The Cassique of Kiawah

The Cassique of Kiawah is a colonial romance about the early days of Charleston. In this novel, Simms robustly describes the competing claims of the English and Spanish over Charleston and its environs, including the attendant violence and actions of Spanish pirates and English privateers. He presents a vision of Charleston that was not genteel and sophisticated, but rather raucous and frontier-like; Simms thus used The Cassique of Kiawah to critique his home city, with which he had long had a contentious relationship, engaging in biting satire.