The Triumph of the Ecunnau-Nuxulgee

The Triumph of the Ecunnau-Nuxulgee tells the story of Creek removal, centering on the contest between the Creek nation and the fiery states' rights advocate and Georgia governor George Troup. William W. Winn explains that his goal is to “present a rounded narrative” with “sufficient details to satisfy the scholarly reader while entertaining those who simply wish for an interesting narrative full of colorful frontier characters” (p. xiii). Winn largely succeeds in his narrative goal, but scholars are unlikely to be satisfied with this top-down, old-fashioned history. Winn demonstrates his narrative flair early in the book. In the opening, for example, he cleverly uses the Marquis de Lafayette's 1825 tour of the American South to paint a vivid portrait of the frontier in the early nineteenth century. Unfortunately, the book's central problem also manifests early, with his sketch of indigenous southerners. Winn has done his research, but his language conveys a picture of native peoples that is badly out of date. In the most egregious example, he evokes the virgin land trope, describing the Chattahoochee Valley—the bustling heart of Creek country—as an “Edenic setting ... a primeval wonderland, pristine in its natural beauty” (p. 26). Such language inadvertently reproduces the discourse that removal advocates used to dismiss indigenous sovereignty

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