An Archaeological Examination of Life on the Military Site of Fort Garland, Colorado
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University of Nevada, Reno The Denizens of Manifest Destiny: An Archaeological Examination of Life on the Military Site of Fort Garland, Colorado A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Anthropology by Brandon Reynolds Dr. Donald Hardesty/Thesis Advisor August, 2013 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL We recommend that the thesis prepared under our supervision by BRANDON S REYNOLDS entitled The Denizens Of Manifest Destiny: An Archaeological Examination Of Life On The Military Site Of Fort Garland, Colorado be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Donald Hardesty, Ph. D., Advisor Carolyn White, Ph. D, Committee Member Scott Casper, Ph. D., Graduate School Representative Marsha H. Read, Ph. D., Dean, Graduate School August, 2013 i Abstract The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted the United States government a large sum of land consisting of what is now currently the American Southwest. This land was inhabited by a combination of Hispanic settlers and Native tribes. To maintain order in the region, the United States established a series of military posts garrisoned with troops who would be able to mobilize against any threats in this region. Fort Garland, situated in the San Luis Valley in south central Colorado, was one such fort. Though soldiers took part in various conflicts in the area, the site of Fort Garland saw no direct conflict with the local populations. The overarching goal of this thesis is to present a non-conflict military site such as Fort Garland as another form of settlement of the American West through the archaeological record. Additionally, this thesis looks to examine who is represented through the archaeology as well as gauge the effect the local populations had on the soldiers settling this region via the fort. ii Acknowledgements To start, I would like to acknowledge Dr. Richard Goddard and Tim Goddard for their advice and continued support-without them this thesis would likely never have gotten off the ground. Additionally, I would like to thank my committee chair Dr. Don Hardesty for his input, patience, and sagely advice as well, and my committee members Dr.’s White and Casper for their input, direction, and guidance. I would also like to thank the following colleagues, who without their help this thesis would not have been possible: Delfin Weis, Jamie Devine, Katy Keith, Joshua Dale Lemley, Jennifer Zane Foster, Cori Rich, Amanda Cvinar, Bre Fihr, and my many colleagues at UNR. Finally, I would like to thank the Colorado Historical Society and State Historic Fund for their cooperation and assistance in the completion of this thesis. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Archaeology and Military Sites 8 Chapter 3: Historical Perspectives of the American Army ……15 The people of the United States Army of the American West 16 Military Life 21 Forts and Outposts in the American West 28 Chapter 4: Fort Garland Background 34 San Luis Valley 35 Fort Massachusetts 37 Fort Garland 39 Historical documentation regarding Fort Garland 43 Previous archaeological work done at Fort Garland 50 My Research 53 Chapter 5: Results 55 iv Ceramics 57 Militaria 62 Toys 66 Apparel 67 Faunal 72 Glass 74 Miscellanea 79 Chapter 6: Discussion 81 Hispanic and Native Presence 81 Victorian Culture on the Frontier 84 Children and women on a military post? 86 Diet 89 Community of a unique nature 93 Life of a Soldier 97 Future directions for research 101 Bibliography 104 v TABLES Table 1: Daily routine of a soldier serving on the frontier 23 Table 2: Artifact types calculated, minus Faunal Remains 55 Table 3: Ceramic makes and sizes 59 Table 4: Ceramics with decorative motifs 60 Table 5: Faunal Results 73 FIGURES Figure 1: Fort Garland’s layout of 1867 33 Figure 2: Garland’s location in Colorado 34 Figure 3: Sketch of Fort Garland 42 Figure 4: Copy of a post return from Fort Garland, CO 44 Figure 5: Undated Pre 1863 plan of Fort Garland 46 Figure 6: Portrait of a family 47 Figure 7: Stereoscope card of soldiers relaxing 48 Figure 8: Areas of inquiry on the fort 54 Figure 9: Graph of ceramic results 61 vi FIGURES (cont) Figure 10: Militaria found in the Trash Middens 63 Figure 11: Bullets found in Middens 64 Figure 12: Shotgun shell fragment 65 Figure 13: Impacted Bullet 66 Figure 14: Button assemblage 69 Figure 15: Hoopskirt fragment 71 Figure 16: Boot sole 71 Figure 17: Faunal results 74 Figure 18: Bottle finish with cork 77 Figure 19: Flat topped bottle finish 78 APPENDICES Appendix A: Maps of Fort Garland 109 Appendix B: Photographs of Fort Garland 113 Appendix C: Catalog of artifacts examined 