Recalling Cahokia: Indigenous influences on English commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy in proprietary South Carolina, 1663-1721

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Authors Wall, William Kevin

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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

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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 ' '

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 institutions, which, although modified from their Pre-

Columbian character, retained numerous Mississippian qualities. By incorporating

English traders and commodities into preexisting commercial and diplomatic networks.

Native peoples subsidized Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy both directly and indirectly, catapulting South Carolina into positions of economic and diplomatic prominence, in ways which have not been completely explored. 12

INTRODUCTION 13

Charles Town, the North American Contexts of Cross-Cultural Exchange, and Writing Indigenous Peoples into Histories of the Colonial Southeast

1 began thinking about the English practice of enslaving Native peoples in the mid nineteen nineties while I was reading post colonial literature and working towards a

Master of Arts in English at North Carohna State University. When 1 began to cast about for an appropriate topic for my American Indian Studies dissertation in 2001,1 chose the subject for two primary reasons. First, it had not received a comprehensive academic treatment since the early twentieth century (Lauber 1913; Crane 1928), and as the earliest and most significant catalyst for cross cultural interaction between English colonists and

Indigenous American in the American Southeast, I thought it would provide an excellent foundation for future scholarship.

Taking the advice of Native Studies scholar Vine Deloria Jr., I began to assemble a "cast of characters" and to construct "a chronology of events" (Deloria 2002, IPLP lecture), taking particular notice of Indigenous places, agents, and actions. At this time, my dissertation project was essentially a historical project, and while I was not entirely comfortable with this turn of events, I pushed ahead in an attempt to bring Indigenous

Studies perspectives and methods to bear on Charles Town's Indian slave trade. One particular source of discomfort was the proposed chronology of events. Where should the study of Carolina's cross-cultural trade properly begin? Charles Town was permanently settled at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers in present-day

South Carolina in 1670, but using this date as chronological baseline prioritizes western 14 academic methodologies and Anglo-American analytical perspectives. As I considered the advantages and disadvantages of adopting orthodox approaches to southeastern colonial history, two significant events occurred.

The first event was the publication of The Indian Slave Trade: Rise of the English

Empire in the American South by colonial historian Alan Gallay in 2002, which examined Charles Town's proprietary circumstances more systematically and comprehensively than I could have ever hoped to have done. Although it represented

Indigenous participation in the southeastern colonial dynamics uncritically, and at times, somewhat prejudicially, Gallay's text successfully surveyed the larger geopolitical landscapes of the colonial southeast. Even though Gallay's portrayal of Native Peoples is flat and his characterizations of their actions critically uninformed, his text is a welcome and much needed addition to the work of Almon Lauber {Indian Slavery within the

Present Limits of the United States, 1913) and Vemer Crane {The Southern Frontier,

1928), which were the most detailed accounts of Charles Town's trade in Indigenous slaves until The Indian Slave Trade was published. More importantly, Gallay's text gave me the opportunity to reconsider the subject of Indian slavery in proprietary South

Carolina, especially the implications of beginning an analysis of the southeast's most significant cross-cultural phenomenon from Eurocentric points of reference.

The second event was a serendipitous trip to the Cahokia Mounds near present- day St. Louis, Missouri, where I began to restructure my analysis of Carolina's Indian slave economy by considering the Indigenous contexts of Carolina's Indian trade, which informed and subsidized Charles Town's lucrative practice of purchasing Indigenous 15 slaves from Native allies and deporting them to sugar plantations in the West Indies or northern English colonies such as Massachusetts. Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, designated a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and

Cultural Organization, is a monument to the social sophistication and technological achievements of Native North Americans, a place that offers clear evidence that

Indigenous North America was complex, dynamic, and interactive. After seeing it firsthand, I began to wonder in what ways the exchange networks of Cahokia and other

Mississippian Chiefdoms might have facilitated England's rapid Imperial ascendancy and subsidized South Carolina's commercial expansion in the American South.' As a result of this change in perspective, the focus of my dissertation shifted from a narrow analysis of the circumstances and events of Charles Town's Indian slave trade to the broader contexts that informed, enabled, and facilitated a commercial enterprise such as this, an economic activity with profound social and economic ramifications.

After surveying and critically examining archaeological, historical, and ethnohistorical literature, sorting through documentary evidence, and taking account of

Southeastern tribal traditions that posit direct connections to North America's ancient moundbuilding societies, I became convinced that Charles Town was founded on the periphery of a Mississippian World in the midst of reorganized Mississippian societies, which were able to utilize their knowledge of Mississippian diplomacy to incorporate

English traders, goods, and ideas into former Mississippian networks of exchange, using the knowledge of their ancestors and their own North American experiences in order to meet environmental and demographic challenges and take advantage of the emerging 16 opportunities presented by the presence of Europeans, who were willing to enter into appropriate relationships.

This hypothesis is based on three primary assumptions. First, 1 assume that the colonial southeast was a region of cultural confluences, where the deep social, political, and historical traditions of Indigenous American and Europeans peoples merged. This confluence of Indigenous and European traditions, which included Mississippian, Sub-

Mississippia,^ Spanish, English, and French influences, provided the immediate sociopolitical contexts for cross-cultural encounters during the early colonial southeast.

Since I argue that Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia influences were a natural and necessary aspect of southeastern cultural confluence during the early colonial period, I also assume the existence of social, political and cultural continuity between "prehistoric"

Mississippian moundbuilding societies and "historic" tribal confederacies, continuities that provided the contexts for Sub-Mississippia sociopolitical reorganization in the protohistoric American Southeast. The assertion of social, political, and cultural continuity between pre and post Columbian societies is at odds with orthodox academic characterizations of Native North American sociopolitical development; however, properly contextualizing the cross-cultural encounters characteristic of proprietary

Carolina requires a critical re-evaluation of the protohistoric era. The process of demonstrating such continuities requires considering the longevity of North American moundbuilding traditions and the persistent survival of shared cosmological principles and cultural practices. The structural similarities inherent in Southeastern beliefs and practices are exemplified in many aspects of Indigenous Southeastern existence. A few of the most obvious examples are the widespread utilization of common architectural elements and the familiar arrangement of Native Towns around central plazas or square- grounds, common cosmologies, philosophies, ceremonies that promoted Indigenous

Southeastern priorities, and the multi-level administrations characteristic of Southeastern sociopolitical organization. Adopting such a rhetorical perspective, allows me to argue that the sociopolitical reorganization of Native southeastem societies during the protohistoric period can be understood, at least in part, as a function of the influence of moundbuilding societies, especially the traditions of Late Mississippian societies.

My final assumption is a product of the first two. I believe that Charles Town specifically and proprietary Carolina generally provide one of the most productive environments for demonstrating the validity of this hypothesis. The rapid development of Carolina's lucrative trade in Indigenous slaves and deerskins, the colony's rapid commercial expansion, Carolina's ability to facilitate the deportation of Native peoples from as far away as the Illinois country and the trans-Mississippi west, and England's ultimate imperial ascendancy provide a rich documentary record that can be mined for aspects of Mississippian societies that survived into the historic era, especially

Mississippian traditions and practices that promoted trade and diplomacy among moundbuilding societies and might have subsidized and enabled English commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy.

These assumptions evolve out of a realization that North America was neither pristine nor unoccupied when Europeans began to arrive. On the contrary. North

America was home to rich traditions, which had tremendous historical depth and 18 profound impacts on colonial situations. I marshal these assumptions in an effort to shift the analytical gaze of archaeologists, historians, and other western academics interested in understanding North America's ancient pasts as well as the cross-cultural colonial encounters that shaped the continent's development. From this adjusted rhetorical perspective, understanding Charles Town's Native slave trade and explicating its economic and imperial importance for the colony's subsequent expansion requires integrating western concepts, and their accompanying academic theories and methods, with a methodological approach that recognizes, acknowledges, and explores the implications of proprietary Carolina's North American context. Adopting these assumptions, that the American Southeast was a region of cross-cultural confluence and the Indigenous aspects of this confluence were likely the products of the continuum of

North American circumstances rather than the result of more recently imposed European influences, characterizes cross-cultural colonial encounters such as Charles Town's

Native slave economy as aspects of a continuous North American experience and not solely the catastrophic result of the chaos created by European exploration, colonization, and disease-induced demographic collapse.

This explication of my hypothesis and its underlying assumptions is a complicated way of expressing a fundamental concept: Histories of the southeast that include Native peoples or attempt to incorporate Indigenous perspectives should consider, and perhaps in many cases prioritize, the North American contexts of these colonial dynamics. As a result of this theoretical and methodological orientation, one that considers the North American contexts of colonial circumstances in colonial Carolina, the 19 focus of my dissertation shifted from quantitative analysis of Charles Town's Indian slave trade and its economic impacts to an investigation into how Indigenous North

American practices and institutions may have influenced and enabled English colonization and imperial ascendancy in the American South,. This dissertation approaches the commercial and diplomatic interactions between Indigenous peoples and

English subjects during South Carolina's proprietary period by first considering the larger

North American contexts of these encounters, taking account of the tradition of North

American Moundbuilding (1750 BC-AD 1731), especially the Mississippian Period of

Moundbuilding Florescence and then theorizing a period of Sub-Mississippia socio­ political reorganization.

Charles Town was established on the periphery of a Mississippian World in at least two fundamental ways; temporally and geographically. Cahokia is generally considered the apex of Mississippian society and culture, the most complex manifestation of North America's ancient moundbuilding traditions (Nies 1996, 42). Archaeologists estimate Cahokia's hegemony peaked in the thirteenth century. As Cahokia's influence began to decline, so did regional Mississippian centers throughout the American southeast associated with Cahokia's socio-political ascendancy, as well as the intra- continental exchange networks that linked the Mississippian World. Scholars posit the dissolution of fully fiinctioning Mississippian societies, which was not complete until the eighteenth century, as the result of the inter-related affects of environmental, demographic, and technological circumstances. Charles Town was established in the middle of the seventeenth century after major Mississippian regional centers had 20 diminished in importance and Mississippian societies had begun regional processes of socio-political reorganization to meet the challenges of a drier climate as well as the introduction of European diseases and technologies. In other words, English colonization of present-day South Carolina began as Mississippian societies, once associated with the intra-continental exchange networks of the larger Mississippian World, were increasingly influenced by regional circumstances as the importance of larger Mississippian socio­ political influences waned.

As an examination of the locations of major Mississippian centers reveals (see

Figure 1), present-day South Carolina was established on the easternmost edge of the

Mississippian socio-political matrix. The territory claimed in Charles Town's Proprietary charter corresponds to a Mississippian culture area archaeologists have labeled the

Southern Appalachian sub-region. This sub-region includes many of the most important late Mississippian mound centers such as Moundville, Etowah, Ocmulgee, and

Cofitachique. Charles Town's placement on the periphery of reorganizing Indigenous polities, which had formerly been subject to the hegemony of these paramount chiefdoms and were undergoing processes of reorganization when Charles Town was established, was a contributing factor to Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial influence.

Figure 1 clearly illustrates two very important aspects of Charles town's initial geopolitical circumstances. First, Charles town was located in a circumscribed watershed. The Cooper and Ashley Rivers, which surround Charles Town, drain a comparatively small region. However, Charles Town's limited watershed is immediately adjacent to riparian environments that reach the Appalachian Mountains. Mississippian 21 political economy was, at least in part, a function of the control and utilization of riparian environments. When judged according to Mississippian territorial criterion, Charles

Town's diplomatic and commercial horizons were severely limited, at least when the colony was originally established at the behest of local Indigenous leaders.

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SlilLO ' m T(m\ C REEK hi SPIRO —i N y

W1.MERVIU.E

• MOtNDVliLE

CHARLES TOWN (1670) ;

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Figure 1: Late Mississippian Sites (AD 110-1500) in relation to Charles Town. Adapted from a map in O'Conner, (1995). Lost Cities of the Ancient Southeast, University of Florida Press, 54. 22

The second point worth noting is Charles Town's proximity to the Savannah

River. The Savannah River, which constitutes the border between present-day South

CaroUna and Georgia, provided Charles Town's traders direct access to Indigenous towns along the Chattahoochee, Coosa, and Tallapoosa Rivers in present-day Georgia and

Alabama. These towns were probably associated with the paramount chiefdom of Coosa a short time prior to English colonization in Carolina. Because the portage between the headwaters of the Savannah and Coosa is relatively short, less than fifty miles, English traders such as Henry Woodward were able to open relationships with Native peoples in present-day Georgia and Alabama only five years after the colony was established.

North of the colony, the geopolitical circumstances were very similar. The Santee

River cuts through the South Carolina piedmont, passing through the former territory of

Cofitachique, a paramount chiefdom visited by Juan Pardo in the late sixteenth century.

North of Cofitachique (present-day Camden, South Carolina), the Santee is known as the

Wateree River. The Wateree River passes present-day Charlotte, North Carolina, where it is once again renamed and identified as the Catawba River. Flowing from the north and west, the Catawba reaches the Appalachian foothills near present-day Ashville, North

Carolina. North of Charles Town on the Atlantic coast, the Great Pee Dee River empties into Winyah Bay, where another important trading factory was established by Charles

Town's Indian traders. The Great Pee Dee also drains North Carolina's western mountains, where it is known as the Yadkin River. The Yadkin River drains a watershed north of the Catawba, a region between present-day Lenoir and Blowing Rock, North

Carolina. 23

As Figure 1 illustrates, Charles Town was serendipitously established on the eastern boundary of a Mississippian World where trade and exchange were vital aspects of political influence during a period of Indigenous political decentralization and social reorganization. As a result, the inhabitants of colonial Carolina found themselves in a unique and advantageous position. Carolina's Indian Trade was profitable on a number of different levels, serving Carolina's commercial desires and imperial goals. The Indian

Trade was profitable in a commercial sense, and it provided opportunities to influence

Native societies at the expense of Spanish and French interests. Because trade had traditionally been a fundamental aspect of the negotiation of power relationships between

Mississippian polities, Carolina's willingness to freely provide trade goods enhanced their prestige among Indigenous southeastern peoples in ways they likely failed to fully appreciate.

Figures 2 and 3 demonstrate the importance of North America's riparian networks in the greater southeast during both the Mississippian and Colonial Eras. Tributaries of the Mississippi linked regional moundbuilding centers and promoted commercial, diplomatic, and intellectual exchange for thousands of years. Indigenous Americans began constructing earthen mounds on the Lower Mississippi River around six thousand years ago (Nies 1996, 13). As moundbuilding societies became more complex, they spread up the Mississippi to the Great Lakes and up the Ohio into the northeast.

Mississippian polities, which dominated the southeastern sociopolitical landscape prior to the arrival of Europeans, were part of the third and final phase of Indigenous American 24

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I* fILROKE (ML !6?0) UPl6t CRl^ -^^M.^T/C^>C•6^.^ OtOCttW COWER

pAam. oaAs -igure 2: Major Tributaries of the Mississippi. Adapted from a map in Salisbury (2000), "The Indians Old World: Native Americans and the Conriing of Europeans." American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers from European Contact to Indian Removal, 1500-1850. Rutledge, 18. moundbuilding traditions. During the Mississippian Period (AD 800-1732) mound construction techniques were modified and Mississippian societies spread throughout the southeast. Each of the three main phases of mound construction was underwritten by the production of agricultural surpluses and the maintenance of intra-continental exchange networks, which supplied raw materials to artisans and disseminated finished products endowed with spiritual and political power throughout eastern North America.

