Appalachia as Contested Borderland of the Early Modern Atlantic, 1528–1715

Abstract

In her work Appalachia as Contested Borderland of the Early Modern Atlantic, 1528–1715, Kimberly Borchard brings a new perspective to the history of Appalachia, a region oft ignored by historians of the colonial period regardless of whether their focus is on Spanish, French, or English North America. Appalachia traditionally only enters modern scholarship when dealing with topics like coal, labor unions, and environmental devastation. In contrast, Borchard reveals not only Appalachia's incredibly important role in the Spanish colonial enterprise but also how the region became a key contested borderland in the latter half of the sixteenth century with the entrance of both French and English explorers. Borchard illustrates how the histories of Anglo and Spanish Appalachia are inextricably intertwined. Here is the crux of Borchard's main argument, “to push aside those longstanding ‘normative assumptions’ with regard to the colonization of Appalachia and demonstrate that the historical separation of Anglo from Latin America, particularly in this region, is largely fictitious” (p. 11). She accomplishes this by linking today's Appalachia with Spanish Apalache and the myth of El Dorado, highlighting the importance of the search for gold to the colonization of the Appalachian states of Virginia and the Carolinas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In so doing Borchard “moves Appalachia from the realm of regional American history into the broader world of Atlantic and global history where it belongs” (p. 12).The myth of Appalachia, or Apalache, begins in the wake of Pánfilo de Narváez's disastrous attempt to conquer Florida. The writings of one of the few survivors, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, helped to isolate a new possible location of the golden city of El Dorado (other options included present-day Colombia and the interior of Venezuela). Cabeza de Vaca's chronicle succeeded in inspiring the voyages of multiple Spaniards searching for the rumored wealth of Apalache in northwestern Florida, first and foremost Hernando de Soto in 1539. With more exploration the location of Apalache began to move northward, reaching the Appalachian Mountains of the Carolinas by the time that Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the United States’ oldest city in 1565. Menéndez believed that he would find in Appalachia mines of silver and gold and, perhaps more importantly, a route from the Atlantic coast to the Spanish silver mines of Zacatecas, all of which had to be kept out of the hands of the Protestant French.However, by the end of the sixteenth century the Spanish had begun to lose interest in the more northern regions of North America, including Appalachia, as they failed to find both El Dorado and a route to the South Sea. Additionally, all attempted settlements north of present-day Florida had failed within months. At this juncture the Spanish began to question whether Appalachia was worth continuing hostilities with their European neighbors, thus leaving the region open to the hopes of the English. But the English did not locate the famed riches either, and instead Appalachia became a source for Indigenous slaves, leading to the Mississippian shatter zone of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (though violence against the Indigenous peoples of the region was not new, having occurred during the voyage of de Soto, for one). Then when gold was finally found in the nineteenth century, there was a new explosion of violence aimed at the region's Native peoples culminating in the Trail of Tears. Borchard shows how the Appalachian myth of wealth inspired exploration and violence both between European nations and between Indigenous peoples and European colonizers for centuries.Beyond highlighting the place of Appalachia within the larger history of the Atlantic world, Borchard's work is also a treasure trove for scholars of sixteenth-century North America, containing translated excerpts of dozens of key primary sources. The author not only uses historical chronicles to prove her thesis but also provides in-depth literary and historical analyses of the documents. By focusing on the circulation of these chronicles Borchard also shows how literature and knowledge traveled across the early modern world, how explorers of diverse nations were able to learn about Spanish or French expeditions and incorporate the knowledge into their own colonial aspirations. All in all, Borchard's work succeeds in placing Appalachia at the center of many Spanish, French, and English colonial enterprises, putting it squarely within the larger Atlantic world. This is an exciting and innovative piece of scholarship in its own right but perhaps more importantly is the beginning of much more fruitful research on this once forgotten region.