author
John Lawson
1674–1711
An English explorer and naturalist, he turned his travels in colonial Carolina into one of the best-known early accounts of the region. His writing mixes adventure, close observation, and a vivid picture of life in the American South at the start of the 1700s.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in England in 1674, John Lawson became an explorer, surveyor, naturalist, and writer whose name is closely tied to the early history of the Carolinas. He arrived in the colony in 1700 and is best remembered for recording his journeys through the region in A New Voyage to Carolina, published in 1709.
His book brought together travel narrative, notes on plants and animals, and descriptions of the people and landscapes he encountered. That mix of firsthand observation and storytelling helped make his work valuable both as literature and as an early historical record of colonial North America.
Lawson also played a part in the development of North Carolina, including work connected with Bath and New Bern. His life ended in 1711 during conflict with the Tuscarora, but his writing remains an important window into the colonial South.