The Vegetation History of Fort Frederica
Bratton SP. 1983. The Vegetation History of Fort Frederica. Cultural Landscape Report. Research/Resources Management Report SER-66. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Athens, Georgia
This report serves as a vegetation history of Fort Frederica and its surrounding lands, detailing the vegetation of the area through the periods of Native American (Guale and Timucua nations), Spanish, and Anglo occupancy. The report, consulting historical and contemporary sources, finds that the fort and surrounding lands have undergone ten major phases of disturbance and regrowth since pre-colonial times. Early descriptions document the original predominance of evergreen oak mixed hardwood forests, extensive marshes, and ponds. The plantation period brought about the drainage of interior wetlands for agriculture and the replacement of oak forest by cotton fields and successional pine forest. The report also finds evidence of early land management through prescribe burns, which increased during the plantation period and decreased since the beginning of the 19th century. The report finds that the forest surrounding the fort is returning to the mixed oak hardwood forest, but landscape of the fort itself is largely a result of pre-Civil War agriculture and post-Civil War logging.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Bratton, Susan
- Date of Issue
- 1983
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- FOFR , SER , WRD
- Keywords
- Agriculture, Clemson, cotton, cultures, Guale, hardwood, Historic Vegetation, marsh, oak, pine, Plant Studies, Spanish, Succession, Timucua, wetlands