Conevery Bolton Valencius revisits the massive New Madrid earthquakes that struck the middle Mississippi Valley from December 1811 to February 1812, briefly reversing the flow of the river itself. The quakes reshaped settlement patterns for Cherokee and other Native nations, lent credibility to Tecumseh’s pan-Indian confederacy, and fueled a wave of religious revival. Yet they had largely faded from public memory by the time the nation recovered from the Civil War.
Valencius weaves scientific and historical evidence to explain the disaster’s outsized influence on the region and why it was so thoroughly forgotten. She draws a pointed parallel to modern climate change denial.
Published 2013
472 pages
$25.73