© 2008 The Author Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd History Compass 6/4 (2008): 1164–1172, 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2008.00526.x Spatial Personas: A New Technique for Interpreting Colonial Encounters in Colonial North America Ian Chambers* University of Idaho Abstract This article by proposing the theoretical tool of a ‘spatial persona’ hopes to situate space, its definition and movement within and across it, as a tool of understanding for the complex relations that exist within colonial contact. By taking a confused moment of interaction from the eighteenth century American southeast it will detail how spatial understandings can help unravel uncertainty to give a more nuanced explanation of European Native American interaction. This article examines the manner in which the theoretical tool of a ‘spatial persona’ can be used not only to explore a group’s identity, but also to help explain the interaction between all players during the early American era, specifically in the borderland region of the southeast. 1 A need for standardization, for straight-lines and the definition and control that accompanied them were the hallmarks of a growing desire for regulation of territory within English understandings of space during the early eighteenth century. The Cherokee, although recognizing discrete spatial locations, combined this with an understanding of the possibility of linkage between spaces; a linkage structured and ritualized that when performed correctly allowed for movement between those spaces. 2 This article revisits the events that led to the meeting between the Cherokee and Sir Alexander Cumming at Nikwasi on April 3, 1730, at which Cumming claims to have been crowned the ‘King of the Cherokee’. The approach is to walk with Cumming as he enters Cherokee space and reexamine the actions that led to his claimed coronation by examining the event through both the British and Cherokee spatial personas to unveil the different and complementary meanings of the incident. Utilizing a spatial analysis, the actions that occurred during the trip are reexamined. The article further details how actions viewed by the British as a daring and bold adventure, that brought the Cherokee into British space and therefore under British control, were for the Cherokee a series of events which, through a series of specific ceremonial actions, created a