Mississippian expansion into the southeast coupled with longstanding traditions of trade and exchange created over-arching cultural affinities, which archaeologists have referred to as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (Galloway 1989). As Figure 2 25 clearly illustrates, Mississippian spheres of influence and their constituent mound center complexes were linked together via North America's major rivers. The Tennessee River was the primary link between Mississippian polities in the Southern Appalachian sub- region, a culture area that includes parts of present-day North Carolina, Alabama and

Georgia and all of South Carolina, and Mississippian polities on the Upper Mississippi such as Cahokia. The importance of Indigenous riparian networks made the headwaters region of the Savannah River strategically important for peoples residing in the piedmont regions of present-day Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, whether they were

Native or non-Native.^ Figure 3 demonstrates the strategic advantages Charles Town obtained when it was able to exercise political and military control over the Savannah

River. In addition to providing English direct access to Indigenous towns in present-day eastern Georgia and those formerly associated with the paramount chiefdom of Coosa in present-day northern Georgia and Alabama, the Savannah River was also an avenue to commercial markets among Cherokee towns. Charles Town traders quickly established trading factories at the headwaters at of the Savannah at sites such as Tugalo, which had formerly been mound centers as late as the mid-seventeenth century. Under the direction of Theophilus Hastings, these factories supplied English goods to all of the major

Cherokee settlements."^

As English traders began to make contact and open relationships with Indigenous societies of the American interior, southeastern riparian networks facilitated English commercial and imperial aspirations just as they had facilitated the spread of Indigenous moundbuilding societies and Mississippian cultural hegemony immediately prior to the 26

• Native Towns CHEROKES D European Settlements CATAWBA (SIOIIAN- SPEAKERS) CHICKASAW COOS

) /' UPPBR.CRESKrl Augusta ^'Gisisu Okrhay*- Charles Tins \ twWu'i^w YAMAbEt CHOCTAW^^' \fJX»vw • U-TOUtal-t'^CllSS-tta / srCkimec } x c.iwo-ms^-^ •' i III tOWER CREEK ^ " k /o SalMtx>la r

Atimm Ocm f Mobile 1 !^msaa)la APALACHEE / v^'XIMUCUA FtSanXlarcoii } i S*|:S|» SEMrSOlES s.-i

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Figure 3: The Savannah River: Charles Town's Gateway into Indigenous America. Adapted from a map in Hahn, (2002), The Invention of the Creek Confederacy, 1670-1763, University of Nebraska Press, viii. arrival of European explorers. From the headwaters of the Savannah River, the

Tennessee and Coosa Rivers are readily accessible. Eventually, Native guides would lead

English and Scottish traders through these watersheds into North America's

Mississippian heartland, where Sub-Mississippia polities dominated the sociopolitical landscape well into the historical era. The headwaters region of the Savannah River was 27

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Figure 4; Cofitachique and Charles Town. Adapted from a map in Quattlebaum (1956), The Land Called Chicora: The Carolinas Under Spanish Rule with French Intrusions, 1520-1670. University of Florida Press, endpapers. an Indigenous crossroads of great significance. This area was formerly subject to the authority of paramount chiefdom Coosa. Etowah, another major Mississippian center, was also located in the immediate vicinity near present-day Cartersville Georgia. The region would eventually anchor Carolina's expanding commercial empire and become the proving ground for Carolina's colonial Indian policy. 28

From the headwaters of the Savamiah River, the Ohio River, and ultimately the

Mississippi itself, were accessible via the Little Tennessee and Tennessee Rivers. For

Charles Town traders, the region was a portal into a Sub-Mississipia World, an

Indigenous sociopolitical matrix of former Mississippian towns that reached to the

Mississippi River and beyond. The colonial outpost of Charles Town was established on the Atlantic coast in the midst of Sub-Mississippia societies (see Figure 4), which had been part of larger Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia sociopolitical contexts. These communities, like those Carolina traders would encounter across the Savannah and the

Appalachian Mountains were able to utilize their knowledge of Indigenous, pre-

Columbian traditions of trade and diplomacy to promote English interests, incorporating

Charles Town traders, English goods, and European ideas into Mississippian networks of exchange. Figure 4 presents Charles Town's regional Sub-Missisippia context, and clearly represents the limited extent of its riparian environment. Although Charles Town is less than one hundred miles from Cofitachique (present-day Camden South Carolina), the settlements occupied different watersheds, and so by Mississippian territorial standards were quite distinct. Figure 4 also illustrates extent of Native settlement along the Atlantic coast. Even after one hundred fifty years of Spanish exploration, this region was the site of numerous Indigenous towns, which are often collectively referred to as

Cusabo Settlements. In these coastal communities, Charles Town's Indigenous neighbors utilized familiar Mississippian political and religious symbols, Mississippian architectural design elements, and were likely affiliated with larger paramount chiefdoms in the

Carolina Piedmont and Appalachian foothills. The native communities of the Atlantic 29

SEWEEfl settles BAY BULL BAY

CHARLES-/ \ 70WN-\\ \^I670\-

CHALESTON CAtQUA

HAfiver HAV£N- /eee NORTH EDISTO RIVER

Figure 5: The Immediate Indigenous Context of Charles Town at Oyster Point. Adapted from a map in Quattlebaum (1956), The Land Called Chicora: The Carolinas Under Spanish Rule with French Intrusions, 1520-1670. University of Florida Press, endpapers. seaboard were linguistically diverse. Settlements north of Charles Town spoke Siouan dialects while those to the south were Muskogee-speakers.

Figure 5 presents an image of Oyster Point and Charles Town's immediate

Indigenous context. Oyster Point was the third location of Charles Town. Originally located on the Cape Fear River in present-day North Carolina, it was moved to the estuary at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers after Robert Sandford's expedition in 1666. In 1670, the settlement was moved to Oyster Point for security reasons. Figure 5 illustrates Charles Town's proximity to Native towns, which utilized

Mississippian architectural elements and were likely subject to one or more of the region's paramount chiefdoms in the recent past. 30

Powhatan

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CHALAQUE \ > ./ Cofitachequi Coosa ^

\Ocute\j, Quale ' s. —

Apalachee / , Timucuans Pensacxjla^'

Tocobaga

Catusa w Tequestc 0 250 km Figure 6: Major Southeastern Mississippian Polities circa AD1600. Adapted from a map in Scarry (1994), "The Late Protohistoric Southeast." Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704. University of Georgia Press, 26.

When Proprietary Carolina's Discovery claims are juxtaposed to a Southeastern

Mississippian landscape (see Figure 6), Charles Town's Sub-Mississippia contexts become even more apparent. As Figure 6 illustrates, Charles Town was established in the midst of Mississippian societies in various states of socio-political reorganization. The

Sub-Mississippia polities that developed in the wake of region-wide Mississippian sociopolitical reorganization used knowledge passed down from the Mississippian

Societies they had descended from in order to meet environmental and demographic challenges so that they could capitalize on the new opportunities presented by Europeans 31 colonists, who were willing to enter into appropriate kinds of commercial and diplomatic relationships.

In order to construct convincing academic arguments for Indigenous cultural continuity across the protohistoric period and the importance of Sub-Mississippia influences on the conduct of colonial trade and diplomacy, it is necessary to address the widely accepted and frequently cited, though as yet unproven, supposition that Native societies collapsed in the wake of European diseases and technologies. The paradigm of

Native cultural collapse is based on three interrelated theories: the very real possibility that North America was undergoing environmental changes that weakened Mississippian societies dependent upon surplus com production to maintain their hierarchal societies; the belief that Native American societies suffered a severe demographic collapse as a result of the introduction of European diseases; and that corresponding social collapse resulted from the introduction of European technologies that totally reordered Native labor, subsistence, and power relationships.

The impact of employing this theoretical model is immediately apparent. Basing historical analysis on the assumption of a perceived Native cultural collapse interrupts the continuum of Indigenous history in North America, sharply dividing Indigenous

American experience into Prehistoric and Historic eras and disassociating Native

Southeastern Societies from their cultural origins. It is imperative to note that such assertions of cultural discontinuity are at odds with Native traditions and tribal histories, including those of the Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Iroquois, and the five largest 32

Southeastern Native Confederacies, which posit direct connections to and influences from their ancient moundbuilding ancestors (Mann 2003, 105-69).

Given these circumstances, scholars of the colonial southeast are left with a stark choice when deciding which interpretive frameworks to employ in reading and representing Indigenous pasts. They can either embrace the notion that there was a period of Sub-Mississippia sociopolitical reorganization, which was predicated on

Mississippian survivals from a "prehistoric" era or, they can continue to sub-divide human history of North American into two distinct periods separated by a cataclysmic protohistoric period of complete cultural collapse. Obviously, I have decided to try to demonstrate the former rather than accept the troubling political, ideological, and sociological implications that accompany assertions of the latter.

In order to demonstrate the existence of sociopolitical and cultural continuity between Mississippian and historic Native societies, I have assembled seven categories of evidence. I begin by reconsidering the protohistoric period and confronting the problems facing researchers who wish to gain further insight into these critically important periods.

By re-characterizing the protohistoric period as Sub-Mississippia and prioritizing the concept of reorganization instead of interpretive frameworks that hinge on Native demographic collapse and cultural discontinuity, I embrace and incorporate the tribal traditions that have been de-emphasized or elided in academic literature. Even though the Sub-Mississippia period is beyond the reach of all but the very earliest documents and located between the contexts of prehistoric archaeology and the documentarily-grounded practices of historic archaeology, ethnohistorical methods such as "upstreaming," and the 33

application of archaeological evidence allow for greater insights into how Native peoples

used their pasts to meet challenges and embrace emerging opportunities presented by the

arrival of European settler populations. In this way, I directly address the ambivalent

academic position of protohistoric studies.

Because it is often difficult to separate the political, social, spiritual, and

ceremonial spheres of Indigenous societies, I consciously place mounds and

moundbuilding societies at the center of my analysis of Southeastern colonial history.

Because mounds are quintessential markers of Indigenous southeastern identity and symbolic bearers of enduring southeastern cultural traditions, they provide scholars an

opportunity to incorporate Indigenous perspectives that inform our study of cross-cultural

encounters. Because mounds embody Indigenous philosophical principles, placing them at the center of colonial encounters brings Indigenous perspectives of history, regional integration, diplomacy, and commerce to bear on the analysis and representation of multi­ ethnic historical events.

I attempt to identify Mississippian legacies of trade and diplomacy, such as the existence of an Indigenous network of roads and trails that crisscrossed the southeast, trade jargons and pidgins that facilitated communication is the linguistically diverse southeast, and ceremonies such as the Calumet that provided mechanisms for opening trade relationships and initiating international negotiations.

I look for and identify numerous similarities in the social organization of

Mississippian societies and Southeastern tribal confederacies. The South is generally portrayed as a region exhibiting significant over-arching cultural similarities. Referred to by archaeologists as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, Native societies shared similar religious iconography, organizing principles, and a common view of the cosmological order of the universe. Ceremonial affinities such as the ubiquitous Green

Com Ceremony abound. Historic Native peoples employed Mississippian architectural elements in the design and construction of their towns and sacred places. Additionally, anecdotal evidence illustrates Mississippian survivals were, in fact, quite commonplace in the historic era. Native Southeastern peoples played the same games, participated in similar public works programs, and chose the same subjects and employed the same themes in their artistic expression. They practiced the same trades, and organized themselves socially in clans and towns as their Mississippian ancestors had.

I also attempt to identify political affinities between hierarchal Mississippian societies and apparently egalitarian historic tribal societies. One of the most problematic consequences of the paradigm of Southeastern cultural collapse is that it creates a stark dichotomy between the prehistoric and the historic when in fact the processes of tribal confederation may have had their origins in the difficulties associated with public administration in simple, complex, and paramount chiefdoms. Because chiefdoms faced the difficulty of coordinating ceremonial, agricultural, and political activities among outlying villages and hamlets as well as with other polities in complex and paramount chiefdoms, they must have had mechanisms, other than the violence of warfare, to arrive at decisions, regulate behavior, and coordinate commercial, ceremonial, and subsistence activities of subordinate populations. Since historic confederacies and Mississippian polities had similar pohtical objectives, they likely utilized similar political institutions to 35 affect change and achieve domestic security. Tribal confederacies in the colonial period exhibited multilevel administrations, which were predicated on political principles that prioritized public debate, caucus, and consensus. Political events occurred in the town's council house on almost a daily basis, and recent archaeological evidence of the construction of the villages and hamlets of outlying Mississippian polities suggests that these principles might have also been a part of Mississippian political consciousness.

Like their Mississippian ancestors, southeastern peoples placed towns at the center of their political identities and used clan relationships as means of extending "political relationships" beyond ethnic and linguistic boundaries.

Demonstrating continuity between prehistoric chiefdoms and historic tribal confederacies is complicated by a number of theoretical and methodological obstacles.

Perhaps most obviously, attempts to explicate Southeastern Indigenous perspectives on sociopolitical reorganization practices is predicated on the scholarship of Hudson (1970,

1976, 1990) Swanton (1911, 1922, 1928, 1946), Mooney (1894, 1990), and Mooney's principle source for insights into Cherokee philosophy and culture, Ayun'ini.^ This situation is problematic for a number of reasons. Hudson's survey of Indigenous southeastern culture in The Southeastern Indians is a general treatment of a very complex and dynamic region, yet it remains one of the few comprehensive treatments of the culture change in the region. It remains a very important contribution to ethnohistorical literature, but it is an oversimplified analysis of Indigenous southeastern experience. The scope of Swanton's work is impressive, but his work is descriptive rather than analytical and general in nature if not regionally focused. In his work on the southeast, Mooney 36 concentrated almost exclusively on the Cherokee and the testimony of Aynun'ini, a socially conservative Cherokee doctor, who resided in Big Cove on the Qualla Boundary.

Both Swanton and Mooney practiced salvage ethnography, which was typical of early twentieth century scholarship, based on a conviction that Native peoples were doomed to extinction. Their respective bodies of work were essentially efforts to reconstruct static ethnographic Native pasts, which never existed. Each of these scholars looks to major tribal confederacies for insights into Native southeastern culture, but tribal confederacies were late developments and may not adequately represent the full spectrum of southeastern beliefs and practices.

In spite of these shortcomings, their work does, however, provide many valuable details and insights into Native life and experience, which are worthy of close scrutiny and careful consideration. For these reasons, my search for Indigenous sociopolitical continuity across the protohistoric era, and the necessary incorporation of ethnographic source material that from a Native Studies perspective is rather problematic, deals with only the most readily observable and extensively documented phenomenon. My goal is not to propose that Mississippian cultural orientations were monolithic and unchanging or that regional manifestations of Mississippian culture were uniform throughout the southeast. I argue, instead, for an Indigenous southeast that was united by over-arching cultural, intellectual, and sociopolitical similarities, not a region absent regional variation and cultural adaptation. I wish to demonstrate that Native southeastemers were similar enough to visualize, construct, and maintain inter-regional trade and intellectual exchange networks, but not rigidly structured by dominant, unchanging Mississippian hegemony 37 emanating from the Mississippi River Valley. The work of Hudson, Swanton, and

Mooney's work can be used to my purpose, keeping in mind the limitations of each.

In addition to demonstrating Indigenous cultural, intellectual, and sociopolitical continuity between prehistoric chiefdoms and historic tribal confederacies, I try to establish a Southeastern geopolitical landscape that includes as many Native societies as possible, not just those that have been traditionally prioritized by selective applications of documentary records. Charles Town was established on the periphery of Mississippian

World, immediately adjacent to active Mississippian zones in the Savannah, Oconee, and

Chattahoochee River basins and in the midst of reorganizing Sub-Mississippia peoples residing in the piedmont regions of the Atlantic coast.

Finally, I closely scrutinize available documentary evidence and recent historical and ethnohistorical scholarship in an attempt to identify examples of Mississippian

Survivals in the historically documented actions and behaviors of Indigenous

Southeastern peoples residing near Charles Town. When Charles Town was established, many Native communities begin a process of strategic relocation. Yamassee people left their Spanish missions to relocate next to Stuart Town south of Charles Town on the

Savannah River. Towns formerly associated with the Coosa chiefdom on the

Chattahoochee River relocated to the Oconee River Valley, placing themselves in close proximity to English traders. Throughout the colonial period, these towns would enjoy a relative trade advantage vis-a-vis other Native towns because they were the first to enter into commercial relationships with the Charles Town traders. North of Charles Town, towns formerly associated with the paramount chiefdom of Cofitachique moved to take 38 command of the lower section of the Occaneechi Trading path, placing themselves between the two best sources of English trade goods, Jamestown and Charles Town. All of these tribal movements reveal an appreciation of the advantages to be gained from opening trading relationships and gaining ready access to commodities and trade goods.

