"This book is based on visitor descriptions of antebellum Mobile, Alabama's physical and social environment. Mobile's foundational era is a period in which the city transformed from a struggling colonial outpost into one of the nation's most significant economic powerhouses, largely owing to the cotton trade and the labor of enslaved people. On the eve of the Civil War, the Mobile ranked as the fourth most populous community in what would soon become the Confederacy, and within the Gulf Coast region, it stood second only to New Orleans in population, wealth, and influence.
The city's remarkable architecture, beautiful natural setting, and abundance of entertainment options made it one of the South's most distinctive communities. Its cultural diversity added to its uniqueness. In addition to being home to the largest white population of any community in Alabama, the city also claimed the state's largest free Black, foreign-born, and Creole communities. Mobile was the slave-trading center of the state until the 1850s and remained intertwined with the institution of slavery throughout the antebellum period. By 1860 Mobile's population stood at nearly thirty thousand people, making it the twenty-seventh-largest city in the US. Although numerous histories of Mobile have been published, none have focused on firsthand accounts published by antebellum-era visitors."
"The Tensaw River introduces one of the American South's richest and most fertile natural features. Author Mike Bunn is director of Historic Blakeley State Park, which is nestled in a prominent bend of the majestic Tensaw River.
Forming the eastern boundary of the expansive Mobile-Tensaw Delta, the Tensaw has had little industrial development. Left largely undisturbed, the river flows free and bountiful into the grand estuary of Mobile Bay in ways that would be recognizable to Native Americans centuries ago and to pioneers who arrived before Alabama became a state.
Bunn's unforgettable stories in The Tensaw River trace the construction and occupation of the Bottle Creek site, an important mound complex built by Southeastern Native Americans a millennia ago. Nearby Blakeley is an antebellum ghost town whose lost memories tease the imagination. During the Civil War, the boom of artillery fire in the battle that sealed the fate of the city of Mobile echoed along the bends in the Tensaw.
Located near popular travel destinations, the Tensaw's 'Forgotten Cultural Heritage Corridor' is a gateway to the enchanting beauty of—and humankind's relationship to—the landscape of the American South."
"The British colony of West Florida—which once stretched from the mighty Mississippi to the shallow bends of the Apalachicola and portions of what are now the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—is the forgotten fourteenth colony of America's Revolutionary era. The colony's eventful years as a part of the British Empire form an important and compelling interlude in Gulf Coast history that has for too long been overlooked. For a host of reasons, including the fact that West Florida did not rebel against the British Government, the colony has long been dismissed as a loyal but inconsequential fringe outpost, if considered at all. But the colony's history showcases a tumultuous political scene featuring a halting attempt at instituting representative government; a host of bold and colorful characters; a compelling saga of struggle and perseverance in the pursuit of financial stability; and a dramatic series of battles on land and water which brought about the end of its days under the Union Jack. In Fourteenth Colony, historian Mike Bunn offers the first comprehensive history of the colony, introducing listeners to the Gulf Coast's remarkable British period and putting West Florida back in its rightful place on the map of Colonial America."
