Southern Frontier Research Articles

Aiming for Pensacola: fugitive slaves on the Atlantic and Southern frontiers

Aiming for Pensacola: fugitive slaves on the Atlantic and Southern frontiers

Cwbr Author Interview: Aiming For Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves On The Atlantic And Southern Frontiers

Cwbr Author Interview: Aiming For Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves On The Atlantic And Southern Frontiers

Endgame for Empire: British-Creek Relations in Georgia and Vicinity, 1763–1776 by John T. Juricek

Reviewed by: Endgame for Empire: British-Creek Relations in Georgia and Vicinity, 1763–1776by John T. Juricek Tyler Boulware Endgame for Empire: British-Creek Relations in Georgia and Vicinity, 1763–1776. By John T. Juricek. Contested Boundaries. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2015. Pp. x, 326. $74.95, ISBN 978-0-8130-6074-3.) The year 1763 was a pivotal moment in the Southeast. The Creeks emerged as the region’s most potent Indian nation, while Britain ascended as the dominant imperial power. Anglo-Creek relations thus took on added significance after the Treaty of Paris (1763), a point John T. Juricek makes in this richly detailed and nuanced account of British-Creek diplomacy between 1763 and 1776. The book builds on his earlier publication, Colonial Georgia and the Creeks: Anglo-Indian Diplomacy on the Southern Frontier, 1733–1763(Gainesville, Fla., 2010), but with emphasis on the consequential interwar years and with greater attention to the larger geopolitical context within which Creeks and Anglo-Americans maneuvered. [End Page 907] When the Seven Years’ War ended, Britain sought to improve relations with Native Americans through a sustained campaign of reform. It was, Juricek writes, “a rare time of fresh thinking in London about the Indians of North America” (p. 32). The king issued the Proclamation of 1763 in part to protect Indian lands; a congress at Augusta attempted to restore Anglo-Indian friendships, and a comprehensive reform plan in 1764 addressed two sore spots in British-Indian relations: conflicts over trade and land. The plan of 1764, in particular, introduced far-reaching measures, such as an unregulated Indian trade open to all British subjects. Two central figures in shaping and implementing postwar policy, Superintendent John Stuart and Governor James Wright, were often at odds, but they agreed that free trade was a disastrous policy. London would not budge, even after it became evident that open trade had failed miserably, leading to an “explosive increase” in traders and a mountain of debt for Indian peoples (p. 86). These debts had a direct bearing on land dealings. Accordingly, Juricek calls attention to one of the least studied but “most important Indian conferences of the entire colonial era,” which resulted in the signing of the New Purchase treaty (p. 177). In 1773 Cherokees and Creeks ceded common hunting grounds to compensate for their trading debts. A complicated land transaction followed, but the consequences of the exchange were extraordinary. The New Purchase exacerbated generational rifts within Creek society, whereby frustrated young warriors made the ceded territory too dangerous for British settlement. This hampered land sales, which meant that traders and merchants who had forgiven Indian debts in expectation of payment from the sale of lands were left empty-handed. When the American Revolutionary War erupted several years later, many of these dissatisfied traders and merchants were driven to the Patriot cause. The New Purchase, in short, was a “disaster for the imperial cause,” for it placed Britain and its agents outside well-worn paths of trade and communication (p. 215). In the end, British reform efforts failed and were largely abandoned. One reason was that Indian affairs took a backseat to the worsening imperial crisis. Second, reform did not come from an altruistic place, Juricek notes, but from concerns about Creek (and other Indian) threats to British settlement and expansion. Furthermore, while the British considered Indians as the king’s subjects, officials made few efforts to assimilate Indians into the empire. Finally, Creek resentment over trade was too ingrained, and British promises to protect Creek lands were too often left unfulfilled, both of which hampered the continuation of friendly British-Creek relations. To be sure, there were progressive individuals like Superintendent Stuart who were committed to reform, but as Juricek laments, “There were not enough John Stuarts to sustain it” (p. 247). Endgame for Empire: British-Creek Relations in Georgia and Vicinity, 1763–1776is an important study of Anglo-Creek diplomacy during a period that is often overlooked. Whereas key events such as Pontiac’s War and the Fort Stanwix treaty had lasting implications for peoples north of the Ohio River, Juricek shows that the interwar years were equally formative...

Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier by James Van Horn Melton

Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier by James Van Horn Melton

Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier by James Van Horn Melton

Reviewed by: Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier by James Van Horn Melton Katharine Gerbner Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier. By James Van Horn Melton. Cambridge Studies on the American South. (New York and other cities: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xiv, 321. $99.99, ISBN 978-1-107-06328-0.) In Religion, Community, and Slavery on the Colonial Southern Frontier, James Van Horn Melton brings his expertise in Pietism and early modern European history to colonial Georgia. His transatlantic study follows the Salzburgers, a group of exiled Protestants, from the Alps to America, where they founded the town of Ebenezer, Georgia. Within colonial American history, the Salzburgers are known as the authors of one of the first antislavery petitions in the American South. For European historians, the history of the Salzburg expulsion has been focused on the migration from the Alps to Prussia, where the vast majority of exiled Protestants resettled. Melton’s contribution is twofold: for early Americanists, he describes the European experiences of the Salzburgers in fascinating detail, demonstrating how they developed their distrust of slavery and their comparatively successful and insular frontier community. For Europeanists, Melton’s study serves as a reminder of the transatlantic dimensions of the Salzburg exile. Melton’s study is divided into two parts: “From Europe to America” and “Ebenezer.” Part 1 explores the lives of the Salzburgers in their alpine home-land and their subsequent exile. Melton focuses on Thomas Geschwandel, a miner from Bad Gastein who immigrated to Georgia with his family. While Protestants and Catholics had coexisted in Salzburg for centuries, the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in 1728 destabilized the delicate balance of assimilation and dissent that characterized crypto-Protestantism in the area. The missionaries hardened confessional boundaries, leading to mass exodus. In the summer of 1733 Thomas Geschwandel was one of thousands who migrated after expulsion. While the vast majority of exiles traveled to Prussia, Geschwandel chose a different route. In 1733, just as he and his family were leaving Salzburg, the British Parliament agreed to fund the costs for resettling Salzburg exiles in the newly founded colony of Georgia. The expulsion had become a cause célèbre for Pietist and Anglican philanthropists, and the Trustees of Georgia viewed the Salzburgers as ideal migrants. The Salzburgers bolstered the philanthropic credentials of the Georgia colony, which was intended to support poor and persecuted Protestants. Georgia was also an important military buffer between South Carolina and Spanish Florida. For this reason, among others, the Trustees of Georgia forbade the importation of slaves into the colony. Led by their Pietist pastor Johann Martin Boltzius, the Salzburgers arrived in Charles Town in 1734. There, Boltzius noted that the reliance on slave labor was a “great danger” (p. 136). In Ebenezer, the Salzburgers continued to oppose the introduction of slavery. They countered the arguments of the proslavery Malcontents by insisting that white people were capable of cultivating rice in the Georgia heat. However, as Melton emphasizes, the Salzburgers did not oppose slavery for religious or moral reasons. Instead, they viewed slaves as an economic and physical threat to their community. Melton suggests that the Salzburgers’ antislavery position was based on their insularity as well as their economic success. Unlike English settlers, the Salzburgers had a diverse skill [End Page 905] set that included both agricultural and skilled labor, providing them with more flexibility on the frontier. Despite their antislavery position, the Salzburgers eventually adapted to slavery after the ban on slave labor was lifted in 1750. Melton observes that Boltzius’s stance on Africans actually became markedly more positive after the introduction of slavery. Inspired by George Whitefield, Boltzius began to view slaves as potential converts, and he regularly baptized enslaved children. Still, this optimism eventually faded, and by 1763, two years before his death, Boltzius regretted his acceptance of slavery, viewing it as a “metaphor for how Ebenezer, once chosen and thus exceptional in God’s eyes, had succumbed to worldly temptation” (p. 268). Melton’s study should appeal to Europeanists and early Americanists alike. It is a model of transatlantic scholarship with its careful attention to culture, religion, and politics in both Salzburg...