The ability to control trade had long been an aspect of Mississippian political power, and these tribal movements suggest that the connection between political influence and the control of trade goods continued to be a viable aspect of Native political philosophy in the proprietary period. As a result, I believe the circumstances of commercial and imperial expansion during South Carolina's proprietary period provides an excellent opportunity to explore the possibility that the protohistoric era was a period of Indigenous sociopolitical reorganization rather than apocalyptic destruction of ancient traditions and practices associated with North American moundbuilding societies, to demonstrate cultural continuity between Mississippian societies and historic tribal confederacies, and to introduce new methods and theories for writing Indigenous histories.

This investigation of the Carolina slave trade begins by adopting broad cultural and philosophical perspectives. I have expanded the chronology of events in order to include a sense of the North American contexts structuring the Native Peoples first encountered in the Southeast. In many cases the Native southeastern polities encountered by Soto and other Spanish explorers survived in readily identifiable way until the arrival of English colonists in the next century. Mississippian polities in the southeast had direct cultural, political, and sociological connections to the ancient North American moundbuilding traditions, and many of these characteristics were passed on to 39 descendants who encountered Europeans and incorporated them into Mississippian structured networks of intellectual and commercial exchange. While these polities had been altered by a variety of adverse circumstances that are not well understood by archaeologists and historians, they continued to function, exhibiting recognizable aspects of their Mississippian heritage.

This dissertation is structured in three parts. The first establishes the larger North

American contexts of English exploration and colonization of the southeast, a three thousand year history of trade and diplomacy associated with the rise and fall of moundbuilding societies. The second part addresses the difficulties presented by the academic paradigm of cultural collapse and attempts to substitute in its place a vision of sociopolitical development in the southeast that takes account of the region's moundbuilding traditions. By redefining the protohistoric period as the Sub-Mississippia period, I attempt to demonstrate that Charles Town was established in the midst of

Mississippian chiefdoms and reorganizing Sub-Mississippia polities, which drew heavily on their Indigenous pasts and in so doing directly subsidized Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy. The third part of this dissertation identifies

Indigenous influences on trade and diplomacy in the first half of Carolina proprietary period through a close examination of the documentary evidence and the historical record, reading Indigenous responses to European colonization and the incorporation of actions of Charles Town's Indian into Indigenous exchange networks as a fiinction of

Indigenous American history rather than as a reaction to the European catalysts of change such as the introduction of diseases and European technological superiority. 40

My intention is to set a historical stage that emphasizes Indigenous contexts, promoting perspectives that gaze in an eastwardly rather than westerly direction. When approached from this perspective, the subject of Carolina's Indian slave trade is cast in a new light that prioritizes North American influences. This alternative approach is employed because the southeastern trade in Indigenous slaves, the most important economic catalyst for Carolina, is predicated upon cross-cultural relationships that had a distinctly indigenous character. To analyze the events and circumstances of such a fiindamentally important phenomenon in the absence of at least half of it most significant influences is problematic. The first step towards properly contextualizing the Carolina

Indian slave trade requires surveying the North American historical contexts for the initial cross-cultural encounters in the southeast. The next step requires demonstrating areas of continuity between the prehistoric Mississippian polities that were well established in the regions surrounding Charles Town until the early seventeenth century and the historic tribes Carolina colonists negotiated and traded with fifty years later. Only then is it possible to fiilly appreciate the numerous ways in which Native peoples enriched Carolinians. 41

PART ONE:

THE INDIGENOUS LONG DUREE: NORTH AMERICAN CONTEXTS OF ENGLISH EXPLORATIONN AND COLONIZATION 42

CHAPTER ONE

The North American Historical Backdrop of Moundbuilding Societies

South Carolina's trade in Indigenous slaves is the nucleus of this dissertation because it the anchor of a complex interplay of culture, language, and history. While it is not the nucleus of this dissertation in the sense that it is the primary subject of inquiry, the enslavement of Native peoples constitutes an essential core, which exerts centripetal force that attracts and binds together the disparate, trans-cultural, sociopolitical matrix of the colonial Southeast. To examine and explicate the core concept, the affects of its satellites must be taken into account. In other words, the significance of Indian Slavery, as an economic enterprise and an agent of sociopolitical reorganization, is obscured by the interplay of the forces that act upon it. Accurately describing the mechanics of colonial interaction requires an understanding the nature of these forces. Carolina's

Indian slave trade anchors ongoing colonial processes of cultural negotiation. It is the center a trans-cultural vortex, where the mechanics of cross-cultural interaction are obscured by the diversity of its constituent elements and the complexity their interaction.

As the nucleus of this dissertation, Indian Slavery is a core concept that enables closer scrutiny of an elusive subject, the degree to which Native systems of knowledge subsidized English colonial activities.

Analyzing historical phenomenon such as Carolina Native slave economy is an extraordinarily complex endeavor because there were a multitude of cultures, languages, and histories influencing the creation, maintenance, and institutionalization of this destructive economic endeavor. The variety of these influences is staggering, as they 43 the cultural, historical, and linguistic diversity of their divergent continental origins.

Carolina's practice of purchasing Native captives from Indigenous allies and deporting these captives as slaves to the West Indies and Northern American colonies was a multi­ ethnic cultural confluence of significant magnitude. Getting at the heart of such a problematic social and economic phenomenon demands an archaeology of its human and institutional components.^

Explicating the circumstances of this cross-cultural, multi-ethnic enterprise is complicated by a variety of other factors as well, complications that have expanded to the focus of my dissertation research from a narrow investigation of the immediate circumstances and events associated with the phenomenon of Indian Slavery in proprietary South Carolina to a broader analysis of the human and institutional influences that informed the development of cross-cultural trade and diplomacy in the colonial southeast. Understanding the broad social, political, and economic implications of Indian slavery requires unraveling intricate processes of cultural convergence in the American southeast. For the purposes of this dissertation, I define cultural convergence as a contested series of trans-cultural negotiations that have remained isolated from scholarly investigation because of the inherent prejudices of western forms of social science, the limited and geographically dispersed nature of documentary evidence, and the difficulty of decoding the cultural contexts of Indigenous historical agents. To meet these challenges and counterbalance orthodox representations of the colonial Southeast, it is necessary to approach the analysis of Charles Town's Indigenous slave economy from divergent theoretical perspectives that accentuate deep Indigenous American historical 44 influences and take account of the immediate Sub-Mississippia contexts of proprietary

Carolina in order to explore how North American influences affected the conduct of

Charles Town's trade and diplomacy with Native peoples. In the second part of this dissertation, I address the immediate Sub-Mississippia contexts of trans-cultural interaction in proprietary Carolina in Part Two of this dissertation, but in order to fully appreciate the significance of those immediate influences, I believe it is worthwhile to survey the North American moundbuilding traditions, their associated social and cultural complexes, and the development of extensive exchange networks associated with moundbuilding societies, which later underwrote Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy in the historic period. An awareness of North America's moundbuilding traditions constitutes an important backdrop to Carolina's proprietary circumstances because moundbuilding highlights the fact that trade and diplomacy were long standing North American traditions. When English settlers arrived, they encountered Native peoples who appreciated the benefits of trade and the potential political advantages of monopolizing the sources and controlling the distribution of objects assigned with practical and symbolic value.

My hypothesis assumes the existence of significant Indigenous contributions to

Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy. One of the major obstacles to demonstrating the validity and accuracy of this claim is the difficulty of marshaling academically acceptable forms of evidence to support such a perspective. Because western scholars have divided the history of North America into the distinct periods of prehistory and history, the continuity of Native philosophies, technologies, and concepts 45 has been ehded and their potential importance to the conduct of colonial encounters, especially in the American Southeast, have remained largely a secondary consideration.

Because western concepts of history rely on ethnocentric scientific practices that categorize peoples and their societies on a ranked scale from simple to complex and historical methodologies that prioritize evidence according to pre-determined standards that rarely allow for the inclusion of divergent perspectives, the continuum of Native experience has been arbitrarily disrupted and the potential influences Indigenous systems of knowledge have been largely discounted. By bringing both the deep historical traditions of Native North America and the immediate Indigenous geopolitical contexts of proprietary Carolina to bear on Charles Town's expansive Indian policies, it is possible to read and understand Southeastern trans-cultural colonial encounters as a confluence of disparate traditions rather than an apocalyptic invasion of European technology and power. The historical remoteness of the late contact period in which these events occurred is equally problematic because of a lack of documentary evidence and the necessity of surveying and incorporating limited archaeological data that provides essential information regarding the Indigenous contexts of English efforts to colonize the

American South.

It would be intellectually hazardous to imagine that cross-cultural economic phenomenon such as Indian Slavery, a phenomenon that had extraordinarily profound political, economic, and social ramifications, could have resulted solely from historical agency of English subjects alone, or that an economic enterprise, that was by nearly all accounts, dependent on Native labor. Native systems of knowledge, and required a sophisticated appreciation of the value and necessity of foreign trade could have sprung from the ashes of Mississippian societies or emerged from the sociological vacuum of a sparse and unpopulated North American continent. When one takes note of the logistical and institutional demands of Carolina's systematic practice of promoting the enslavement of Native captives, it becomes readily apparent the trade was predicated upon Indigenous protocols and administered according to Indigenous concepts of diplomacy, exchange, and warfare. As a result, this dissertation is focused primarily trying to identify the

Indigenous contexts of English commercial and imperial expansion in the American southeast, a process that begins with taking account of North America's state of

Indigenous affairs. The process of determining the extent of Indigenous influences on trade and diplomacy during South Carolina's proprietary period (1663-1721) begins by placing the trans-cultural events of Charles Town's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy into the continuum of Indigenous North American history.

This dissertation is concerned with seeking out Indigenous influences on trade and diplomacy in proprietary Carolina; thereby, placing the English trade in Indigenous slaves within larger social, political, and historical contexts that include possible

Indigenous perspectives in order to more fully appreciate the circumstances affecting

South Carolina's rise to political, commercial, and military preeminence in the American

South. Carolina's proprietary economy required extensive Indigenous contributions of labor, technological expertise, environmental knowledge, and institutional infrastructure, which suggests that understanding the long term affects of these practices requires exploring the Native contexts from which the ability to make such vital contributions 47 emerged. To more completely appreciate the origins, catalysts, and ramifications of

England rise to imperial prominence in the American South it is necessary to place

Carolina's political and commercial expansion within the broader cultural contexts that informed the diplomatic relationships and the inter-personal conduct of cross-cultural exchange networks characteristic of the Indigenous southeast during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

I have previously described these cross-cultural processes as a confluence of disparate ontologies and epistemologies, an amalgamation of fundamentally divergent ways of knowing the physical universe and coping with the environmental and cultural forces that regulate the development of human societies. We can be certain of only one thing: that the interests of Native southeastern peoples and immigrating English subjects converged around the concepts of trade and the enslavement of Indigenous southeastern peoples.

This study of proprietary Carolina's trade and diplomacy with Native peoples has been divided into three parts to facilitate the complex processes of historical retrieval and incorporating Indigenous perspectives. The first part deals exclusively with the

Indigenous contexts of English settlement, diplomacy, and trade. The second part is concerned with Indigenous sociopolitical reorganization during the protohistoric period of Spanish exploration.' Finally, the third part begins the process of interpreting historical events from divergent perspectives that take account of and incorporate Native contexts into the analysis of southeastern colonial history. These theoretical decisions reflect both the core metaphor of confluence that structures this analysis and the multi- 48 staged methodological approaches necessary for eliciting Indigenous perspectives on the cultural negotiation characteristic of commerce and diplomacy during in the American southeast during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While the second part of this dissertation attempts to determine the Sub-Mississippia conditions for Carolinian ascendancy and seeks out social, political, and cultural continuity between historic southeastern peoples and their prehistoric, moundbuilding ancestors, the first part is concerned with exploring the broad contexts of the disparate traditions informing the construction of a southeastern Middle Ground (White 1991).

The purpose of the first part of this dissertation is to illustrate that the Native peoples of North America had long standing traditions of trade and diplomacy, which developed in conjunction with the growth and increasing sophistication of moundbuilding societies. In my estimation, this long view of Indigenous history is essential aspect of

Indigenous North American history, a critically important frame of reference for analyzing the cross-cultural relationships characteristic of exchange networks during of

South Carolina's proprietary period. This backdrop provides an Indigenous context that silhouettes the actions of Indigenous historic agents, a context that promises to reveal significant insights into the motivation of Native participants and the Indigenous institutions that enabled and facilitated their participation. The following chapter surveys the tradition of North American Mound construction and the development of extensive exchange networks, which contextualizes the behavior of Indigenous historic agents in culturally appropriate ways by providing insight into the central importance of trade and 49 diplomacy for development of human societies in North America prior to the arrival of

European colonists.

The Origins of North American Mound Culture, 8000-1500 BC:

Indigenous history is written upon the land. The physical features of the landscape are associated with the events of the past and linguistically ascribed with social and historical significance. Through ritual and ceremonial storytelling, places are animated with the living history of the people who occupy and manipulate the land.

Consequently, earthen mounds are much more than ancient artifacts or public monuments to political power; they are historical markers as well as cultural and social signifiers.

The construction of earthen mounds is a manifestation of Place Sense, a quality very much alive in contemporary indigenous systems of social control and governance.^

Linguists assert that Place Sense ranks second in importance only to Language in the construction and maintenance of individual, communal, and regional identity (Zepeda

2002). This sense of place, a reciprocal relationship with a particular environment nurtured over vast periods of time,^ is one of the reasons that mound centers retain their cultural significance for many contemporary tribal nations in eastern North America.'"

Mound construction was undoubtedly a unifying communal project of great importance. As historian Lynda Norene Shaffer notes, the act of mound building was

"from the very beginning, closely related to a larger complex of regional development and this regional context was the product of various processes that can be traced back to the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of the Archaic Period," circa 8000-500 BC

(Shaffer 1992,16)." 50

In his contribution to Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the

American South, 1521-1704, archaeologist John F. Scarry states.

Archaeologists have divided the prehistory of the eastern United States into a series of periods that roughly correlate with major technological, economic, and political changes. From earliest to latest these periods are the Paleoindian, the Archaic, the Woodland and the Mississippi...The Archaic period (8000-700 BC) encompassed profound environmental changes in the Southeast, beginning with the end of the glacial climate, continuing through a warm, dry period from 8000 BC to 5000 BC, and culminating in the establishment of an essentially modem climate and vegetation by 3000 BC. The environmental changes were accompanied by important economic and social changes. The was an increase in regional variation in stone tool styles suggesting that this was a time of increasing cultural differentiation and regional interaction. (Scarry 1994, 19)

One of the first and most important innovations is known in archaeological circles as localization, a process by which individuals and communities become "more familiar with the special features of their own locale, adapt themselves, learn to manipulate it in order to take advantage of the environmental opportunities, and begin to distinguish themselves from regional neighbors" (Shaffer 1992, 17).

For indigenous Americans in eastern North America this process began sometime around 8000 BC, initiating a period of technological and intellectual innovation. During this period of time, thrusting spears and Clovis points gave way to the atlatl'^ as people acquired intimate knowledge of local plants and animals in their environment (Shaffer

1992, 17-8). By 6000 BC, the peoples of southeastern North America had begun to develop sedentary habits, even though this adaptation occurred "long before they developed any dependence upon domesticated plants for their food supply" (Shaffer

1992, 19). 51

Date Period AD 1731 Destruction of Natchez

AD 1700 Sub-Mississippia Indigenous Reorganization AD 1500 AD 1400 Late

AD 1000 Middle Mississippian

AD 800 Early

AD 600 Late

AD 1 Middle Woodland

BC 700 Early

BC 1000 Late

BC 4000 Middle Archaic

BC 8000 Early

Prior to BC 8000 Paleoindian Table 1: Chronology of Moundbullding Societies. Adapted from a table in Scarry, 1994. Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South 1521- 1704. University of Georgia Press, 18.

