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The Life and Times of Mary Musgrove. By Steven C. Hahn. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2012. Pp. [x], 284. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8130-4221-3.)
Those familiar with colonial Georgia and Creek history will recognize the name Mary Musgrove, and those who are not will learn everything they need to know and more from this biography. By elucidating the many diverse aspects of her sixty-plus years and contextualizing them within the nuances of regional, ethnic, and gender history, Steven C. Hahn effectively shows just how complex the "life and times" of Mary Musgrove really were.
Naturally, the text begins with Musgrove's birth to a Creek woman and the English trader Edward Griffin. Since very little information exists about her childhood, Hahn fills in the blanks with material about Creek customs and diplomacy and South Carolinian social and economic activities as they would have applied to young Mary. He also recasts her as a planter's wife after her marriage to...