John Lawson was an explorer and early historian of the Carolina colony (now North and South Carolina). Arriving at Charleston in 1700, he participated in expeditions to the interior where he made extensive notes on the natural history of the region and gathered information on the Indigenous Sewee, Santee and Cherokee peoples. By 1705, he had settled near the Pamlico River in North Carolina, where he worked as a land surveyor, becoming Surveyor-General in 1708.
In 1709, he returned to London and set about publishing an account of the colony, perhaps in an effort to attract more settlers. Indeed, in 1710, he arranged for a party of Protestant refugees from Germany to settle in the colony, founding the town of New Bern in 1711. The book contained much information on the natural history, climate and Indigenous population of the colony and went through several editions, being translated into a range of European languages. This posthumous edition was published in 1714.