According to Scarry,

During the Early and Middle Archaic periods (8000-4000 BC), people continued as mobile foragers, although the plants and animals on which they relied were the same as those encountered by the earliest European explorers of the Southeast. Groups remained small, although population densities increased across the region. The lack of evidence for substantial structures and food storage facilities and the apparent absence of formal cemeteries suggest that settlements were small and temporary. (Scarry 1994, 19)

Sometime after 3000 BC, long distance exchange networks emerged and hierarchal social systems began to shape the economic, social, and political consciousness of Indigenous Americans. This was an especially productive period for 52 indigenous North Americans as populations increased significantly, ceramic technologies emerged,'^ and plants were domesticated for the first time (Shaffer 1992, 21).

Scarry summarizes the developments of the Late Archaic Period by stating.

The Late Archaic Period (4000-700 BC) was marked by several extremely important demographic and economic changes: plants were first cultivated in the Southeast and there were increases in the size, density, and stability of social groups... We see evidence of these changes in the appearance of large, dense midden sites; evidence of substantial structures; pita apparently used to store large amounts of food; heavy, less portable containers of stone and pottery; and formal cemeteries containing many individuals. The larger, more sedentary social groups of the Late Archaic presumably were associated with more complex social and political organizations than were in existence during earlier periods. Cultivate squash and gourd appear in the Southeast during the Late Archaic, by at least 2,500 BC. Traditionally it has been thought that they were first domesticated in Mesoamerica, but recent studies suggest that squash may have been domesticated independently in the Southeast. In addition to the 'tropical' cultigens. Late Archaic peoples relied more and more on the seeds of a number of armual plants including sunflower, sump- weed, little barley, goosefoot, maygrass, and knotweed. (Scarry 1994, 19).

Another important development arising from the processes of localization was the exploitation of Copper deposits in the Great Lakes region (Shaffer 1992, 21). Copper was probably the first commodity to be widely exchanged by North American

Moundbuilding societies. In the Late Archaic Period the list of exchange goods had grown to include more notable items such as Rocky Mountain stones used for making cutting edges, minerals such as Galena (used to create a silvery white body paint associated with ceremonial activities) from the upper reaches of the Mississippi and

Hematite (used to create a red pigment) from the Midwest and lower Mississippi River valley, as well as marine shells from Florida, stone pipes from the Ohio River valley, and 53

Mica from southern Appalachia, all of which became widely circulated among

Moundbuilding polities during the Late Archaic Period (Shaffer 1992, 5).

The increasing number and size of mound sites throughout the Mound Building region during the Archaic Period corresponds to substantial increases in indigenous populations and the domestication of plants (Shaffer 1992, 24). Shaffer states that by analyzing the "progression of seed size and other desirable characteristics" archaeologists surmise that the indigenous peoples of North America began to manipulate the plants in their environment as early as 4500 BC "in order to encourage the growth of sunflowers, goosefoot, and marsh elder or sumpweed (Iva macrocarpus)" (Shaffer 1992, 25).

Shaffer's synthesis of available archaeological data reveals that by 2000 BC the seed characteristics of sunflowers and goosefoot suggest that they had become domesticated plants, purposefully planted, tended, and harvested (Shaffer 1992, 25).

The first domesticated plant in North America, the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), was cultivated for the purpose of making containers rather than as a source of food (Hudson 1976, 294; Dobyns 1983, 129-30), suggesting that the generalizing standard models of agricultural and human social organization might have to be reevaluated in light of the particular circumstances of indigenous North America. The earliest evidence of these processes in eastern North America comes from Phillip

Springs, Missouri and has been dated to 2300 BC (Shaffer 1992, 24), so it is clear that by the end of the Archaic Period the indigenous peoples of eastern North America had domesticated a considerable number of plants (Shaffer 1992, 25).''* 54

Major Epochs of North American Mound Construction: Poverty Point and the Late Archaic Tradition

There were three epochs of Moundbuilding activity in North America spanning more than three thousand years'^. The first moundbuilding cultural area emerged in eastern North America during the late Archaic Period around 700 B.C. in the Lower

Mississippi River Valley and was named Poverty Point after the nineteenth century plantation that encompassed the site (Shaffer 1992, 28).16

I 41 Poverty Point • *

Liiui^iiaiia

Mound ouiid

Sarali s Mound Ballcourt

Figure 7: Poverty Point Site Map: Adapted from a map in Shaffer (1992). Native Americans Before 1492: The Moundbuilding Centers of the Eastern Woodlands, ME Sharpe, 30.

According to Shaffer, the hegemonic influence of Poverty Point extended over a 55 culture area that included at least one hundred sites arranged in ten clusters in eastern

Louisiana, southern Arkansas, and western Mississippi (Shaffer 1992, 32). Poverty Point reached its cultural and hegemonic peak around 1000 BC, easily making it "the oldest cultural center within the bounds of the United States" (Shaffer 1992, 28).

Located on "the eastern edge of Macon Ridge, a large bluff that stands about twenty feet higher than surrounding land" (Shaffer 1992, 28), the site consisted of a thirty-seven acre plaza situated between a branch of the Arkansas River to the east and six concentric semicircles of earthen mounds, each approximately six feet in height.

Quoting James A. Ford and C. H. Webb's report for New York's American

Museum of Natural History in 1956, Mallory O'Conner writes that the mound group, which Ford believed had originally formed concentric circles, might have been 11.2 miles long and eighty feet wide. According to Ford's calculations, this collection of earthen mounds consisted of approximately 530,000 cubic yards of earth, or about thirty-five times the volume of the Great Pyramid of Khufii (O'Conner 1995, 8). The embankments and the four aisles that divide them are believed to have served as a solar calendar

(Shaffer 1992, 29).

These mounds, like all those in Eastern North America, regardless of whether they belonged to this epoch or later ones, were made of earth that was dug from a nearby spot using stone tools similar to hoes. People carried this soil to its destination in baskets or leather bags. The large holes from which the soil was removed are referred to as borrow pits, and they often filled up with water and became ponds. There are such borrow pits at the Poverty Point site, probably dug when the various mounds where [sic] constructed, but it appears that the earth in the embankments came from the swales that lie between them. The earthworks at any given site were rarely, if ever, built all at the same time, and many were built stage by stage, over a period of generations. Nevertheless, it is obvious that their construction required specialized knowledge, careful planning, and the coordination of 56

large amounts of labor. (Shaffer 1992, 31)'^

Figure 8: Details of Mound 'A' and Adjacent Concentric Circles at Poverty Point. Adapted from a map in O'Conner (1995). Lost Cities of the Ancient Southeast, University of Florida Press, 7.

One of the most profound aspects of Poverty Point is its spatial and iconographic similarity to later Mississippian sites observed during the historical period. One feature that demonstrates the logistical difficulties and the technological requirements of constructing earthen mounds as well as the iconographic connection between Poverty

Point's Late Archaic society and the Moundbuilding societies of the Woodland and

18 Mississippian periods is a bird shaped effigy mound (Shaffer 1992, 29).

Called Mound A by archaeologists, this public monument is the largest structure within the three-square-mile site that includes four other mounds in addition to the concentric circles, which are believed to have served as a solar calendar. According to

Ford, the bird effigy mound "is easily the most spectacular of the accomplishments of these people." Measuring 700 by 800 feet at the base and rising 70 feet above the surrounding plain, it has been estimated that "the finished mound required something over three million man-hours of labor" (quoted in O'Conner 1995, 8). 57

Bird symbolism has been used by human societies throughout the world. It played an important role throughout the moundbuilding epochs of North America, especially during the Mississippian epoch, the most recent of the moundbuilding traditions. If we turn once again to Cherokee society, we see that the symbolic importance of birds survives into the contemporary era. During nineteenth century congressional hearing concerning compensation for Cherokee people who successfully resisted removal to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma, William Holland Thomas testified that Bird Town was one of the original seven Cherokee Towns located in western North Carolina. The Bird Clan remains one of the seven primary clans that delineate Cherokee society and the surname Bird is common among the Eastern

Cherokees of western North Carolina, especially in the more socially conservative community of Snowbird.

Shaffer describes the bird effigy mound at Poverty Point in the following manner.

The bird's head points toward the west, and the wings extend on the north- south axis with a span of over 640 feet. From head to tail it was once 710 feet long. The bird has lost some of its height since several generations of farmers plowed its top surface, and part of the tail was destroyed when a construction crew dug it up and used it as the substratum of a highway that runs through the site. (Shaffer 1992, 29)

In addition to recognizing the technical and organizational skills required to construct such public monuments, it is also important to acknowledge the exchange networks that facilitated its construction and characterized the Poverty Point culture area during the late Archaic Period. Shaffer labels the people of Poverty Point "cormoisseurs of stones and minerals" because much of the raw material used to manufacture stone objects within the Poverty Point culture area was imported from hundreds of miles away even though sources for similar materials were more conveniently located (Shaffer 1992,

29).

Imports to Poverty Point included flint, steatite, hematite, and magnetite.'^

Strategically located on the Mississippi River well below the confluence of the Ohio and

Tennessee Rivers, Poverty Point was ideally situated to receive imported raw materials from geographically diverse areas, including the Great Lakes, the Ozark Mountains (via the Arkansas and Ouachita Rivers), the Ohio River Valley, southern Appalachia and northern Georgia (via the Tennessee River or the Gulf Coast), and lower Georgia, lower

Alabama, and Florida (via the Gulf coast). Galena, an important mineral used ceremonially for white body paint, was imported from the upper Mississippi River and

Missouri (Shaffer 1992, 36).

In addition to importing raw materials from remote locations. Poverty Point seems to have been a hub for the distribution of imported or locally manufactured goods within its culture area. Northern sites under Poverty Point hegemony served as repositories for imported raw materials, and although only portions of these materials physically passed through Poverty Point, it received a portion of every item imported into its sphere of influence. Finished goods of stone and clay were exported throughout the southeast, and

Poverty Point manufactures have been found at cites in Missouri, Tennessee, along the

Gulf Coast, and northeastern Florida at sites near the Atlantic coast (Shaffer 1992, 37).

After 700 B.C., Poverty Point's influence began to wane although archaeologists cannot yet determine the causes of this decline. After 500 B.C., a second wave of 59 moundbuilding began in the Ohio River Valley, which after a few centuries, had spread throughout the southeast.

The Second Epoch of North American Moundbuilding: Adena and Hopewell Cultures during the Woodland Period

Archaeologists label the second Mississippian epoch of mound construction the

Woodland Period, "a millennium dated roughly from 500 BC to AD 500" (Shaffer 1992,

38). According to Mallory O'Conner,

Sometime shortly after 500BC, the diverse ceramic and ceremonial traditions evident in the Archaic period began to coalesce into four specific cultural complexes located along river valleys in Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio, Alabama and Mississippi. Interaction between these distinct cultural areas gave rise to what is called the Woodlands period (500 BC- AD 500). There is no sharp break between the Archaic and Woodland periods: many of the political and social institutions established during the Archaic continued to grow and develop. What was new and significant was the proliferation of moundbuilding practices and the extent and quality of ceremonial artifacts associated with those practices. (O'Conner 1995, 12)

Scarry offers further insights on the development of Indigenous societies during

the Woodland period.

The Woodland period (700 BC-AD 1000) witnessed further increases in settlement size and permanence and in the importance of cultivated plants in the diet. It also saw marked increases in the complexity of mortuary rituals, including the construction of earthen mounds to cover or house the dead, and the use of elaborate, exotic, and highly symbolic artifacts as grave accompaniments. In many cases, mortuary practices and grave offerings seem to reflect status differentiation beyond that seen in the Archaic and, perhaps, greater authority and prestige of community leaders. The Wood­ land period also saw greater regional variation in material culture (particularly in ceramic decoration) that may reflect the emergence of more closely bound social groups. (Scarry 1994, 19)

Moundbuilding traditions of the Woodland period are often divided into two distinct but closely related moundbuilding traditions; Adena and Hopewell. Mound 60 centers with Adena culture characteristics (500-100 B.C.) first developed "in what is now central and southern Ohio, along tributaries that flow into the Ohio River" (Shaffer 1992,

38).

Adena cultures had existed in the Ohio country for many centuries, but these societies did not begin constructing mounds until after 500 BC (Shaffer 1992, 40). One of the earliest and most important manifestations of Adena mound construction is found in the Scioto River Valley near present-day Chillicothe, Ohio. According to O'Conner, mound construction during the Adena phase of the Woodland period (500-100 BC) appeared earlier and were somewhat shorter than the other major Woodland moundbuilding tradition known as the Hopewell (200 BC-AD 400). Mound construction in Adena societies was characterized by slow stages of construction over many generations; Adena peoples lived near their mounds, and had close relationships with them over many centuries (O'Conner 1995, 18). By the end of the Woodland period (AD

500), Adena hegemony had spread northeast throughout the Ohio tributary region, from

Kentucky and southeastern Indiana to West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, while its closely related Hopewellian counterparts were still concentrated primarily in Scioto

Valley of Ohio (Shaffer 1992, 40; O'Conner 1995, 16). Whereas Adena cultures were geographically limited to the Ohio River Valley, evidence of the second tradition of moundbuilding during the Woodland Period, labeled the Hopewell culture by archaeologists, has been found throughout southeastern North America (O'Conner 1995,

18). 61

HopewelHan cultures began to emerge around the same time that indigenous peoples in eastern North Americans began to manufacture pottery (200 BC). Cultural centers with Hopewell characteristics "emerged in Ohio, and soon thereafter corn- cultivating, HopewelHan centers [were constructed] throughout the region" (Shaffer

1992, 38). O'Cormer writes, "Most Hopewell sites date from between 100 BC and AD

600, thus overlapping the Adena culture, from which they apparently borrowed extensively" (O'Cormer 1995, 16). O'Conner also points out that some archaeologists have "suggested that Adena and Hopewell customs developed side by side, enriching and enhancing each other's distinct cultures" (O'Conner 1995, 16). Archaeological data from other parts of the southeast reveal that HopewelHan manufactured products were popular, especially their stone effigy pipes, which "have been found as far away as the

Chesapeake Bay area in Maryland, in New England, and in the St. Lawrence River

Valley in Canada" (Shaffer 1992, 41). The Hopewell and Adena cultures coexisted in southern Ohio for some time, and even though there is still some debate about over the exact nature of the original Hopewell influences, most archaeologists seem to agree that the Hopewell emerged from the Adena. After 200 BC "the new Hopewell culture became increasingly important, and the Adena culture gradually disappeared" (Shaffer 1992, 42).

These spreading HopewelHan centers "were part of an interaction sphere that merged the various exchange zones of the Late Archaic Period into a single network and created the cultural continuities that characterize the mounding region" (Shaffer 1992,

38).

Prior to 200 BC, marine shells from southeastern coasts were one (and per­ haps the only) long-distance exchange item that could be found throughout 62

what be came the region. For the most part, copper had been confined to an east-west belt across the north, galena and hematite were most often found in sites along the Mississippi River. However, by almost 200 B.C., these specialty items, along with many more, could be found throughout the entire Hopewellian sphere. An elaborate exchange network of nearly continental proportions had emerged, capable of amassing resources from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. (Shaffer 1992, 44)

John Scarry offers a more general appraisal of the events and circumstances generally associated with the Early and Middle Woodland Period.