123 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The frontier experience, or rather the act of participating in the migration westward, is certainly one aspect that is engrained into our American identity (Fischer 1989). Part of the mystique surrounding the frontier stems from the dangers and peril of an untamed landscape, and this aspect has certainly penetrated popular culture in the vein of cowboys and John Wayne. The frontier, as Turner puts it, is “the line of most rapid and effective Americanization” (Turner 1893: 32). Thus, it is one of the defining aspects of American identity. Turner further states “[the frontier] finds him [the Easterner, or ‘civilized man’] a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade around him. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick; he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. In short, at the frontier 2 environment is at first to strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails. Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe…..The fact is, that here is a new product, that is American” (Turner 1893: 33). While Turner simplifies the frontier experience, the mystique of the American frontier has penetrated several fields of study, including historical archaeology, an umbrella term that blankets a wide variety of topics. Arguably originating in Great Britain (Trigger 2006), the study looks to promote an awareness of recent aspects of our past through archaeological methods. Historical archaeology has an added advantage in that the past it examines can be validated with the assistance of historical texts. This abundant (or often lack of) source material has limitations as historical texts, much like an archaeologist’s interpretation, can present biased viewpoints. Additionally, historic source materials present only a narrow viewpoint of the past. Not everyone was literate and capable of writing what they saw, further narrowing who is being represented in the written record. 3 Historical archaeology thus serves an alternate means in which to examine the past. Aside from the historical narrative, archaeological methodology provides a physical connection to the past. Artifacts that display human behavior patterns are examined, analyzed, and utilized in conjunction with the historical narrative to paint a clearer picture of the past. Within the United States, historical archaeology can be broken down into three major areas of research-industrial archaeology, ‘pioneer’ archaeology, and conflict archaeology. The debate over the sub headings for historical archaeology is long and arduous, and will likely see no end soon. For the sake of this thesis, these headings have been generalized. Industrial archaeological questions can arguably be applied to both conflict sites as well as boomtowns, for example, but the generalization remains the same and relevant. Each of these three avenues tends to focus on the American experience throughout various time periods, and individually can seem all encompassing, often overlapping into one of the other research sub-fields. Even with the overlap, a difference is seen. Dixon’s (2005) Boomtown Saloons differs from Metheney’s (2007) From the Miners’ Doublehouse not only in geographical location but in the 4 overall treatment of the social aspects of industrialism. Dixon’s (2005) work focuses on a boomtown in Virginia City, Nevada, centering on a saloon and looking at more of the public aspects of miner’s life whereas Metheney’s (2007)work is a more intimate look into a more private sphere of a miner’s home. Both authors examine miner’s lives in differing spheres while remaining within a similar topic within historical archaeology. Such an overlap in general theme is not uncommon-the difference comes down to the research questions being asked. The military sites of the past have not escaped the archaeologists gaze. Interest in military sites is arguably growing, with sites as varied as the Little Bighorn in Montana and Point du Hoc in France being examined. This conflict archaeology as it is being called focuses on avenues aside from conflict as well, taking a more humanistic approach. Cocroft and Wilson (2006) examine art and basic living quarters within a Cold War era site, focusing on how entrenched ‘conflict’ was with those who inhabited these spaces. Though some conflict era sites were part of a larger overall conflict (such as World War II bunkers (Burt et al. 2009), archaeologists are taking an anthropological approach to these places, asking questions 5 regarding behavioral aspects resulting from a conflict as opposed to the conflict itself-in essence, researchers are starting to examine the nature of the conflict through archaeological research and methodology (Scott et al.