Recalling Cahokia: Indigenous influences on English commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy in proprietary South Carolina, 1663-1721 Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Wall, William Kevin Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 10/10/2021 06:16:12 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/298767 RECALLING CAHOKIA: INDIGENOUS INFLUENCES ON ENGLISH COMMERCIAL EXPANSION AND IMPERIAL ASCENDANCY IN PROPRIETARY SOUTH CAROLINA, 1663-1721. by William kevin wall A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES PROGRAM In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2005 UMI Number: 3205471 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3205471 Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 2 The University of Arizona ® Graduate College As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by william kevin wall entitled Recalling Cahokia; Indigenous Influences on English Commercial Expansion and Imperial Ascendancy in Proprietary South Carolina, 1663-1721. and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of American Indian Studies Ph.D. mawaima date /^s '2da5 Robert A. Williamp Jr. date Nancv^arezo date // date T Tom^Hatley ' '<l^te Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. nf 0?aJ^ c^. <^O5 Dissertation Directo^y^. Tsianina Lomawaima /J oate 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been siibmitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED 4 DEDICATION For my niece Cooper, who led me to Cahokia. EPIGRAM I begin by taking. I will find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right. Frederick the Great 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 8 LIST OF TABLES 9 ABSTRACT 10 INTRODUCTION 12 Charles Town, the North American Contexts of Cross-Cultural Exchange, and Writing Indigenous Peoples into Histories of the Colonial Southeast 13 PART ONE: THE INDIGENOUS LONG DUREE: NORTH AMERICAN CONTEXTS OF ENGLISH EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION 41 1. The North American Historical Backdrop of Moundbuilding Societies 42 PART TWO: THE SUB-MISSISSIPPL\ SOUTHEAST: INDIGENOUS SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXTS OF PROPRIETARY CAROLINA 89 2. Indigenous Preconditions: The Root of Carolinian Ascendancy 90 Section One: Defining Sub-Mississippia Ill Section Two: Identifying Connections between Sub-Mississippia Peoples, Historic Tribes, and Contemporary Native Peoples 131 Section Three: A Mississippian Legacy of Trade and Diplomacy: Southeastern Exchange Networks 148 Section Four: Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia Influences on the Social Organization of Historic Indigenous Southeastern Peoples 185 Section Five: The Legacy of Mississippian Pohtical Organization 217 Section Six: Southeastern Geopolitical Landscapes 251 PART THREE: INDIGENOUS INFLUENCES ON TRADE AND DIPLOMACY IN PROPRIETARY CAROLINA 287 3. Charles Town as Case Study: Cycling Indigenous Partnerships in Proprietary South Carolina 288 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued CONCLUSIONS 381 NOTES 391 REFERENCES 415 8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE I. Late Mississippian Sites (AD 110-1500) Around Charles Town...21 FIGURE 2. Major Tributaries of the Mississippi 24 FIGURE 3. The Savannah River: Charles Town's Gateway into Indigenous America 26 FIGURE 4. Cofitachique and Charles Town 27 FIGURE 5. Immediate Indigenous Context of Charles Town at Oyster Point...29 FIGURE 6. Major Southeastern Mississippian Polities circa AD1600 30 FIGURE?. Poverty Point Site Map 54 FIGURE 8. Details of Mound 'A' and Adjacent Concentric Circles at Poverty Point 56 FIGURE 9. Late Mississippian Sites (AD 1100- 1500) 68 FIGURE 10. Sub-regions of Mississippian Culture 70 FIGURE 11. Late Mississippian Centers and Provinces 71 FIGURE 12. Coosa Province circa AD1560 72 FIGURE 13. Sub-regions of Mississippian Culture 106 FIGURE 14. Major Southeastern Mississippian Polities circa ADI600 107 FIGURE 15. Mississippian Chiefdoms Encountered by Hernando de Soto in Present-day Georgia circa AD 1540 146 FIGURE 16. Tugalo's Location relative to Late Southeastern Mississippian Provinces 150 FIGURE 17. River Basins of the American Southeast 251 FIGURE 18. Headwaters of the Catawba and Yadkin Rivers 258 FIGURE 19. Mississippian Provinces and Centers within the Self-Proclaimed Limits of Proprietary Carolina 259 FIGURE 20. Late Mississippian Centers and Province 267 FIGURE 21. Major Mississippian Sites in the Savannah River Valley (AD 1100-1450) 268 FIGURE 22. Major Mississippian Sites in the Savannah River Valley (AD 1450-1600) 273 FIGURE 23. Mississippian Abandonment of the Savannah River Valley 276 FIGURE 24. Major Rivers and selected Mississippian sites in present-day Georgia 278 FIGURE 25. Mississippian Sites in the Oconee river Basin 280 FIGURE 26. Spanish Province of Chicora circa 1670 292 FIGURE 27. Native Towns between Present-day Savannah, GA and Edisto Island, SC circa 1670 302 FIGURE 28. Native Towns at Winyah Bay circa 1670 303 FIGURE 29. Native Towns between Edisto and Winyah Bay circa 1670 304 FIGURE 30. Immediate Indigenous Context of Charles Town at Oyster Point...333 FIGURE 31. Sub-regions of Mississippian Culture 335 FIGURE 32. Southeastern Environmental Zones 341 LIST OF TABLES TABLE L Chronology of Moundbuilding Societies 50 10 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the nature of Indigenous influences on trade and diplomacy in proprietary South Carolina. While I was initially interested in the ways in which Indigenous slavery enriched proprietary Carolina and capitalized its commercial and imperial expansion, I was not willing to begin my investigation in AD 1670 because principle agents of this economic activity were members of Native societies, which had only a few generations prior to the establishment of Charles Town had lived under the hegemony of Mississippian mound centers and participated in Mississippian systems of governance, diplomacy, and exchange. As a result, this dissertation contextualizes Charles Town's commercial and diplomatic interactions with Native southeastern peoples from various Indigenous perspectives. Part One considers the long tradition of North American mound construction, emphasizing the Mississippian period, final epoch of moundbuilding, because Mississippian peoples encountered European explorers throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and interacted with Euro-American settler populations until the 1730s. Part Two attempts to demonstrate cultural, social and political continuity between Last Mississippian societies and historic southeastern tribal confederacies by critically considering the nature of Indigenous sociopolitical reorganization during the protohistoric period, embracing tribal traditions that openly celebrate connections to moundbuilding societies, and identifying Mississippian survivals in the sociopolitical institutions of Native southeastern peoples. Part Three demonstrates the utility of such broad methodological approaches, using Native history and culture as backdrops for 11 examining, re-reading, and explicating the events of cross-cultural interaction during Carolina's proprietary period. By creating and nurturing a market for indigenous slaves, Charles Town merchants were able to profoundly affect the social, economic, and political reorganization of indigenous peoples throughout the region; however, the institutional parameters and practical logistics of southeastern cross-cultural interaction remained distinctly Indigenous in character. I argue that Charles Town's Indian slave economy was subsidized by Indigenous