During the early and Late Woodland period (700BC-AD 600), maize was introduced to the Southeast, but isotopic studies indicate that it did not form a significant portion of the diet until much later. The Indigenous domestic- cated and cultivated crops continued to be grown, but in many areas (for example, the Coastal Plain in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida) they played only minor roles in the subsistence economy. In the Middle Woodland, we see evidence of widespread movement of specialized goods (exotic stones, copper, marine shell) over hundreds and even thousands of kilometers. Many of these goods appear in mortuary contexts, and Middle Woodland mortuary rituals were more elaborate than those of the Early Woodland. In some cases individuals were clearly singled out for special treatment (as at the Kolomoki site), although we lack clear evidence of the ascribed status differentiation and formal political hierarchies seen in the later Mississippian societies. Presumably these special individuals were leaders who acquired their status through competition with other aspiring leaders based on personal abilities. By the end of the Middle Woodland, permanent, year-round settlements appeared in many parts of the Southeast. (Scarry 1994, 20)

Shaffer also points out that in addition to the exchange of "highly valued strategic goods, ceremonial objects" and other commodities, there is also archaeological evidence, suggesting "an exchange of ideas," which constituted "a cultural dialogue of considerable proportions" (Shaffer 1992, 47). Mound centers throughout the region shared a number of similarities. They were constructed of similar materials. Their designs as well as their spatial arrangements were similar. The same goods and materials were found within the sites throughout the region, and archaeologists believe that after 200 BC they may have 63 been used in the same ways in the same contexts, suggesting that "all parts of the moundbuilding region participated in similar ceremonies and endowed certain objects and rituals with similar symbolic meanings (Shaffer 1992, 47).^"

According to Shaffer, "to various degrees, [indigenous peoples in the moundbuilding region] all shared a similar world view. And since this world view called for ceremonies that required materials that could not be produced locally and had to be imported from other parts of the region, it encouraged the production and exchange of materials and finely crafted artifacts throughout the region" (Shaffer 1992, 47-8). Recent archaeological evidence has shown that the various societies that participated in the ceremonial network remained distinct and that each retained its local character, suggesting that Hopewellian ceremonies were superimposed over local ceremonies and customs and that Hopewell centers in Ohio did not control the territories of those who participated in their ceremonial cycle. Since local cultures were not abandoned and retained their vitality, local traditions reemerged once the Hopewellian networks ceased to function.

Scarry offers a similar interpretation of the development of Indigenous societies during the Late Woodland period. Scarry sees the period as a time of continued innovation.

The Late Woodland is a continuation of earlier economic and political adaptations. Wild resources continued to major food sources, although indigenous crops and maize were grown and some groups in the Mississippi Valley might be characterized as farmers who derived much of their sub­ sistence from domesticated crops. Societies were structured politically along egalitarian lines. Leadership possibilities appear weakly developed (perhaps even more so than in Middle Woodland societies) and widely assessable. Social integration was maintained not the political hierarchies 64

but through kinship, ritual, and tribal ties of association. We also see evidence of widespread growth and dispersal of populations. In some riverine habitats, local increases in population densities may have led to population/resource imbalances as the ability of subsistence procurement strategies to provide needed foods was exceeded. (Scarry 1994, 20)

Although the cultural continuity between identified periods of mound construction is a matter of speculation, the degree of iconic, ceremonial, and social continuity across Archaic, Woodland (Adena/Hopewell) and Mississippian moundbuilding societies suggests an ordered development, in which the exchange of core philosophical concepts and technological innovations fostered adaptations to and expansion of core social and economic principles of Moundbuilding societies. This cultural continuity across the epochs is indicated by the movement of religious iconography and patterns of social organization across geographical regions and through time. Such a possibility is clearly evident in John Scarry's description of Late Woodland variations. Scarry acknowledges regional variations to his descriptions of Late Woodland societies. For our purposes, the most significant examples are found in the Mississippi

River Valley. This region includes Late Woodland societies that exhibit startling similarities to later Mississippian chiefdoms in the Southeast.

The Coles Creek groups of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana appear to have Been larger and more complex than their contemporaries in the South­ east. Beginning about AD 700, the Coles Creek peoples built civic-ceremonial centers with earthen mounds arranged around open plazas. The mounds often supported buildings that may have served as temples, chamel houses, or the residences of elite individuals. These large sites suggest that the Coles Creek societies may have had a greater degree of status differentiation than other Late Woodland societies. In particular, the presence of residential structures on mounds suggests the existence of a stable elite segment of the population that was able to use community labor. There is also evidence that Coles Creek peoples relied on agricultural crops (but not maize) for much of their diet. (Scarry 1994, 20-1) 65

Scarry's description suggests a model of cultural diffusion emanating from the

Mississippi River Valley, one that had vast repercussion on southeastern societies. The description Scarry supplies could easily be used to describe chiefdoms in the mid-

Atlantic region of present-day United States during the late sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries or social organization of the Natchez, who inhabited the lower

Mississippi River Valley until their destruction at the hands of the Iberville's Indian allies in 1731.

Scarry clearly acknowledges the probability of cultural continuity across

Moundbuilding epochs by stating that the Late Woodland set the "stage for the development of the chiefdoms of the Mississippi period. Even the disappearance of elaborate ceramics of the Middle Woodland period and the simplification of mortuary programs can be related to the strengthening of social integration in the face of stress"

(Scarry, 1994, 22).

The Third Epoch of North American Moundbuilding: The Mississippian Period (A.D. 700-1731)

The third and final period of moundbuilding activity survived well into the historic period and is characterized by archaeologists as Mississippian. Palisaded towns, the use of hoes, the appearance of ball courts, and an increased reliance upon com, beans, and other crops are cited as common characteristics of Mississippian societies.

Mississippian peoples lived within highly stratified social structures, where art and technology flourished. According to O'Conner, the Mississippian way of life would become the prototype for people throughout the southeast (O'Conner 1995, 124-5). 66

In the forward to Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern

United States, Jerald T. Milanich provides an etymology for the term Mississippian.

During the late pre-Columbian period, complex Native American societies flourished across the southeastern United States from northwestern Florida to southern Illinois and from the fall line of Georgia and the Carolinas to eastern Oklahoma. Archeologists call these cultures Mississippian Chief- doms: Mississippian, because the cultures were once erroneously thought to have originated in the Mississippi River Valley, and chiefdom, because each society was ruled by a hierarchy of chiefs whose positions were inherited within elite kin groups. (Milanich 1996, xiii; emphasis in the original)

John Muller's article "The Southern Cult, published in Patricia Galloway's anthology Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and Analysis (1984), states,

Many staple themes of the Southern Cult -such as bird symbolism, the 'weeping eye,' and the cross and circle- were well established by Late Early Woodland or earlier times throughout the East. Although some of these themes are used all over the world, the great similarity between Woodland and Mississippian period art suggests that the latter derives from the former. At the same time, the similarities do not necessarily indicate that the later art styles, in whole or in part, can be derived from any one Middle Woodland artistic tradition. Rather, the themes in question seem to have been the property of all eastern societies and were utilized and redeveloped with the rise of new traditions and beliefs, just as in similar historically documented syncretisms. (Muller 1989, 13)

Scarry offers the following analysis of the Mississippian period,

The Mississippian period (AD 1000-Contact) encompasses the emergence and evolution of the societies encountered by the European explorers of the interior Southeast. The critical feature of Mississippi period subsistence economies was that they yielded surpluses. Food producers and collectors were able to provide food to individuals who were not directly involved in subsistence activities. In turn, the economic surpluses were used to support permanent political hierarchies. During this period, societies developed that were and considerably more complex than the those of earlier times. Many societies of the Mississippian period were chiefdoms, societies with hier­ archical political organizations, formal political offices, institutionalized ascriptive status differentiation, and individuals with the ability to command labor, and the products of labor, of others. Several distinct groups of chief­ doms- the Mississippian polities of the inland Southeast, the Timucuan polities 67

of north Florida, the Calusa of south Florida, and the polities of the Middle Atlantic coastal plain-developed during this time. These regional groupings can be differentiated on the basis of material cultures, subsistence economies, and iconographic complexes. (Scarry 1994, 21)

Cahokia was the largest of the Mississippian sites, located east of present day St. Louis,

Missouri near the confluence of North America's three greatest rivers, the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri (see Figure 9).

At its height around A.D. 1200, the Cahokia site contained at least 100 mounds arranged within a 5.8 square mile area. The largest of these earthen structures is Monk's

Mound, a truncated mound 100 feet in height. A thousand feet long and seven hundred feet wide. Monk's Mound covers more than 15 acres. Its rectangular shape and truncated construction are typical of Mississippian Mound sites.

Truncated mounds first appeared in southwestern Georgia and central Florida around A.D. 500, and had spread to the Mississippi River Valley by A.D. 700

(Shaffer1992, 52).21 Spanish accounts indicate that leaders lived on top of the truncated mounds in large and ornately decorated wooden buildings. The mounds usually faced a large plaza and had smaller mounds arrayed around them. These mounds were often conical, and were almost certainly reserved for elite burials (Shaffer 1992, 52-3).

Archaeologists believe that Mississippian societies were hierarchal and stratified. 68

(• ( AHOKIA 5

SHILO • TPWN CREEK • SPIRO

« ETOWAH \

WINTERVIIIE

CHARLES TOWN (1670) ;

•\ MT ROYAL

CR\SX\LRr\11 SAFETY HARBOR I WEEDEN ISL\ND

KEY MARCO

Figure 9: Late Mississippian Sites (AD 110-1500). Adapted from a map in O'Conner, 1995. Lost Cities of the Ancient Southeast, University of Florida Press, 54. and Spanish accounts from the De Soto expedition provide documentary evidence in support of these perspectives. Spanish documents also provide a glimpse of at least four different castes. In Florida the Spaniards encountered a paramount chief and identified what they believed to be a class of notables who brought him tribute. The Spaniards identified two other classes of individuals besides these elite leaders: a third class of 69 principal men and the commoners, or "Stinkards," constituted the final social division recognized in the Spanish documentary literature. These Indigenous Americans are believed to have held slaves, who were considered to be outside the social structure

(Shaffer 1992, 65). When the French encountered the Natchez, a society of moundbuilders in western Mississippi, they were still ruled by a royal lineage that claimed descent from the sun. Royal succession followed matrilineal descent, and each

"Great Sun" was replaced by one of his sister's sons (Shaffer 1992, 65).

Archaeologists have divided the Mississippian culture area into sub-regions that correspond to the watersheds and drainages of particular river basins. Shaffer presents the following classifications summarized from her survey of archaeological literature (see

Figure 10):

1. Middle Mississippian: from the Illinois to the White and St. Francis Rivers in Arkansas, east to lower Ohio and along the Tennessee and its tributaries 2. to North Carolina. It included Moundville on the Black Warrior River in Alabama and the Paramount chiefdom of Coosa. The Southern Appalachian: included most of Georgia and South Carolina. Its largest center was Etowah, which seems to have served as a gateway into the southern Appalachian region from the Middle Mississippian region. Etowah seems to have served as a collection point for highly valued marine shells. 3. Florida: These peoples were unlike other Mississippians. They cultivated Zamia and fished using a variety of technologies including nets, ropes, and elaborate traps. They used dugout canoes to fish on the high seas, using harpoons to take whales, sharks, seals, and sea turtles. The Calusa maintained canoe routes to Cuba long after the Spanish took the island, and were still visiting there in the eighteenth century. 4. Plaquemine: This region was south of the Middle Mississippian region in the lower Mississippi River Valley in much of the same geographical area covered by Poverty Point culture. There is a strong continuity to the earlier periods of Moundbuilding in this sub-region. 5. Caddoan: This was the southwestern portion of the Mississippian realm. It included areas in southern Missouri, Arkansas, and western Louisiana as well as eastern Oklahoma and Texas. 70

Oneota

Southi

FigurelO: Sub-regions of Mississippian Culture. Adapted from a map in Snow (1989). The Archaeology of North America, Chelsea House, 82.

6. Oneota: North of Cahokia in the vicinity of the upper Mississippi River. It included northern Minnesota, Iowa, most of Wisconsin, and a large part of southern Minnesota 7. Fort Ancient: It is located a few miles north of Cincinnati on a tributary of the Ohio River. Marietta on the Ohio River at the eastern end of the sub- region is believed to have been the collection point for Iroquoian goods that were traded with Cahokia. (Shaffer 1992, 75-8)

One hypothesis posited by Shaffer that could have critical importance for the study of southeastern exchange networks during the historic era is the theory "that all the sites that 71 became powerful centers of the various sub-regions had a special relationship to Cahokia, and that a significant part of their relationship was the delivery of scarce sources to it"

(Shaffer 1992, 78). Although Cahokia's importance declined significantly after A.D.

1250, the cycling of Mississippian societies in the Mid-Atlantic regions of the American

Southeast continued well into the historic era. David G. Anderson defines cycling as organizational change in chiefdoms, which "includes fluctuations between simple and complex/paramount chiefdoms...More specifically, cycling encompasses the transformations that occur when the administrative or decision-making levels within the chiefdoms occupying a region fluctuate between one and two or (in the case of some paramount chiefdoms) three levels above the local community" (Anderson 1996b, 234).^^

oosa tachiigue

Savannah River MawmviUNs Valley

Figure 11: Late Mississippian Centers and Provinces. Adapted from a map in Scarry (1996), Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, University of Florida Press, 6.

Mark Williams and William Shapiro have documented the dynamic nature of politics, diplomacy and trade in the Oconee River valley of northeastern Georgia between 72

A.D. 950 to A. D. 1650 (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 128), while suggesting that interaction with societies in adjacent watersheds may have been a factor governing the waxing and waning of the mound centers in this particular watershed (Williams and

Shapiro 1996, 138-9). The Oconee river drainage is adjacent to the Savannah River

Valley within the Southern Appalachian region of Mississippian societies, which means it probably had diplomatic ties of some kind with Coosa, a major Mississippian chiefdom located above the headwaters of the Savannah River, and chiefdom polities occupying the

Savannah River Valley as well (see Figure 11).

^ Coste fSatapo

f Tugalo River

Savannah River '

Figure 12: Coosa Province circa AD1560. Adapted from a map in Hally (1994), Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704, University of Georgia Press, 229.

Coosa is clearly associated with the Creek peoples of the historic era, and is

Mississippian province with a very long history. Heard writes that the Coosa Indians 73

"constituted one of the wealthiest and most powerful Muskogee tribes in the Creek

Confederacy, its chiefs exercising authority over a large area of northern Alabama when

first seen by De Soto's expedition in April 1540" (Heard 1987, 111). They were visited

twice more by Spanish representatives. In the summer of 1560, Tristan de Luna and 200

hundred soldiers helped Coosa attack the neighboring Napoochies (see Figure 12). Juan

Pardo passed through the region seven years later, but he did not remain long after

learning that Coosa was leading an alliance against his expeditionary force (Heard 1987,

111). English traders reached Coosa at its original location during the seventeenth

century (Heard 1987, 111). Dr. Henry Woodward is said to have visited the Creek and

established a trading relationship with them in 1670 (Corkran 1970, 6). During

Carolina's war with the Westo (1680-83), the Creek were invited to participate and share

in the profits to be had from "bringing the Westo down for the slave trade" (Corkran

1970, 6). Sometime prior to 1761, Coosa moved forty miles southward to the Tallapoosa

River. They took up arms in the Creek War (1813-1814) and lost their lands as a result

(Heard 1987, 111).

Regional interaction among Mound centers seems to have been a fundamental aspect of Mississippian society and governance. According to Shaffer,

Participation in the Mississippian realm does not seem to have diminished The prestige or power of the elite lineages who presided over the various sub-regional centers. Quite the contrary. Evidently their participation in this region- wide phenomenon enabled them to further consolidate their hold over their own locale. There is much evidence to suggest that Mississippian centers drew upon the resources of their hinterlands in unprecedented ways. Many appear to have been surrounded by satellite towns that were in some sense subordinated to them. (Shaffer 1992, 79)^^ 74

The De Soto expedition encountered such places throughout the American southeast. Shaffer summarizes the Spanish experience in the following way.