Religion, community, and slavery on the Colonial southern frontier

Religion, community, and slavery on the Colonial southern frontier

Italy's Postcolonial ‘Question’: Views from the Southern Frontier of Europe

In Italy, like in many other European countries, cultural roots and national identity are currently shifting as the result of contemporary transnational migrations and globalization. This essay analyses how the paradigm emerging from the Italian national case contributes to a redefinition of the postcolonial canon centered on British history and culture and to the notion of a “European” postcolonial as a whole. To this aim, the authors identify in colonial history and contemporary immigration the threads that connect the postcoloniality of Italy to that of other European countries. At the same time, they locate the specificity of the Italian postcolonial in the intersection between these factors and other events in Italian history that have strongly influenced the process of shaping an Italian national identity: the Southern question, intranational and international mass emigrations, new mobilities, the subaltern position of Italy within the European Union, and the geopolitical dislocation of Italy as the Southern frontier of Europe. The authors close their essay by presenting a Mediterranean Southern perspective grounded in new forms of knowledge and aesthetic sensibilities that counteract Europe's sense of encroaching and its politics of border protection.

Absence of genetic introgression between Elymus ciliaris and E. pendulinus (Triticeae: Poaceae) as shown by endosperm protein SDS-electrophoresis in connection with hypotheses of E. amurensis origin

The StY-genome group of Elymus species is of special interest, most of its species ranges extending to Russia from southern frontier territories, mainly from China. The ranges of Elymus pendulinus , E. ciliaris and E. amurensis within Russia overlap in the southern part of the Russian Far East only. Elymus ciliaris is considered by Russian taxonomists to be phylogenetically close to E. pendulinus, while hybridization of these species gave rise to the independent species E. amurensis. Moreover, in China, E. amurensis is recognized as a variety of E. ciliaris. Endosperm protein polymorphism was studied by SDS-electrophoresis for the purpose to reveal species specificity in E. pendulinus, E. ciliaris, and E. amurensis from a number of localities in the Primorskii Krai. Accessions of species from places of their joint occurrence were analyzed to detect identical polypeptide components which could have appeared due to genetic introgression. Nevertheless, both electrophoretic images visual analyses and construction the dendrograms of populations with various similarity coefficients revealed a high species specificity of E. ciliaris и E. pendulinus but no signs of introgression in spite of the fact that the two species often grow in common ecotopes and even form sterile hybrids. No indications of the origin of E. amurensis from the highly distinct species E. ciliaris and E. pendulinus were found either. The necessity of biosystematic and experimental methods for confirmation of the origin and taxonomic rank of new and many recognized species in the genus Elymus is shown.

La Frontera: Forests and Ecological Conflict in Chile's Frontier Territory

La Frontera: Forests and Ecological Conflict in Chile's Frontier Territory

Fezzan: Turkey’s Slaving Frontier

The mid-Saharan region of Fezzan was nearly always a semi-independent political and trading entity before the 19th century. Only after 1842 did the Ottoman empire, newly returned to Tripoli, establish a token administration and limited military presence at one or two of the more important oases. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Turks failed to consolidate their presence in Fezzan or, in the face of European encroachment from both the north and south, to reinforce vague territorial claims deeper into central Africa with any significant political or military presence. They thus left future colonial and independent regimes in Libya a legacy of unresolved questions over Fezzan’s southern frontiers and territorial extent.

Elites regionais, guerra e compadrio: a família Ribeiro de Almeida e suas redes de relações (Rio Grande do Sul, c. 1816 - c. 1844)

O artigo analisa os laços de compadrio do casal Bento Manoel Ribeiro e Maria Mâncio e propõe um estudo dos mesmos a partir da análise de redes (network analysis). O marechal do Exército Bento Manoel Ribeiro foi um dos mais ricos estancieiros da fronteira sul do Brasil, tornando-se importante líder político e militar na primeira metade do Oitocentos. Numa sociedade na qual as redes clientelares possuíam notável relevância na estruturação dos poderes locais e regionais e no exercício do mando, as redes de compadrio tinham importante papel, pois refletiam parcela das múltiplas relações sociais estabelecidas por essas elites. As principais fontes utilizadas são os registros de batismo.

