This is a compilation of the twenty-eight earliest census records of Louisiana. Such records have proved time and again to be the foundation and touchstone of modern genealogy. These particular census records cover, at one period or another, Fort Maurepas, Biloxi, Mobile, Natchez, New Orleans, and other locations. The records are both civilian and military, mainly the former, and they extend from 1699 through 1732. Besides census records, the reader will find lists of 1,704 marriageable girls, a 1726 list of persons requesting negroes, landowner lists, and a list of persons massacred at Fort Rosalie in 1729. Other features include a synopsis of Louisiana's colonial history, tips on French colonial naming practices, and a comprehensive index of 5,000 names.

"Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how they thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured."--Source nconnue.