When the Spanish saw some of these [Mississippian] centers in the 1500s, They were impressed by them, by the power of the Great Suns who led them, and especially by the number and skill of the warriors that the Great Suns could mobilize. They admired the handicraft work of the artisans and were amazed by the abundance of food stored in these settlements. More­ over, the centers that the Spanish saw were by no means the largest that had ever existed in the region. The Spaniards not only came too late to see Cahokia at the peak of its powers, they never even got far enough inland to see the American Bottom. (Shaffer 1992, 85).

Archaeologist David Anderson argues that "three and possibly four paramount chiefdoms were found in the Southern Appalachian area at the time of initial European contact that the Spanish identified as the provinces of Apalachee, Coosa, Ocute, and

Cofitachequi" (Anderson 1996, 243). In the piedmont region of what is now South

Carolina, De Soto's expedition encountered a native poHty that made a lasting impression on the marauding Spanish colonizers: the Cofitachiqui Chiefdom.^''

By the time Hernando de Soto's expedition in the middle of the sixteenth century,

Mississippian societies throughout the southeast were reorganizing to varying degrees.

Whether these processes of reorganization were the result of environmental or demographic challenges resulting from the introduction of European contagious diseases, or more likely a combination of the two, is uncertain. In all likelihood the Sub-

Mississippian period, which is more often conceptualized and designated academically as the proto-historic period, Mississippian polities underwent intense processes of social and political reorganization, but these transformations were not divorced from their immediate historical contexts. In other words, Mississippian societies must have had 75 profound affects upon the reorganization of Native polities throughout the Southeast.

These influences may potentially be identified through a close, critical examinations of surviving historical documents, close readings that account of Indigenous frames of reference and what is known about the organization of Indigenous American ontological and epistemological systems, a methodological approach I try to implement in the final chapter of this dissertation.

The Gentleman from Elvas' account of De Soto's expedition offers evidence that the processes of structural reorganization among Mississippian chiefdoms were well underway as far north as the Wateree River basin by the time De Soto had disembarked on the western coast of la Florida in 1540. The Gentleman of Elvas' writes the following description of the settlement: "About the town within the compass of a league and a half were large uninhabited towns, choked with vegetation, which looked as though no people had inhabited them for some time. The Indians said that two years ago there had been a plague in that land and they had moved to other towns" (Clayton, Knight, and Moore

1993, 83). Unidentified Indians would later inform de Soto that "the dagger and some beads of the Christians" discovered by the Spaniards in a Cofitachiqui temple had been obtained "in the port two days' journey thence" (Clayton, Knight, and Moore 1993, 84).

Elvas' account of fiilly developed Mississippian polities interacting with Spanish explorers is not as surprising as it may first seem. Ponce de Leon (1513) was the first

Spaniard to attempt a sustained reconnaissance of the American southeast, but he was not the first Spaniard (Wright 1981, 32), or even the first European (Wright 1981, 28), to 76 explore the coastal regions in search of slaves for the encomienda in the West Indies

(Wright 1981,32)

In 1520, before Cortez had completed his conquest of the Aztec Empire, Lucas

Vasquez de Ayllon commissioned Francisco Gordillo to explore "Northern Florida"

(Wright 1981, 33), a region that extended along the Atlantic coast from St. Elena

(present-day Port Royal, South Carolina) to the Chesapeake Bay (Wright 1981, 35).

By 1523, Ayllon and Gordillo had landed an expeditionary force at present-day

Pawley's Island, South Carolina and named the area Chicora (Wright 1981, 35).^^

During the next thirty-three years, Ayllon supervised more thorough explorations of the

Atlantic coast "impressing natives from Chicora, Xapiracta, Auricatuye, Cayo, Xoxi,

Nuaq, Ouxa, Anoxa, and other coastal provinces of la Florida (Wright 1981, 36).

Wright's descriptions suggest fairly extensive interaction between indigenous peoples of the mid-Atlantic region and the Spanish. He writes, "It is not known how far inland

Spanish foot soldiers or horsemen penetrated, but some of them must have seen the temple mounds and the more impressive interior towns with their caches of pearls"

(Wright 1981,36).

In 1528, Panfilo de Narvaez landed near present-day around Tampa Bay, Florida with a party of 400. Splitting his forces, he sent one group overland in a northerly direction while supplies were forwarded to Apalachee Bay. The Apalachee constantly harassed him. After constructing makeshift boats the party set sail but was lost at sea or killed by coastal Indians. Cabeza de Vaca, Estaban, and a few others survived for years in Louisiana and Texas before returning to Hispaniola (Wright 1981, 38-9). Although 77 most of the initial Spanish adventures in North America were ill fated, the ramifications of contacts with native populations were significant because their presence altered the political and diplomatic circumstances of the mainland even if they, or their domesticated animals, were not the origins of the epidemic diseases that would soon severely affect

Indigenous societies and institutions throughout the Southeast.

J. Leitch Wright Jr. characterizes the Spanish experience in sixteenth century

North America in the following manner.

For most of the sixteenth century the Atlantic Coast chain of missions stretched from just below St. Augustine 200 miles north to Santa Elena. Spain established these missions at existing towns on coastal islands or near the mouths of rivers, where she maintained easy water communications. After Spaniards arrived, coastal towns became relatively more populous and important. (Wright 1981, 46)^^

Wright goes on to say that the mission system of la Florida was more long-lived than its better known counterpart in California. "Having been founded a century and a half to two centuries earlier, [the day of the Atlantic Mission system] had long passed when

American settlers arrived in Apalachee in the 1820s. The tendency is to forget that they existed" (Wright 1981,47).

More recently, archaeologists have made some interesting discoveries regarding the physical characteristics of Mississippian sites in southeast North America. James B.

Griffin notes that "there are sites exhibiting Middle Mississippian cultural features located outside of the Middle Mississippian sub-region," and although "these outposts are not generally large, they do have flat-topped platform mounds, where, presumably, their builders performed the central ceremonies" (Quoted from Shaffer 1992, 80). 78

Shaffer suggests that cultural diffusion is one explanation of this anomaly, but she also notes that it is "possible that these trading centers were established for the purpose of insuring the delivery of local products to the Middle Mississippian subregion"( Shaffer

1992, 80). According to Shaffer, these Middle Mississippian outposts "seem to be located on some of the most important exchange routes" (Shaffer 1992, 80).27 She writes, "One is reminded of Begho in West Africa, a settlement of merchants from Mali near the Akan gold fields in present day Ghana, well outside the reach of Mali's own realm" (Shaffer 1992, 80-1).

Shaffer goes on to discuss the distribution of Middle Mississippian outposts in the moundbuilding region, stating that they do not "appear to be random" (Shaffer 1992, 80).

One area that supported a concentration of Middle Mississippian sites "was on the Gulf

Coast near Biloxi in the Plaquemine subregion, and another was at the headwaters of the

Neuse and Santee Rivers either in or near the Southern Appalachian subregion" (Shaffer

1992, 81). With regard to the southeast, the presence of these Middle Mississippian sites could possibly correlate with the existence of Siouan-speaking communities living among much larger groups of people speaking Iroquoian, Algonkian, or Muskogean languages" (Shaffer 1992, 81).^^

Shaffer tells us that only two hundred years ago, "there were tens of thousands of earthen mounds" in the woodlands of Eastern North America, the existence of which remains "one of the best kept secrets of American history"( Shaffer 1992, 3). Over a period of nearly four thousand years, mound centers were constructed in Eastern North

America from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the eastern portion of the 79

Great Plains to the Appalachian Mountains (Shaffer 1992, 3). When George Rogers

Clark inquired about the elaborate earthworks he had encountered along the Mississippi

River in 1778, Chief Baptist of the Kaskaskias informed him that the earthworks had once been the fortifications of an old palace that "had belonged to the ancestors of the

Native Americans when they had 'covered the whole,' when they had had large towns

and been 'as numerous as the trees in the woods'" (quoted from Shaferl992, 4).

Shaffer's interpretation of archaeological evidence suggests that a large percentage of the indigenous population of North America was concentrated within the moundbuilding region of Eastern North America. The general consensus among archaeologists is that mound sites "marked the centers of political and economic networks" (Shaffer 1992, 5).

Archaeological excavations have demonstrated that these sites shared the common characteristics of spatial arrangement, architectural detail, elite burials, high concentrations of ceremonial regalia, and were presumably sites of significant military power. Mound centers interacted among themselves through alliance networks, which fostered exchange systems that "eventually grew to continental proportions" (Shafer

1992, 5).

It is believed that these societies were hierarchal in nature and leaders maintained prestige and power by their ability to regulate trade, to control and redistribute scarce resources, or by exercising superior military power. Leaders lived in large, elaborately decorated wooden structures on the top of high platform mounds constructed of compacted earth. Other social elites known as "noble allies" or "honored people" also resided on truncated sites located below the mound summit (Shaffer 1992, 5). Monks 80

Mound, the largest structure at Cahokia, had a total of four distinct levels, each of which was presumably reserved for either elite domiciles or ceremonial sites.

The areas immediately surrounding the mounds, which in the Mississippian period were usually palisaded, housed traders and artisans, a Mississippian middle class whose services promoted and maintained the vital exchange networks. Outlying areas contained agricultural fields and those charged with food production as well as professional hunters, who provided butchered meat to the centers, where it was distributed according to social rank.

In his article "Fluctuations between Simple and Complex Chiefdoms: Cycling in the Late Prehistoric Southeast," archaeologist David Anderson characterizes the largest of these centers as paramount chiefdoms, speculating that "the number of levels in the administrative hierarchy, or steps in the chain of the chiefly command structures,

[provides] an effective measure of the organizational complexity of a chiefdom"

(Anderson 1996, 232). Anderson evaluates Mississippian complexity in the following manner:

The terms simple chiefdom and complex chiefdom are widely used to describe societies characterized by one and two administrative or decision­ making levels above the local community, respectively. The situation is somewhat more complicated, however, because most primary centers, whether of simple or complex chiefdoms, maintained direct control over populations in hamlets and villages that were close at hand, thus circum­ venting the need for a secondary administrative level. Three level administrative hierarchies could also occur, specifically when one complex chiefdom acknowledged the authority of another, a situation indicated both archaeologically and in the early historic accounts from several parts of the southeast. The term paramount chiefdom has been proposed to describe the situation when a complex chiefdom exerts direct or indirect control over a series of other chiefdoms, including at least one other complex chiefdom. (Anderson 1996, 232) (emphasis in original) 81

In his article "The Nature of Mississippian Society," John F. Scarry notes that

Vernon Knight "identified several cult institutions that were particularly widespread in the Mississippian Southeast" (Scarry 1996, 14). Knight suggests that these institutions reflect a shared ideology that linked the Mississippian societies and was one of their defining characteristics (Scarry 1996, 14). Knight characterized these institutions as an elite warfare-cosmogony cult, a communal agricultural fertility cult, and a priestly mortuary cult, and he maintained that these institutions reflected the importance of agriculture and hierarchical structure in the Mississippian chiefdoms (Scarry 1996, 14-

15).

Knight's interpretation of archaeological and historical data leads him to argue that "the warfare-cosmogony cult was closely tied to the elites and positions of power," and incorporated artifacts that were manufactured throughout the Mississippian region in symbolic and ritualistic ways. These "representations of weapons and artifacts bearing representational images of imaginary animals or humans with animal characteristics"

(Scarry 1996, 15) were part of the shared ceremonial iconography of Mississippian societies. Knight speculated that the "communal cuU" focused on the earth, its periodic purification, and agricultural fertility, while the "priestly culf was associated with mortuary ritual and ancestor worship. Knight further speculated that the "priestly mortuary cult served to mediate between the war-cosmogony cult that sanctified chiefly authority and the communal fertility-world purification cult" (Scarry 1996, 15).

Not coincidentally, these institutions corresponded to the political organization of

Native peoples noted by Europeans in the early historic era. Among the Cherokee, the 82 leaders of "Red Towns" took a leading role in the external or foreign diplomacy of the nation while leaders of "White Towns" controlled internal aspects of government among the autonomous towns that constituted the Cherokee Nation. Rennard Strickland argues that as the cohesion of Mississippian societies declined, the influence of the high priests associated with the Temple complexes waned and their responsibilities were assumed by a more loosely organized class of person (Strickland 1975, 45). Scarry notes that the artifacts and iconography of Knight's warfare-cosmogony iconography "are subsumed within the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex," (Scarry 1996, 15), which has been examined by Phillip Phillips and James A. Brown^' and other scholars in Patricia

Galloway's collection, Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Jon Muller maintains position similar to those adopted by Knight and Scarry, arguing that in addition to important religious functions, commonly traded artifacts and shared iconography were constituent parts of inter-societal exchange systems, elite alliances, and political legitimation. If such assumptions are accurate, the religious and ceremonial status afforded these objects probably made them extremely valuable commodities in the political machinations of Mississippian rulers. Paul Welch argues that under such circumstances, possession and control of these ceremonial objects would have significant political value, playing a crucial role in the social relations among individuals within

Mississippian societies. The ability to affect and control the distribution and exchange of these precious commodities would also have had profound impacts on the long-term histories of Mississippian polities and their rulers. 83

In conclusion, a number of important implications can be deduced from the previous survey of moundbuilding traditions in North America. Most importantly is an awareness of the long history and ritual contexts of Indigenous trade between and among developing Indigenous societies in North America. These rich traditions have significant time depth, and apparently they fluctuate through developmental phases and periods, surviving into the early historic era. Even more significantly, Charles Town was established only one hundred thirty years after de Soto's chroniclers documented the existence of dynamic, interactive moundbuilding political entities throughout the

American southeast. This temporal proximity between prehistoric and historic Native societies is intriguing, even more so when we consider that archaeologists have been unable to document the existence of devastating population declines during the timeframe.

It is apparent that many scholars from diverse fields of inquiry believe the idea of trade was an inherent and fundamental aspect of Indigenous societies prior to the arrival of Europeans. While the trade seems to have primarily served Moundbuilding in political and ceremonial capacities rather than as a means to accumulate personal wealth, concepts of trade and a Native awareness of far-flung exchange networks were an inherent aspect of Late Mississippian social organization. This tradition undoubtedly provided the basis for initial cross-cultural interaction in the early colonial era. It certainly provided the necessary infrastructure. Hudson tells us that Southeastern Indians traveled for three reasons: "to hunt, to wage war, and to trade" (Hudson 1976, 313).

As we have seen, in the cold season they sometime traveled rather long distances to good hunting grounds, and in the warm season they some­ 84

times traveled surprisingly long distances to exact blood vengeance against their enemies. In the Mississippian tradition as well as in the colonial period they traveled for the purpose of trading, but we know relatively little about the nature of Mississippian trade. The aboriginal Southeast was covered with a network of trails stretching from Richmond, Virginia, to the lower Mississippi River, and from St. Augustine, Florida, northward to Ohio and the Great Lakes. Some of the trails Indians used were made by buffalos and other large animals. Many of these lead to salt licks in the Southeast, and some of the trails were as much as four feet wide and one to two feet deep. Many trails, however, were made solely by the Indians. Some of them were located high in the mountains, far above the habitat of large game animals. Indian trails were considerably more numerous above the fall line than below it; below the fall line, in the coastal plain, travel by foot was laborious because •y'y of the many rivers and swamps. (Hudson 1976, 314)

Another important issue is the relationship between hamlet, village, and mound centers. This subject will be addressed in greater detail in the following chapters, but for the moment it is necessary to raise the issue and note that archaeologists have not adequately explained the problem of local governance in North American chiefdom societies. It remains to be seen how mound centers exercised control over the critically important outlying regions within their spheres of political influence and cultural hegemony, or even what the concept of "control" meant within Mississippian societies.

