Bartram's Travels
Encyclopedia
William Bartram
William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...
's historically significant book describing his travels in the American South and encounters with American Indians
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
between 1773 and 1777. The book was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
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.
The travels
William Bartram was a Quaker and the son of naturalist John BartramJohn Bartram
*Hoffmann, Nancy E. and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 243. ....
. In 1772 Dr. John Fothergill
John Fothergill (physician)
John Fothergill FRS was an English physician, plant collector, philanthropist and Quaker.- Life and work :...
of London commissioned William Bartram to explore the Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
territories, collecting seeds, making drawings, and taking specimens of unfamiliar plants. Bartram sailed from Philadelphia in March 1773, explored Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, and began exploring East Florida
East Florida
East Florida was a colony of Great Britain from 1763–1783 and of Spain from 1783–1822. East Florida was established by the British colonial government in 1763; as its name implies it consisted of the eastern part of the region of Florida, with West Florida comprising the western parts. Its capital...
in March 1774, especially the St. Johns River
St. Johns River
The St. Johns River is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant for commercial and recreational use. At long, it winds through or borders twelve counties, three of which are the state's largest. The drop in elevation from the headwaters to the mouth is less than ;...
and the Alachua Savanna peopled by Seminole Indians. Returning to Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, Bartram set out for the southern Appalachians and the Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
country in April 1775, unaware that war
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
had broken out in New England. Bartram crossed the Chattahoochee River
Chattahoochee River
The Chattahoochee River flows through or along the borders of the U.S. states of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. It is a tributary of the Apalachicola River, a relatively short river formed by the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers and emptying into Apalachicola Bay in the Gulf of...
into what later became the state of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, then traveled to Mobile
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
and Pensacola
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
. Despite illness, he continued his journey west along the Gulf
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
coast and up the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
beyond Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
. Sailing again to Mobile, he traveled inland late in the year to the Creek Indian
Creek people
The Muscogee , also known as the Creek or Creeks, are a Native American people traditionally from the southeastern United States. Mvskoke is their name in traditional spelling. The modern Muscogee live primarily in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida...
settlements on the Tallapoosa River
Tallapoosa River
The Tallapoosa River runs from the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains in Georgia, in the United States, southward and westward into Alabama. It is formed by the confluence of McClendon Creek and Mud Creek in Paulding County, Georgia. Lake Martin at Alexander City, Alabama is a large and...
. In January 1776 Bartram returned to Georgia, shipped the last of his plant specimens to London from Savannah
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, and returned home to Philadelphia. The sequence of his journey is not reproduced exactly in Bartram's Travels.
Between 1774 and 1776 Bartram sent 59 drawings and 209 dried plant specimens to Fothergill, along with a two-part report of his travels. This report was not published during Bartram's lifetime and is not to be confused with the book.
Publication history
Bartram remained in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. There he wrote the manuscript of his book while restoring the botanical gardenBartram's Garden
Bartram's Garden which covers is the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, including an historic botanical garden and arboretum , located on the west bank of the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park, near the intersection of 54th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
established by his father at the family home in Kingsessing
Kingsessing, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Kingsessing is a neighborhood in the Southwest section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, located adjacent to the neighborhoods of Cedar Park, Southwest Schuykill, and Mount Moriah, as well as Yeadon in Delaware County...
. The German scientist Johann David Schöpf saw the unpublished manuscript during a visit in 1783. A first effort to publish the Travels, by Philadelphia publisher Enoch Story, Jr. in 1786, apparently failed to attract subscribers. Finally in 1790 James and Johnson issued a second proposal to publish the Travels, and among the subscribers were President George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
, Vice President John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
. Bartram dedicated the book to Pennsylvania governor Thomas Mifflin
Thomas Mifflin
Thomas Mifflin was an American merchant and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania, President of the Continental...
.
The book was deposited for copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
on August 26, 1791, and printed in Philadelphia between that date and January 1792. The number of copies printed is unknown, but was probably fewer than 1,000. The price per copy was "two Spanish milled dollars." Bartram probably received 10 percent royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
.
Bartram expressed dissatisfaction with the first edition of his book, which contained many errors, especially in the spelling of scientific names. He enclosed a list of 28 errata in a copy he gave to a neighbor. No second American edition was published in his lifetime.
Significance
Bartram's Travels is significant as a scientific work, as a historical source concerning American IndiansNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
and the American South, and as a contribution to American literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
. Early critics found Bartram's literary style "rather too luxuriant and florid" (in the words of one American reviewer), but overall the book was praised highly in the United States and Europe.
Early readers were sometimes skeptical about the accuracy of Bartram's description of what was then an exotic part of the world. But as the regions became more familiar to scientists in the nineteenth century, Bartram's accuracy was confirmed. He is considered the scientific discoverer of several plant species including the Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha), which was rare when Bartram described it and later became extinct in the wild. Because of the sixteen-year delay between the completion of his travels and the publication of his book, Bartram missed the opportunity to be recognized as the first describer of several more species. German botanists considered Bartram to be the only noteworthy American botanist of his time.
Critics were often skeptical of Bartram's sympathetic description of the Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
Indians, which challenged presumptions that the Indians were primitive "savages." In addition to the Travels Bartram wrote other documents concerning his impressions of the southern Indians and the necessity of a humane public policy toward them.
Among Bartram's admirers in England were the poets William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
. By his own account, Coleridge had Bartram's Travels in mind when he devised the exotic imagery in his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep in 1816...
.
European editions
Bartram's Travels appeared in Europe when an edition was published in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1792, and another in Dublin in 1793. Also in 1793, the Travels appeared in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
as William Bartram's Reisen, translated by Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann.
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
A second London edition of the Travels appeared in 1794, and this is the edition owned by Wordsworth and Coleridge. In the same year, Jan David Pasteur's Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
translation was published in Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
.
A French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
translation by Pierre Vincent Benoist, Voyage dans le parties sud de l'Amérique septentrionale, appeared in 1799 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, followed by a second edition in 1801.
Modern editions
- The Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist's Edition. Edited by Francis Harper. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958. Reprint, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. ISBN 0820320277
- Travels and Other Writings. Thomas P. Slaughter, editor. New York: Library of America, 1996. ISBN 9781883011116
- Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country.... Introduction by James DickeyJames DickeyJames Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...
. New York: Viking Penguin, 1996. - Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida: A facsimile of the 1792 London edition embellished with its nine original plates. Introduction by Gordon DeWolf. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1980.
- Travels. Introduction by Mark Van DorenMark Van DorenMark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...
. New York: Dover, 1928. ISBN 0486200132
External links
- Bartram's Travels online, University of North Carolina Library
- Bartram Trail Conference