Finding a “continuing city”: John Marrant’s Narrative Mapping as Geographical and Historical Imaginaries

John Marrant’s A Narrative of the Lord’s Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a Black (1785) draws on geographical and historical imaginaries between the Cherokee and the British in the southeastern US from the 1720s through the American Revolutionary War. Comparing eighteenth-century southeastern Indigenous and European colonial maps with Marrant’s narrative mapping reveals Marrant’s navigation of the same spaces and networks of relation that were coming under colonial management. As a “go-between,” Marrant negotiates Cherokee and other Indigenous nations’ relations, as well as furnishes a rare glimpse into Black and Indigenous relations. Marrant’s Narrative reconnects to a legacy of Cherokee and British negotiations in addition to Black loyalist networks. Through his narrative mapping, Marrant performs as a cartographer and mediator between the Cherokee and the British to forge a new path, a “continuing city,” to maintain his freedom.