For most historians and archaeologists, military power has been the default solution to this rather complex problem. However, even in so-called simple chiefdoms, relations of power between the constituent entities of a chiefdom must have been contested and were problematic because it was necessary to coordinate the activities of the surrounding hamlets and villages that "owed tribute to" the priests who controlled the mound centers.

In complex or paramount chiefdoms, these difficulties were obviously compounded.

While it is possible that mihtary force was the sole means maintaining social order and political control, it is more likely that this was simply one possible option among many 85 others. Perhaps as with contemporary human societies, warfare was an option of last resort because of its prohibitive human and economic costs.

Given the temporal parameters of the Proto-historic period in the Southeast, a radical transformation in the governance of Native societies seems unlikely, especially since historical evidence indicates that Native southeastemers continued to occupy mound centers and utilize their facilities long after maintenance of the mounds themselves had ceased. In my opinion, the governance and diplomacy of Indigenous peoples during the early English colonial period exhibits historic survivals of Late

Mississippian societies. There are obvious physical similarities such as the continued occupation of mound complexes and the similar architectural technologies. Council houses were characteristic features of indigenous southeastern towns and there is archaeological evidence that they were also part of the political landscape of

Mississippian chiefdoms (Anderson 1996b, 186). As previously noted, Native peoples continued to utilize mound sites long after their maintenance had become impossible.

Plazas were transformed into "square-grounds" and members of Native societies traditionally charged with the administration of these mound complexes moved their residences from the tops of the mounds and strategically placed them in ceremonially significant places adjacent to the ancient plazas. The relationships among peoples, clans, and towns probably remained much the same as it had during the Late Mississippian period, but the scale of Mississippian interaction and extent of centralized Mississippian influences were fiindamentally altered because demographic and environmental changes made it increasingly impossible to maintain these sites and the public buildings within 86 them. In my estimation, to say that there were radical transformations in Native societies really contradicts existing archaeological evidence. The cultural inertia of three-thousand year old traditions is certainly nothing to be summarily dismissed, and in the absence of evidence to support major demographic collapses in the American South during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, I think we must assume that there is a greater, rather than lesser, degree of cultural continuity between historic tribes and Late Mississippian chiefdoms.

Two other obvious Mississippian survivals are stickball and the gadugi. Stickball continued to regulate inter-town relationships and to be used to redistribute wealth, re­ new clan and kinship connections between relatives in distant towns and probably between the towns themselves since their relationships to one another were designated by the same terms used for familial relationships. The Cherokee gadugi is another obvious survival of Mississippian culture. Jack and Anna Kilpatrick relate to us the Cherokee tradition of "Gadug dunisustanei" ("They called for a gadug"). The Gadug, or gadugi, designates a community-based, volunteer labor force, which cared for ceremonial properties, organized agricultural labor, and maintained public buildings (Kilpatrick and

Kilpatrick 1995, 188). Hudson writes that Late Mississippian societies had a similar structural apparatus: "Each chiefdom had officials whose responsibility it was to make sure that the town house, square ground, and other public edifices were kept in good repair. These men were empowered to organize volunteer labor for public works"

(Hudson 1976, 309-10). 87

The political organization of historic tribes seems to complete the circle of development among Moundbuilding societies, as the egalitarian political systems characteristic of the Woodland period reemerged after the biological, environmental, and social stresses introduced by the appearance of Europeans took a gradually greater toll on the development of Indigenous social, religious, and political institutions of Native

Southeastern peoples.

The deep historical traditions of North American Moundbuilders are an important backdrop for the study of colonial era cross-cultural dynamics for a number of reasons.

First, identifying these traditions is an initial step towards establishing a North American context for European exploration and colonization. Clearly, trade, and the diplomatic protocols that enabled it, was prioritized in Native societies for thousands of years.

Possession of trade items was a sign of spiritual and political power. As a result, trade was ritually and ceremonially institutionalized among Native southeastern peoples, imparting uniquely North American sociopolitical and religious qualities to acts of cross- cultural exchange. The existence of extensive exchange networks means that moundbuilding societies had mastered the logistical difficulties of navigation, travel, and diplomacy, all of which would have been significant barriers to cross-cultural interaction given the environmental and linguistic diversity of the American southeast. Second, the

Native systems of knowledge concemed with cross-cultural interaction were nurtured over long periods and survived through distinct epochs of moundbuilding, during which observable elements of moundbuilding cultures such as mound construction and the aesthetic attributes prestige goods changed while the importance of trade remained a 88 central aspect of Indigenous concepts of governance, a necessary part of maintaining social, political, and cosmological order. Third, long standing traditions of North

American cross-cultural trade demonstrate the existence of a shared cultural matrix, which were loosely organized around core concepts trade, diplomacy, and political authority and recognized throughout the southeast. Fourth, these Native traditions, dynamic and interactive systems of trade and sociopolitical organization survived the period of Spanish exploration. As a result, when English colonists arrived in Carolina, they encountered Native peoples whose experience with interactive Mississippian exchange networks was not far removed. In Carolina, the period of time between

Spanish exploration and English colonization was a matter of only a few generations. As a result. Native southeastemers probably retained much of their knowledge concerning ancient moundbuilding exchange networks, and likely retained an awareness of ritualized trade and ceremonial diplomacy necessary for cross-cultural interaction as well.

The second part of this dissertation seeks to demonstrate continuity between these

Pre-Columbian traditions and practices and the Native peoples encountered by European explorers and colonists in order to provide Indigenous contexts for colonial encounters.

Demonstrating that Mississippian traditions survived into the historic adds a new dimension to the debate over Indigenous motivation and agency during the colonial period. If significant aspects of Mississippian culture survived into the historic era, then it becomes possible to re-evaluate the both the nature and complexity of Native sociopolitical organization and the extent to which Native peoples were able to subsidize

European imperial designs. PART TWO:

SUB-MISSISSIPPIA SOUTHEAST: INDIGENOUS SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXTS OF PRPPRIETARY CAROLINA 90

CHAPTER TWO

Indigenous Preconditions: The Roots of Carohnian Ascendancy

This dissertation approaches the subject of Indian slavery from the broad cultural perspective in an attempt to introduce culturally-integrated interpretive frameworks, which might lead to more fully developed historical representations of South Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy during the proprietary period (1663-

1721). The broad historical context of North American moundbuilding traditions have been deployed in an attempt to re-calibrate historical representations of North America's earliest cross-cultural encounters between Southeastern Indigenous peoples and British subjects so that Indigenous perspectives of and contributions to these cross-cultural encounters might be better understood and more appropriately integrated into contemporary historical narratives. In making these editorial choices, I have tried to structure an analysis of Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy, historical processes intrinsically linked to the conduct of Indian policy, by introducing three fundamental premises: 1) the concept of cultural confluence of Native and English intellectual and technological traditions; 2) the hypothesis of sociopolitical and ceremonial continuity between "prehistoric Mississippian chiefdoms" and "historic

Indians;" and 3) an assertion that Carolina's earliest sociopolitical relationships with

Indigenous southeastern peoples provides an excellent context for demonstrating the importance of Mississippian influences on Native actions. As an exercise in American

Indian Studies, this dissertation postulates that Charles Town's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy can only be understood by incorporating a wide assortment of 91 data and reading the practices, events, and circumstances of proprietary Carolina from a variety of theoretical, historical, and academic perspectives, including Indigenous

Southeastern philosophical and cosmological organizing principles. The goal of this dissertation is to integrate to the greatest extent possible the various and often contradictory narratives that offer insight into the conduct of trade and diplomacy in the

American southeast, a multi-faceted task that embodies the spirit of inter-disciplinary studies.

Assuming that there was a cultural confluence, rather than an overwhelming invasion of technology in the wake of a Mississippian cultural collapse, challenges orthodox archaeological and historical interpretations that prioritize Eurocentric critical perspectives. This assumption of cultural confluence is the primary catalyst behind the search for social, political, religious, and cultural continuity between pre-Columbian

Indigenous polities and Native societies documented by European observers, which characterizes the following chapter. My assertion of a southeastern cultural confluence is a variation on Richard White's concept of the Middle Ground. Its application is a result of the conviction that human societies use their pasts to order their present circumstances and predict the future and that human societies collectively preserve and maintain cultural and intellectual traditions by acting in what are perceived to be its own best interests.

Accordingly, my analysis of English commercial and imperial expansion in the American southeast presupposes the existence of Indigenous historical agents, whose decision­ making processes were ordered by a combination of Indigenous philosophy and historical 92 experience, particularly the interactive diplomatic and commercial traditions of

Mississippian polities.

This dissertation proceeds from the assumption that the exchange networks which supplied Charles Town merchants with Native slaves and deerskins for export and disseminated English trade goods throughout the Southeast in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had Indigenous origins. Indigenous American contributions to cross-cultural exchange during Carolina's proprietary period included institutionalized practices and philosophical principles similar to those that regulated and promoted trade and diplomacy among Mississippian polities prior to the permanent arrival of European settler populations and the introduction of trade-centered colonial practices of the

English.

The assumption of a southeastern confluence of political, commercial, and diplomatic Indigenous and European influences is itself predicated upon an assertion of sociopolitical continuity between late-Mississippian societies and polities (chiefdoms in archaeological lexicon) and the historic tribes initially encountered by Spanish and

French colonists in Carolina. Recognizing Indigenous sociopolitical continuity and acknowledging southeastern cultural confluence are the principle theoretical foundations of this dissertation, which approaches Carolina's early colonial history from Indigenous

Studies perspectives that prioritize Indigenous histories and organizational principles.

Such assertions are not a revolutionary. Native southeastern peoples have consistently and steadfastly maintained the existence of a social and cultural connection to mound sites and the people who constructed them. The historical and literary traditions of many 93 contemporary tribal nations continue to express this explicit relationship to the past

(Marm 2003).

In attempting to illustrate that Carolina's commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy were the result of a confluence of European and Mississippian cultural traditions, this dissertation musters data from a variety of sources, which supports claims of cultural continuity between Mississippian polities and emerging southeastern tribal confederacies. Because Native people were able to their Mississippian pasts to bear on the conduct their cross-cultural interactions with Carolina merchants, the arrival of

European trade goods were complemented by pre-existing Indigenous historical and intellectual circumstances, which facilitated their incorporation into Native exchange networks and their rapid dissemination throughout the southeast. In order to capture the multinational, multidimensional character of these early relationships, it is necessary to seek out and establish the degree of social, cultural, and political continuity between late-

Mississippian clans, villages, mounds, and societies and corresponding Indigenous institutions in the American southeast when the English began to settle at Charles Town at the end of seventeenth century.

My desire to demonstrate continuity between Sub-Mississippia peoples and

Indian Tribes of the historic era corresponds to emerging archaeological theoretical perspectives that examine southeastern protohistoric culture change by synthesizing cultural, historical, and processional explanations of indigenous political dynamics

(Wesson 2002, 2). This analytical approach requires a two-pronged investigative process, a two-way methodological practice that marshals historical and archaeological evidence in order to reconstruct the contours of late-Mississippian social and political institutions in order to project those Indigenous, institutional parameters forward into the early colonial period, while projecting "enduring cultural customs" (Axtell 1997, 15) of historic and contemporary southeastern peoples backwards. This process elicits and prioritizes data that promotes Indigenous perspectives and leads to more fully developed historical accounts by providing insight into Native historical agency, contextualizing

Indigenous agency through culturally grounded insights into motivation, and illustrating

Mississippian influences permeating historic tribal societies. However, distilling archaeological knowledge and deconstructing historical narratives to obtain relevant

Indigenous sociopolitical data is only a first step.

In order to obtain convincing evidence that surviving Mississippian exchange practices and diplomatic strategies enabled interaction between Mississippian polities and to comprehend the degree to which these practices and strategies influenced Carolina's commercial and imperial expansion, ethnographic data obtained fi-om the earliest

European descriptions of North America and ethnohistorical data obtained through the process of "upstreaming" (Fenton 1952, 333, 335) must be accumulated, sorted, evaluated, and integrated. Upstreaming is a difficult and problematic process, but by considering only the most extensively documented aspects of southeastern philosophy and sociopolitical organization and the most clearly identifiable enduring southeastern traditions, the inherent difficulties of upstreaming can be mitigated. Combining these disparate sources of data provides scholars the opportunity of constructing culturally appropriate models of Indigenous governance and social organization, which can then be 95 used to create narrative histories that more fully explore the importance of Indigenous institutions and the positive influences they exerted on Europe's North American colonial enterprises, especially English colonization of the southeast.

Ethnohistorian James Axtell reminds his readers of a familiar adage within the coterie of historical scholars, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there... and not just some things, but everything, beginning with thinking and speaking"

(Axtell 1997, 14; emphasis in the original).^^ His advice is on target, and its implications are compounded when the subjects of academic interest differ culturally as well as epistemologically and linguistically from those seeking insight. Axtell advises that scholars who wish to write about American Indian history should

seek as much access to the epistemology, ontology, and mental universe of their subjects as possible through historical dictionaries, word lists and gram­ mars and through some familiarity with the grammatical and syntactical principles and operations of the languages belonging to the same linguistic family or cognate groups. This will ensure that [scholars] do not unconsciously intrude their own mental prospects and processes upon the very different realms and reasonings of their historical subjects. (Axtell 1997, 14)

While the use of linguistic data in this dissertation is limited,^"* there are many other avenues into Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and mental universes, which this analysis takes full advantage of. In the search for connections between Sub-

Mississippia and Indigenous peoples in the historic era, tapping the "unlimited host of

'historical and ethnohistorical' materials to reconstruct the normative codes of past cultures" (Axtell 1997, 14) and taking advantage of the "broadest possible array of evidence left by the group in question, written and non-written" (Axtell 1997, 15) provides the greatest possibility of success. One aspect of this process is considering the 96 role Indigenous cosmologies and philosophical beliefs had in structuring and regulating historically documented Native actions and practices. The elaborate philosophical principles embodied in southeastern Indigenous cosmologies^^ are rooted in a

Mississippian past and not merely the contingencies of a cataclysmic protohistoric period.

The application of basic philosophical principles of southeastern peoples to explications of their actions and motivations constitutes a worthwhile methodological approach to the construction of historical representations of proprietary history. In other words, assessments of Indigenous agency should proceed from culturally relevant perspectives shaped by appropriate structural principles.

Axtell maintains that mining the "pre-contact history" (Axtell 1997, 18) of North

America's Indigenous peoples is primarily dependent on three sources of data;

largely untestable oral tradition; the science and serendipity of archaeology to uncover its material vestiges; and glottochronology to tell us something about language affiliations, formations, and separations. Each has serious limitations, but when used together, along with the observations of the earliest Europeans, they often sketch a reliable, if partial, portrait of native cultures before western time and print intruded (Axtell 1997, 18).

Axtell's appraisal of the nature of "pre-contact" evidence establishes broad parameters for the investigation of historical phenomenon, but qualifies their inherent utiHty. In his view, oral traditions carmot be tested, the availability of archaeological data is a function of chance, and linguistic information provides only the most general contexts. Despite these qualifications, the inherent possibilities of Axtell's categories of evidence are broad enough to allow for innovative adaptation and creative manipulation, so that a wide variety of evidence can be marshaled to support a claim of cultural continuity between Mississippian peoples and their descendants in the historic southeast. 97

In my search for shared southeastern philosophical principles and enduring cultural traditions, I emphasize a few readily apparent, well-documented, and representative examples of southeastern core concepts, which may have been part of over-arching Mississippian structural apparatus that contributed to regional unification and integration. While it is unlikely that a monolithic Mississippian hegemony completely dominated the Southeast, the extent of Mississippian exchange networks and the wide distribution of Mississippian polities suggests that shared Mississippian concepts and regional knowledge of Mississippian practices were integral parts of

Indigenous systems of knowledge throughout the southeast.

