Celebrate America’s Fourteenth Colony with Historian Mike Bunn

On June 28 at 2 p.m., historian Mike Bunn will present a program about his book, “Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era.” This presentation is part of the library’s observation of the 250th birthday of the United States of America. It’s an opportunity to learn about lesser-known aspects of Alabama history and how the colony of West Florida, made up of what are now parts of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, experienced the revolutionary period.

According to the publisher’s information, “In ‘Fourteenth Colony,’ historian Mike Bunn offers the first comprehensive history of the colony, introducing readers to the Gulf Coast’s remarkable British period and putting West Florida back in its rightful place on the map of Colonial America.” The book was awarded the NSDAR Excellence in American History Award.

Mike Bunn is director of Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama. He served as director of Historic Chattahoochee Commission and also worked as a curator with the Columbus (Georgia) Museum and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s Museum of Mississippi. In addition, he has worked with the Birmingham Historical Society and the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society. “I have a passion for history and believe there is no more powerful connection with the past than visiting a site where history happened. I have been reading, researching, and writing about the history of the Gulf South my entire career, and traveling to visit its incredible historic sites my whole life. My primary interests are colonial, territorial period, antebellum, and Civil War history,” Mike explains.

He obtained his undergraduate degree from Faulkner University and earned master’s degrees in history and higher education administration from the University of Alabama. He also completed a graduate certificate in public history at the University of West Georgia. Bunn is author or co-author of several books on Gulf South history focusing on the colonial, early statehood, antebellum, and Civil War periods. He was recently announced as the recipient of the J.Y. Sanders Research Scholar Award by The Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies as Southeastern Louisiana University.

Mike is editor of Muscogiana, the journal of the Muscogee County (Georgia) Genealogical Society. He is also chair of the Baldwin County Historic Development Commission, vice president of the Mobile Area Civil War Roundtable, the treasurer of the Friends of Old Mobile, and a board member for the Bartram Trail Conference, the Friends of the Alabama Archives, and the Alabama Historical Association. He is a graduate of Leadership Baldwin and a certified interpretive guide with the National Association for Interpretation.

This presentation is supported by a grant award from the Alabama Humanities Alliance. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the Alabama Humanities Alliance. The library is grateful to the AHA for their support.

The program is free and open to the public. Additional parking is available on the grass beside the library and in the Moon Lake Campus lot just around the corner from the library.