Reviewed by: Brothers of Coweta: Kinship, Empire, and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Muscogee World by Bryan C. Rindfleisch Christian Gonzales Brothers of Coweta: Kinship, Empire, and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Muscogee World. By Bryan C. Rindfleisch. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. xvi, 194. Paper, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-64336-203-8; cloth, $89.99, ISBN 978-1-64336-202-1.) Bryan C. Rindfleisch's Brothers of Coweta: Kinship, Empire, and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Muscogee World examines the lives of two Muscogee brothers, Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee. He traces how they used their various leadership positions within the talwa (village) of Coweta to negotiate settler colonialism and empire in the eighteenth-century South. Rindfleisch argues that kinship was a foundational and immanent structure of the Muscogee world, and as a result, it was with family and clan interests consistently in view that Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee acted to confront colonialism and empire. Rindfleisch's narrative covers the period between the end of the Yamasee War in 1717 and the close of the American Revolution. The author contends that the story of Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee provides insight into the family dynamics of the eighteenth-century Muscogees and how such dynamics intersected with the broader currents gripping the South. The primary historiographical contributions of Brothers of Coweta are the assertions that Indigenous family and kin structures were complex and diverse and that family interests often revolved around the clan rather than the nuclear or extended family units. This book accomplishes the task it sets for itself. The first two chapters provide a good overview of the importance of family, particularly by relating what we know about Muscogee worldviews, kinship, and clan functions. They also provide a pertinent explanation as to why Coweta was well positioned to confront the forces of empire. Rindfleisch draws on the Muscogee Creation Stories and secondary literature to explain concepts like balance, to define structures like the matrilineal clan and huti (clan residence), and to delineate Muscogee gender roles. He also demonstrates that Coweta's location on the Creek Path was significant as it "further contributed to [Coweta's] influence in the deerskin trade and the Muscogee-British alliance" (p. 32). This foundation effectively sets the stage for the following chapters that trace Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee as they worked for the good of their clan by playing the French, British, and Spanish empires off against each other, toggling between alliance and war with the Cherokees, and sometimes working with, and at others against, rival clans in Coweta and other Muscogee talwas. Readers can readily perceive these tactics as driven by familial interests within the disruptive contexts of incessant Anglo-American and British demands for land and the chaos of the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution. There are, however, potential points of confusion for readers. The book highlights the importance of the matrilineal clan yet focuses on two men. What roles did Muscogee women play as Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee worked on [End Page 543] behalf of their huti? Though Muscogee women's voices are extremely rare in the archive, possible contextualizations of the brothers' actions relative to those of their female kin would have been helpful. The framing of the relationship between kinship and the twinned forces of settler colonialism and empire could also prove problematic. Some might read the brothers' pursuit of familial interests as a narrow, quaint, and consequently insufficient response to the existential threat of colonialism. From this potential perspective, the Muscogees were unable to resist dispossession successfully for lack of mounting an adequate defense. Rindfleisch seems aware of this lurking problem as he writes in the conclusion that "the United States was a settler republic, hell-bent on dispossessing the Indigenous Peoples" (p. 119). However, more thorough characterization of settler colonialism as an implacable, genocidal, and juggernaut phenomenon in the eighteenth century is needed to foreclose readers' possible misinterpretations of the decolonial history Rindfleisch proffers. Overall, Rindfleisch has provided a useful and interesting story about one Muscogee family's navigation of colonialism and empire that students of Indigenous history will find helpful. Christian Gonzales University of Rhode Island Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association