An image with a red banner on top with the text, in white: HLQ | an early modern studies journal. Below is the text: 'The Mysteries of Apalache': Tall Tales and Lost Worlds in the Early American South. Owen Stanwood. ABSTRACT: In 1658, Charles de Rochefort published a description of Apalache, an Indigenous polity located in southeastern North America that had welcomed French and English refugees. Usually dismissed as a tall tale, Rochefort’s account has never been thoroughly analyzed. The story demonstrates how Europeans in the early period of colonization understood America as a place of wonder and inspiration. In addition, one can learn how information (and misinformation) traveled across the Atlantic. Rochefort probably patched his tale together from various oral sources, including some that came from Indigenous Americans. As a result, Rochefort revealed a lost world of stories and shows the myriad ways Europeans tried to make sense of America.
Charles de Rochefort, a Protestant refugee, imagined a Native American utopia called Apalache. Stanwood uncovers the networks of knowledge, rumor, and storytelling that produced this fantastic--but not entirely fictional--place. #earlymodern #hlq