Time and the Migrant Other: European Border Controls and the Temporal Economics of Illegality

ABSTRACTThe Western world's borders increasingly seem like a battleground where a new kind of “threat” is repelled—the so‐called “illegal migrant.” At Europe's southern frontiers, sea patrols, advanced surveillance machinery, and fencing keep migrants out, much like at the U.S., Israeli, and Australian borders. Such investments have created a dense web of controls that displaces the border both inward and outward into the borderlands beyond it. Building upon recent border studies and ethnographies of illegality, I explore in this article Europe's migration controls by focusing on their temporal rather than their spatial aspects. I show that, in the borderlands, irregular migrants are not only subjected to extended periods of waiting, as migrants often are, but they also face an active usurpation of time by state authorities through serial expulsions and retentions. The ways in which migrants’ time is appropriated reveal a complex economics of illegality, complementing existing “biopolitical” perspectives on Europe's borders. [migration, illegality, time, borders, temporality]

New Dates for Kansyore and Pastoral Neolithic Ceramics in the Eyasi Basin, Tanzania

This paper presents and contextualizes two radiocarbon dates directly obtained from Kansyore and Savanna Pastoral Neolithic (Narosura) ceramic sherds from sites near Lake Eyasi in Tanzania. The dates improve upon those obtained during prior research, which were compromised by problematic samples and stratigraphic disturbance. This underscores the importance of direct dating on diagnostic ceramics in areas with poor site integrity. The Eyasi Basin, often thought to mark a “southern frontier” for stone-using herders, is placed in a broader regional context in terms of material correlates of the spread of food production.

Standardizing the state while integrating the frontier: the Chilean telegraph system in the Araucanía, 1870–1900

Beginning in 1870, the Chilean government built a telegraph network to support its conquest of the Mapuche people of the Araucanía, a region on its southern frontier. The telegraph not only facilitated military domination of the Mapuche, but also served to bring, first, army commanders and, later, civilian regional governors under more direct control from the capital. As this new technology was introduced, army commanders and telegraph officials each fought to control the frontier telegraph lines. This conflict, and a rapid but partial victory by the civilian telegraph specialists, demonstrates the role of the telegraph in making state services run by expert civilian professionals into an important part of and defining characteristic of the Chilean state by 1900.

The Southern Frontier of the Meroitic State: The View from Jebel Moya.

The site of Jebel Moya, excavated in the early twentieth century, represents arguably the largest pastoral mortuary complex in Africa. Jebel Moya is resituated in relation to the neighbouring Meroitic-era agro-pastoral settlements and the only known Meroitic trading station (Sennar) in the southern Gezira Plain, Sudan. It is the first time that the known localities in the southern Gezira and southern Meroitic cemeteries have been compared, in an attempt to elucidate the different social organisation reflected in mortuary assemblages between the core and the periphery of the Meroitic State. New questions are posed for (1) the applicability of mortuary theory to pastoral cemeteries, and (2) the nature of zones of interaction on the frontier of the Meroitic State, through the application of new statistical and spatial analyses of the mortuary assemblages and the site’s reinterpretation as a pastoral, instead of an agro-pastoral, mortuary complex.

Southern Frontier Humor: New Approaches ed. by Ed Piacentino (review)

Southern Frontier Humor: New Approaches ed. by Ed Piacentino (review)

