Excerpt:
True knowledge of the intricate workings of the pre-contact southern Indian civilization is elusive to grasp. Despite this limitation, author and historian J. Leitch Wright, Jr. looks beyond historiography to put together a convincing and alternative picture that contradicts the oft-accepted stories of primitive, promiscuous and violent natives. Instead, Wright paints a picture of a thriving and organized Indian civilization well on its way to achieving potential on par with Aztec and Inca civilizations. (p. 66) He suggests that the Indians may have had a much larger influence on earlier colonial society than was once thought.
