By: Robert Scott Davis & Silas Emmett Lucas, Pub. 1981, Reprinted 2017, 824 pages, Index, ISBN #0-89308-211-2. Burke County was created in 1777 as one of the original 7 counties of the state. Information in this volume includes: English Crown Grants in St. George Parish in GA 1755-1775; Landowners of St. George Parish, GA; State Land Grants in Burke, Jefferson and Screven Counties, GA; Remnant of the 1798 Federal Direct Tax Digest of Burke County, GA; Land Lottery Records of Burke County, GA 1805-1832; 1820, 1830, 1840 & 1850 Federal Census of Burke County; 1820 Burke County Manufacturers Census; 1840 Schedules of Mines, Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures; 1850 Lists of 6 schedules for the 1850 Census; Legend for 1850 Free Schedule; 1850 Slave Schedule of Burke County; 1850 Mortality Schedule of Burke County; 1850 Social Statistics of Burke County; 1850 Agricultural Schedule of Burke County; and 1855 Federal Tax Digest of Burke County.

Between late 1863 and mid-1864, an armed band of Confederate deserters battled Confederate cavalry in the Piney Woods region of Jones County, Mississippi. Calling themselves the Knight Company after their captain, Newton Knight, they set up headquarters in the swamps of the Leaf River, where, legend has it, they declared the Free State of Jones. The story of the Jones County rebellion is well known among Mississippians, and debate over whether the county actually seceded from the state during the war has smoldered for more than a century. Adding further controversy to the legend is the story of Newt Knight's interracial romance with his wartime accomplice, Rachel, a slave. From their relationship there developed a mixed-race community that endured long after the Civil War had ended, and the ambiguous racial identity of their descendants confounded the rules of segregated Mississippi well into the twentieth century. Victoria Bynum traces the origins and legacy of the Jones County uprising from the American Revolution to the modern civil rights movement. In bridging the gap between the legendary and the real Free State of Jones, she shows how the legend--what was told, what was embellished, and what was left out--reveals a great deal about the South's transition from slavery to segregation; the racial, gender, and class politics of the period; and the contingent nature of history and memory.

A revealing saga detailing the economic, familial, and social bonds forged by Indian trader George Galphin in the early American South A native of Ireland, George Galphin arrived in South Carolina in 1737 and quickly emerged as one of the most proficient deerskin traders in the South. This was due in large part to his marriage to Metawney, a Creek Indian woman from the town of Coweta, who incorporated Galphin into her family and clan, allowing him to establish one of the most profitable merchant companies in North America. As part of his trade operations, Galphin cemented connections with Indigenous and European peoples across the South, while simultaneously securing links to merchants and traders in the British Empire, continental Europe, and beyond. In George Galphin’s Intimate Empire: The Creek Indians, Family, and Colonialism in Early America, Bryan C. Rindfleisch presents a complex narrative about eighteenth-century cross-cultural relationships. Reconstructing the multilayered bonds forged by Galphin and challenging scholarly understandings of life in the Native South, the American South more broadly, and the Atlantic World, Rindfleisch looks simultaneously at familial, cultural, political, geographical, and commercial ties—examining how eighteenth-century people organized their world, both mentally and physically. He demonstrates how Galphin’s importance emerged through the people with whom he bonded. At their most intimate, Galphin’s multilayered relationships revolved around the Creek, Anglo-French, and African children who comprised his North American family, as well as family and friends on the other side of the Atlantic. Through extensive research in primary sources, Rindfleisch reconstructs an expansive imperial world that stretches across the American South and reaches into London and includes Indians, Europeans, and Africans who were intimately interconnected and mutually dependent. As a whole, George Galphin’s Intimate Empire provides critical insights into the intensely personal dimensions and cross-cultural contours of the eighteenth-century South and how empire-building and colonialism were, by their very nature, intimate and familial affairs.

Bob Davis has compiled into one indexed volume his MOST significant articles on and abstracts of Georgia records. More than half of this book, A Researchers Library, however is new material spanning virtually all Georgia for all of her more than 250 years. This is some of the best genealogical material to be found in one reference book encompassing the years from colonial times down through the Civil War. Chapters included in this book are on Georgia's First Settlers; Lost Colonial Georgia Plats; Records from the Peter Force papers; The Georgia Provinicial Rangers; Land Grants under the Trustees, 1733-1739; a Medical Miracle Worker; Lost Georgia Land Grants under the Trustees 1775 and 1778; Revolutionary War Soldiers in the American State Papers; Bounty Script to Soldiers and their heirs, 1833-1870; Officer index to Saffell's records of the Revolutinary War; Death dates of Revolutionary War Officers in the South; 1840 Federal Pension list for Georgia; Supplement to Knight's Roster; Supplement to Georgia Citizen and Soldiers; persons who may not have received Bounty Grants; Headright Caveats, 1777-1868; Dr. Newton's medical log, 1789; Some records from the Cuyler Collection; the Walton War - A Supplement; Indian depredation; 1810 Federal Census of Putnam County; Militia Roster, 1812-1815; Georgia's Roster of the War of 1812. Also chapters on Birth States of Georgia Federal Employees 1816 and 1819; Persons exempted to be allowed to be tested before the Bar; Missing page of the 1820 Census of Madison County; Applicants before Georgia's Board of Physicians, 1826-1881; Paddlers Licenses, 1825-1843; the Georgia battalion in the Texas Revolution; St. George Parish - Burke County; Gleaning from Georgia Newspapers; First settlers of Northeast Georgia; White men with families in the Cherokee Nation, 1830; Voters lists, 1834-1838; Counties in Georgia and Carolinas - an 1835 map; Enlistment oaths, 1861; Georgia Battalion, US Army, Confederate Pensioners, 1894; some Civil War memoirs; and Confederate Veterans at Bowden College. The Index mentions approximately 30,000 names.

Between late 1863 and mid-1864, an armed band of Confederate deserters battled Confederate cavalry in the Piney Woods region of Jones County, Mississippi. Calling themselves the Knight Company after their captain, Newton Knight, they set up headquarters in the swamps of the Leaf River, where they declared their loyalty to the U.S. government. The story of the Jones County rebellion is well known among Mississippians, and debate over whether the county actually seceded from the state during the war has smoldered for more than a century. Adding further controversy to the legend is the story of Newt Knight's interracial romance with his wartime accomplice, Rachel, a slave. From their relationship there developed a mixed-race community that endured long after the Civil War had ended, and the ambiguous racial identity of their descendants confounded the rules of segregated Mississippi well into the twentieth century. Victoria Bynum traces the origins and legacy of the Jones County uprising from the American Revolution to the modern civil rights movement. In bridging the gap between the legendary and the real Free State of Jones, she shows how the legend--what was told, what was embellished, and what was left out--reveals a great deal about the South's transition from slavery to segregation; the racial, gender, and class politics of the period; and the contingent nature of history and memory. In a new afterword, Bynum updates readers on recent scholarship, current issues of race and Southern heritage, and the coming movie that make this Civil War story essential reading. The Free State of Jones film, starring Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Keri Russell, will be released in May 2016.