Relation du naufrage de l'Eole sur la cote de la Cafrerie en avril 1829

D. J. Culpin has salvaged from the depths of literary history a hitherto unexplored account of a nineteenth-century French shipwreck. En route from India via La Réunion, the Eole was wrecked on the south-eastern coast of Africa in April 1829. Her eight surviving crew members and passengers subsequently journeyed overland to Cape Town through the region then known as ‘Cafrerie’, a hinterland between the southern frontier of Portuguese Mozambique and the northern frontier of the English-administered Cape Colony. The account of their experiences was written by Charles Étienne Boniface, a journalist, author, and playwright then living in Cape Town, whom the survivors encountered on their arrival. Boniface figures in the text as the aptly named ‘Monsieur Mordant’, who gives the group a tour of Cape Town in order to engage in a biting satire of the colony's society and institutions. Boniface claims to have based his account on first-hand reports of the survivors' experiences, and Culpin speculates in his Introduction as to which member of the crew might have been the original author. He opts for Charles Lafitte, a passenger on the Eole who was designated ‘le mentor de la bande’ (p. 21) and on whose perspective much of the narration is centred. Opening with a preface from the current French consul in Cape Town, this edition presents the work as a foundational text in Franco-South African relations. Boniface's account was the first French-language text published in Cape Town, and it also reveals much about French attitudes towards British and Dutch colonization of the Horn of Africa in the early nineteenth century. The work's publication by subscription (a list of the subscribers who financed the first edition is included here) also, arguably, makes it an important document in terms of the Cape's social and intellectual history. Boniface's text is introduced as being of twofold interest to the modern reader. First, in anthropological terms, Culpin connects the author's descriptions of the manners and customs of southern African tribal populations with Diderot's descriptions of Tahiti or Charlevoix's work on Native Canadians. However, Boniface's account appears to belie these Enlightenment antecedents. The native peoples are referred to as ‘barbares’ (p. 31) and ‘animaux à figure humaine’ (p. 69), while the survivors' journey is summed up as ‘un séjour où la nature humaine s’était offerte à notre vue dans son dernier degré d'abrutissement' (p. 76). Culpin also stresses the work's literary merit and connections with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Rousseau; but in fact Boniface here demonstrates a marked preference for the colonizing ‘hommes civilisés’ (p. 39) over any notional ‘natural man’. Culpin is right, however, to emphasize Boniface's fascinating intertextual references to a range of French works, including plays by Molière. Lafitte's use of honey as a magic elixir to cure a sickly African child is, for instance, likened to the actions of Sganarelle in Le Médecin malgré lui. The attitude of manipulative superiority implied here, as elsewhere in the text, makes this newly discovered work ripe for exploration by postcolonial theorists, literary historians, and scholars of the colonial period.

Flush Times & Fever Dreams: A Story of Capitalism and Slavery in the Age of Jackson by Joshua D. Rothman (review)

Reviewed by: Flush Times & Fever Dreams: A Story of Capitalism and Slavery in the Age of Jackson by Joshua D. Rothman John Lauritz Larson (bio) Flush Times & Fever Dreams: A Story of Capitalism and Slavery in the Age of Jackson. By Joshua D. Rothman. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012. Pp. 440. $29.95 cloth; $29.95 ebook) Truth often is stranger than fiction, and on the antebellum southern frontier the wild life of Virgil Stewart verifies the wisdom of the (fictional) Simon Suggs, who says that “it is good to be shifty in a new country.” In Flush Times & Fever Dreams, Joshua D. Rothman has given us both a rich microhistory and a wide-ranging interpretive [End Page 604] essay about the fluid cultural milieu of the lower Mississippi Valley in the age of Jackson (or better, “Mike Fink”). If the larger early American experiment involved “self-creation” on a national scale, Rothman’s story begins with the same exercise on an individual level. In chapter one, “Inventing Virgil Stewart,” we meet our protagonist as he makes his way in 1833 to the Choctaw Cession in northern Mississippi. Seeking the fastest road to fame and fortune, Stewart bought land, made friends, and looked for opportunities to strike it rich. Chapter two, “Inventing John Murrell,” introduces the antagonist, a slave-stealer and all-around trouble-maker, whose schemes Stewart makes it his mission to expose. As much a literary wannabe as real-life rascal, Stewart spins out a published yarn, known as The Western Land Pirate, in which he chronicles his exploits (real or imagined) in pursuit of Murrell, a tale involving a burgeoning cast of characters as likely drawn from Gothic fiction as from life. His publication, in turn, offends his friends and enemies alike, generates his own notoriety, and drives events that swirl around the veracity of his claims and accusations. Beneath the tangled narrative web of Rothman’s story lie the deep anxieties of this “new country” dedicated to white men’s freedom, black people’s enslavement, and the unrestrained pursuit of filthy lucre in the new-formed market economy. Patronage, connection, graft, and preferment constantly undermine the superficial promises of this egalitarian frontier paradise. Men such as Stewart respond to perceived unfairness by cheating others gleefully. Rumors of slave insurrections (either real or imagined) stir up hysterical reactions throughout the region. Another perennial concern—slave stealing—activates much of the narrative thread in a world where such valuable property carried no license plates, serial numbers, or other discouragements to artful pilferage. The degenerate influence of professional gamblers so threatened perceptions of respectability that in 1835 the citizens of Vicksburg executed five such reprobates without benefit of any trial. (This outrageous vigilantism backfired, staining the reputation of the city far more than did any gamblers.) [End Page 605] Ubiquitous betrayals, especially the casual failure to honor commercial agreements, shake the foundations of social intercourse at a time when courts and contracts had not yet sufficiently evolved as to bring a modern semblance of order to business transactions. Flush Times & Fever Dreams is a fine example of historical detective work, anthropological analysis, and lively narration. Readers looking for a richly colored portrait of a time and its problems will enjoy it immensely. On the other hand, graduate students looking for its contribution to antebellum historiography may be frustrated by the fact that, while the case at hand nicely reflects the light of what we think we know about “capitalism and slavery in the Age of Jackson,” its original contribution—its own light, if you will—may seem to get lost in the wash of incredible detail. This is not to fault Rothman but to point out a problem with microhistories in general: they consume huge inputs from the writer/researcher while often returning less on that investment than harried scholars demand. The result is a virtuoso performance the original contribution of which, however, remains elusive. This does not offend me in the least—but at my age I have more time to savor performance than youngsters “on the make” in the rough-and-tumble economy of our own academic frontier. John Lauritz Larson John Lauritz Larson teaches history...

