Bartram's Travels

Bartram's Travels is the short title of naturalist William Bartram's book describing his travels in the American South and encounters with American Indians between 1773 and 1777. The book was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1791 by the firm of James & Johnson.

The book's full title is Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions; Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians.

William Bartram was a Quaker and the son of naturalist John Bartram. In 1772 Dr. John Fothergill of London commissioned William Bartram to explore the Florida territories, collecting seeds, making drawings, and taking specimens of unfamiliar plants. Bartram sailed from Philadelphia in March 1773, explored Georgia, and began exploring East Florida in March 1774, especially the St. Johns River and the Alachua Savanna peopled by Seminole Indians. Returning to Charleston, Bartram set out for the southern Appalachians and the Cherokee country in April 1775, unaware that war had broken out in New England. Bartram crossed the Chattahoochee River into what later became the state of Alabama, then traveled to Mobile and Pensacola. Despite illness, he continued his journey west along the Gulf coast and up the Mississippi River beyond Baton Rouge. Sailing again to Mobile, he traveled inland late in the year to the Creek Indian settlements on the Tallapoosa River. In January 1776 Bartram returned to Georgia, shipped the last of his plant specimens to London from Savannah, and returned home to Philadelphia. The sequence of his journey is not reproduced exactly in Bartram's Travels.

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