Southern History at Auburn University. She is the author of Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685−1815, coeditor of Fields of Vision: Essays on the “Travels” of William Bartram and William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, and editor of Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812.

This lecture is a part of the Draughon Seminars in State and Local History, a series of lectures sponsored by the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University. For more information about Draughon Seminars, please visit www.auburn.edu/cah. The series is funded by the Kelly Mosley Endowment in honor of Dr. Ralph B. Draughon, president of Auburn University from 1947 to 1965. Draughon was a historian with a deep commitment to both state history and public education.

The event is free and open to the public. Bring your own lunch OR reserve a sandwich plate from Lulu’s for $6.50. The Friends of the Library will provide drinks and dessert. Reserve your lunch plate by March 1 by calling the library at 334.289.1595.

For more information on the program, contact Morgan Allen at 334.289.1595