Locating species range frontiers: a cost and efficiency comparison of citizen science and hair-tube survey methods for use in tracking an invasive squirrel

Context Improved knowledge of changing species distributions is critically important for conservation managers in the face of increasing species invasions, habitat disturbance and climate change. Efficient monitoring of the location of advancing species invasion frontiers is especially crucial for effective species community and habitat management. Aims To compare the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of two survey methods, a citizen science survey and a traditional hair-tube survey, in their abilities to locate the current southern invasion frontier of grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in Ireland. Methods In the citizen science survey, we collected sighting reports of the grey squirrel and its native congener, the red squirrel (S. vulgaris), from the geographic region of the invasion frontier from untrained members of the public over a 2-year period. Hair-tube surveys were carried out in 14 woodlands (≥30 ha) in the same geographic area to test the ability of this indirect field method to identify colonising grey squirrel populations. The costs, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of each method were compared. Key results The citizen science sighting reports resulted in the clear delineation of the southern frontier of the zone invaded by the grey squirrel. The hair-tube survey ascertained the presence of grey squirrels in 4 of 14 sites, but did not detect this species close to the invasion frontier defined by the citizen science survey. Even though the total cost of the citizen science survey was higher, it was more cost-effective and efficient on a per detection basis for the purposes of detecting the presence of grey and red squirrels. Conclusions The citizen science survey detected invasive squirrels in sites where the hair-tube survey did not. As such, the citizen science survey provided a more comprehensive snapshot of the location of the grey squirrel invasion frontier more efficiently and cost-effectively than did traditional field techniques. Implications In the face of increasing ecological and economic costs of biological invasions, we recommend straightforward citizen science surveys, over indirect field surveys, to managers and researchers seeking to efficiently track progressing invasions of readily observable animals cost-effectively.

Spatio-temporal spawning and larval dynamics of a zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) population in a North Texas Reservoir: implications for invasions in the southern United States

long-term monitoring program were analyzed to determine if spatio-temporal zebra mussel spawning and larval dynamics were related to physicochemical water properties in Lake Texoma. Reproductive output of the local population was significantly related to water temperature and lake elevation. Estimated mean date of first spawn in Lake Texoma was approximately 1.5 months earlier and peak veliger densities were observed two months earlier than in Lake Erie. Annual maximum veliger density declined significantly during the study period (p < 0.0001). A population crash occurred as a result of thermal stress and variability of lake elevation. In summer 2011, water temperatures peaked at 34.3°C and lake elevation declined to the lowest level recorded during the previous 18 years, which resulted in desiccation of substantial numbers of settled mussels in littoral zones. Veliger spatial distributions were associated with physicochemical stratification characteristics. Veligers were observed in the deepest oxygenated water after lake stratification, which occurred in late spring. Results of this study indicate environmental conditions can influence variability of population sizes and spatial distributions of zebra mussels along the current southern frontier of their geographic range. Although the future population size trajectory and geographic range are uncertain, increased temperatures and intermittent, extreme droughts likely will affect spatio-temporal dynamics of established populations if zebra mussels spread farther into the southern and southwestern United States.