I begin my search for cultural continuity between Late Mississippian polities and historic Native societies by critically examining the concept of protohistory and redefining the protohistoric southeast as a period of sociopolitical reorganization, which I identify as the Sub-Mississippia period. I also examine the cultural significance of mounds in Native southeastern societies. Mound sites remain critically important signifiers of Indigenous history and culture in the southeast, and I choose to emphasize their continuing centrality because they are the most visible markers of enduring southeastern traditions. I also consider the sociopolitical importance of trade in

Indigenous southeastern societies and the most readily apparent example of a shared diplomatic protocol, the calumet ceremony. Social organization is another aspect of

Indigenous southeastern experience that seems to illustrate the possibility of regional integration and cultural continuity over time. Once again, I consider only the most readily observable and most well-documented examples available. When considering the 98 social organization of southeastern peoples and the extent of Mississippian influences of southeastern sociopolitical reorganization, I examine the spatial arrangements of

Mississippian urban spaces and the features of historic Native towns as well as examples of widely distributed southeastern iconography and enduring cultural symbols such as the

Com Mother, which were ubiquitous features of the southeastern cultural landscapes. 1 also consider the nature of southeastern political organization and the possibility that

Indigenous processes of sociopolitical confederation are a function of Mississippian administrative strategies for governing outlying areas. As part of the inquiry into southeastern sociopolitical organization, I examine the southeastern philosophical principle of dualism, a widespread concept that influenced almost every aspect experience. Finally, I consider the southeastern geopolitical landscapes, from Indigenous perspectives that prioritize riparian geography, which was a critically important characteristic of Mississippian politics.

The process of convincingly establishing connections between pre and post contact Native societies begins with a critical reexamination of the protohistoric period.

Archaeologists and historians have traditionally portrayed protohistoric periods in the

American southeast as times of Indigenous cultural collapse, which "appeared by the beginning of the seventeenth century, leaving southeastern Indians in a state of'cultural impoverishment' and leading to the rapid acculturation that took place in the eighteenth century" (Wesson 2002, 111-12).^^ While the cultural collapse model is politically expedient and academically convenient, this theoretical approach to Southeastern history and archaeology has become increasing problematic as empirical evidence for 99 demographic collapse has remained elusive and new critical perspectives have revealed such ethnocentric assumptions have artificially alienated Native southeastern peoples from their indigenous histories and heritages. As Wesson notes,

Does it not seem paradoxical that during the Protohistoric period, a time agued to have witnessed a near complete collapse in indigenous socio­ political complexity, the South saw the rise of multiethnic sociopolitical confederacies that encompassed larger territory and populations than their pre-contact Mississippian predecessors (Galloway 1991, 1993; Knight 1994)? Perhaps we have distorted not only the roles of disease and trade goods but the very nature of indigenous protohistoric sociopolitical organ­ ization as well (Muller 1997). (Wesson 2002, 114)

In an effort to consciously challenge the academic orthodoxy that alienates contemporary Native southeastern peoples from their cultural heritages and discounts the importance of ancient American sociopolitical contexts of European colonization, I insist on re-characterizing "protohistoric" as Sub-Mississippia. From a Native Studies perspective, the Sub-Mississippia Period describes an era of Indigenous transition, a period of metamorphosis during which Indigenous political institutions and social traditions were modified to accommodate changing circumstances and incorporate different trading partners and new commodities.

In the context of the American Southeast, scholars can readily identify a number of Axtell's enduring cultural customs. A three-thousand year tradition of Mound construction is the most obvious. For almost four thousand years, Mounds have been physical markers of deeply rooted southeastern cultural continuities. Mounds are quintessential cultural markers that designate significant Indigenous places and associated concepts: places of emergence, administrative centers, ceremonial sites for religious rituals that regulated social behavior. Mounds embody the foundational 100

Indigenous Studies concept of Peoplehood, a concept that defines "nationhood" according to criteria that emphasize Indigenous philosophical cornerstones such as place- sense, sacred history, shared ceremonial cycles (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis, 2003), as well as the inherent power and agency of language (Tapahonso 2000). Mounds are reminders of Indigenous practice, methods of worship, governance, construction, agriculture, and environmental management. For contemporary southeastern peoples they are historical markers that continue to convey important messages of political unity and cultural continuity between themselves and their moundbuilding ancestors.

Shouldn't the cultural and historical significance of these public monuments be explained, at least in part, from culturally relevant perspectives that consider the opinions of those who claim to be descended from the aboriginal laborers, architects, engineers, and politicians who created them?

Mississippian peoples embraced a legacy of trade bequeathed to them from earlier moundbuilding societies, a legacy that informed Indigenous American constructions and understandings of political power in their societies. Mississippian societies adapted the longstanding moundbuilding tradition of inter-continental exchange to meet their own particular needs. Mississippian innovations were, in turn, used to structure sociopolitical reorganization in the Sub-Mississippia era. In this way Mississippian systems of knowledge were passed on to historic tribal peoples who used these resources to accommodate or resist European invasions as circumstances dictated. Since trade networks necessarily require diplomatic strategies designed to manage and perpetuate international relationships, it is likely that the Mississippian legacy of trade included 101 diplomatic principles and practices that were passed on to their historic descendants as well. Certain institutionalized mechanisms for diplomatic interaction such as designated ambassadors, trade jargons, and specialized ceremonies provided a measure of common ground that united autonomous southeastern polities, whether they were Mississippian chiefdoms of the late prehistoric era or townships of historic tribes, by bridging cultural and linguistic differences. In Creek towns, "the fani mico, or "Squirrel King," was often regarded as a town's official ambassador" (Hahn 2004, 21; emphasis in the original).

Evidence of southeastern peoples' commitment to trade and other forms of cross-cultural relationships is illustrated by the existence of numerous trade pidgins such as Mobilian trade jargon, an indigenous lingua franca named after the post and town of Mobile or its residents" (Drechsel 2001, 175).^'

The Calumet Ceremony also promises to become a fertile source for establishing a baseline of institutionalized ceremonial practice, which enabled and facilitated commercial and intellectual exchange across ethnic boundaries. Documented by

Marquette on the upper reaches of the Mississippi River, this ritual is purported to have linked "friends, strangers, and enemies" (Gallay 2002, 105). When Le Moyne de

Iberville followed Marquette to the Mississippi and explored the lower parts of the river, he made excellent use of Marquette's observations of calumet ceremonies, employing his knowledge of this ritual to open negotiations and forge alliances with the Native peoples throughout the Lower Mississippi Valley. Survival of the Calumet Ceremony into the historic era points to the existence of over-arching ceremonial similarities among southeastern Native Peoples after the arrival of Europeans, but more importantly the 102 possibility of institutionalized diplomatic procedures that were understood and honored by Mississippian polities throughout the southeast. The historic importance of ceremonial interaction with distant trading partners can not be over-emphasized. In order to move great quantities of raw materials and finished ceremonial objects from the Gulf to the Great Lakes or from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast, Mississippian polities must have had command of standardized, universally understood, diplomatic procedures that helped ensure the viability and preserve the longevity of their exchange networks. It is very likely that the Calumet Ceremony served in this capacity (Brown,

2003).

The social organization of southeastern peoples indicates that there were significant Mississippian influences on historic tribal nations. Social frameworks such as kinship relations, clan affiliation, and the southeastern attachment to particular geographical locations ascribed to historic tribes by early European observers were largely derived from Mississippian sources and should not be overlooked when trying to characterize the sociopolitical development of southeastern peoples during the Sub-

Mississippia period of reorganization. As historian Steven C. Hahn notes in his description of emerging Creek ethnicity, "Creek culture was not entirely unrelated to the

Mississippian culture that preceded it. Rather, it appears that as the hierarchical superstructure of the chiefdoms became impossible to maintain, the emergent Creek came to rely more on the social sub-structure of the Mississippian culture" (Hahn 2004, 20).

Even more conservative historical commentators such as Alan Gallay freely acknowledge 103 that "southern Indians of the historic era inherited their ancestors' Moundbuilder culture, technology, and religion" (Gallay 2002, 28).

In broad terms, it appears that autonomous, interactive, mound centers that

participated in intra-continental exchange networks gave way to autonomous, interactive

towns of the historic era. Often, historic town sites corresponded to the locations of

Mississippian mound centers. The spatial and architectural similarities of Mississippian

mound centers and historic towns are worthy of closer scrutiny. Additionally, characteristic cosmological organizing principles of southeastern Native peoples seem to have Mississippian origins as well. Mississippian religious iconography was passed,

largely intact, to the historic tribes of the southeast, and the nearly universal dissemination of the organizing principle of dualism and the ceremonial importance of sharing one fire suggests cultural continuity across the Southeast during the Sub-

Mississippia period.

In many respects, these cultural continuities are self-evident, especially to contemporary Native peoples. The Shawnee, Iroquois, Delaware, Miami, as well as the

Cherokee and other confederated southeastern tribes have vibrant oral traditions that

celebrate their moundbuilding origins. One of the most obvious enduring moundbuilding

influences is the Com Mother, a frequent subject of moundbuilding artistic traditions and a central figure within the cosmologies of many southeastem Native peoples.

The Com Mother is one of the most enduring symbols of Southeastem cultural continuity, surviving not only the transformation from chiefdom organization to confederacy but enduring into the contemporary era, where she continues to guide the 104 decision-making processes of many southeastern peoples (Awiakta 1993). Being an ancient Mississippian philosophical and artistic icon, Grandmother Com, and the matrilineal influences she represents, is nearly a universal concept among Indigenous peoples of the southeast. As such, Selu is associated with particular agricultural practices, religious beliefs, and social significance; the values of unity, diversity, strength, adaptability that she represents are ancient aspects of southeastern culture that continue to influence the decision-making processes of Natives and non-Natives alike (Awiakta

1993, 73).

Southeastern examples of Axtell's enduring cultural customs are easily recognized in the political systems of southeastern Indians as well. The political organization of southeastern tribal confederacies was based upon the priority of local governance and the principle of balanced opposition (Hudson 1976; O'Brien 1993; Hahn

2004), a guiding principle of duality characteristic of southeastern cosmologies that structured spiritual, inter-personal, and political relationships (Hudson 1976, 234-38).

Individuals, clans, and towns and clans were divided into two moieties, red and white.

Each moiety had specific, but complementary, duties and responsibilities. This structure was duplicated throughout southeastern Indigenous nations, which are more accurately understood as alliances among culturally affiliated, autonomous towns who negotiated the four aspects of Indigenous Peoplehood as defined by Holm, Pearson, and Chavis

(2003): a well-defined territory, a common language, a shared ceremonial cycle, and a sacred history (7-18). 105

In addition to structuring the construction and maintenance of southeastern cosmologies, Indigenous concepts of geography should rightfully inform discussions of southeastern cultural and political processes such as the formation of subjective as well as collective identities above the local level and possibly even acts of political confederation associated with Indigenous polities during the colonial period. Riparian agriculture was a predominant characteristic of Mississippian life and Indigenous towns during the colonial period. Given the nature of southeastern beliefs regarding rivers as living beings

(Hudson 1976) 38 and the sacred aspects of water, which postulated an oppositional balance between Fire and Water, the act of living on the banks of the same river, or even within the same watershed, could have assumed great importance for determining relationships among individuals, clans, and towns.

In addition to the cultural continuity supplied by enduring Indigenous traditions of mound construction, long distant exchange works, and sociopolitical organization, southeastern geography and the locations of Sub-Mississippia polities play an important role in identifying the Mississippian influences on the actions of Native southeastern peoples during the contact and early historic periods.

Archaeologists have identified at least five different regional manifestations of

Mississippian culture (see figure 13). As it turns out, Charles Town's colonial charter corresponds precisely to one of these designated sub-regions, the Southern Appalachian sub-region. The Mississippian cultural sub-region encompasses the southwestern region of present- day North Carolina and all of present-day South Carolina and Georgia.

Viewing the colonial southeast from the perspective of Mississippian cultural geography, 106 it appears as though Charles Town's original colonists established a colonial foothold in southern North America on the periphery of Mississippian hegemony, serendipitously placing themselves at the backdoor of a Sub-Mississippia World, whose economic

Oneota

''fttmsee Southi

Pfaqi emine

Figure13: Sub-regions of Mississippian Culture. Adapted from a map in Snow (1989), The Archaeology of North America, Chelsea House, 82. political, and social influences had traditionally come from the interactive, Mississippian polities in the American interior. 107

Charles Town's geographic proximity to numerous Indigenous peoples with

Mississippian antecedents is a key element of determining the extent of Sub-Mississippia

influences on commercial exchange, political interaction, and other forms of cross-

cultural encounters. Charles Town was, in fact, serendipitously established in the midst

of former Mississippian polities on the periphery of ancient exchange networks, which distributed raw materials, finished products of ceremonial value, and ideas throughout the southeast.

Powhatan

GUAQUILI

CHALAQUE \ \ Cofitachequi Coosa ""-V # N y Ocute'v^ Quale \ I f' T ^ ^Apalachee Timucuans Pensacola"^ \ \

im Tocobaga .r. ! Caiusa Tequestc 0 250 km Figure 14: Major Southeastern Mississippian Polities circa AD1600. Adapted from a map in Scarry (1994), "The Late Protohistoric Southeast." Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704. University of Georgia Press, 26. 108

The reorganized Mississippian chiefdom of Cofitachiqui, which separated

CaroHna from Enghsh colonies in present-day North Carolina and Virginia, was only a short distance up the Santee River from Charles Town. When Carolina's conflicts with the Westo escalated in 1680, the proprietors instructed Andrew Percivall, one of Charles

Town's leading citizens and Lord Shaftesbury's representative in the colony (Lesser

1995,519), to send to the Cofitaciquis, the Esaws, and all other nations, and enter a

League with against ye Westoes" (Salley 1928, 106). Twenty years later, John Lawson passed through what was left of Cofitachique inl700 as he explored Carolina's northern

•2Q frontiers (Moore 2002, 17). A seventeenth century Spanish account of the region states that the Carolina coast south of Charles Town was subject to the authority of Cofitachiqui

(DePratter 1994, 197). As a result, Carolina colonists were immediately immersed in

Sub-Mississippia contexts. Northwest of the colony in the Appalachian foothills,

Cherokee towns controlled access to the Tennessee River, a direct and heavily utilized route to the American interior (Crane 1928, 65, 90, and 93). The Savannah River, which constituted Charles Town's southwestern border, was no longer the site of extensive

Mississippian development. Archaeologist David Anderson argues that Mississippian peoples had abandoned the area in the previous century because the availability of resources was limited, but he acknowledges that Sub-Mississippia peoples continued to occupy sites in the headwaters region and continued to exploit available resources throughout the rest of the Savannah River Valley. The middle section of the Savannah, between the Cherokee towns on the headwaters and the Cusabo towns affiliated with

Cofitachiqui at its mouth, increasingly became a destination for Native refugees from the 109 north (Westo), south (Yamassee), and even more distant places in present-day Ohio

(Shawnee/Savarmah). Immediately across this natural border, a Sub-Mississippia metamorphosis had begun some years before in the Oconee and Ocmulgee River Basin, as Hitchiti-speakers such as the Yamassee were displaced or incorporated into the towns of Muskogee-speaking moundbuilding descendants from further west. Emerging relationships with Muskogee-speaking Native peoples who had begun to coalesce along the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers region would allow Charles Town traders such as

Heruy Woodward to tap into the more distant Sub-Mississippia polities that resided in present-day western Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. East and South of the Oconee

River Basin, Mississippian polities along the Atlantic coastline of present-day Georgia, as well as numerous other Mississippian societies flourished in a region the Spaniards referred to as Guale (Moore 1998, 25). All of these relationships would have profound effects for Carolina's rise to economic and political prominence during the proprietary period. Given these circumstances, it might be argued that Anglo-Americans inherited the western gaze characteristic of Manifest Destiny from the Indigenous peoples who were well aware of the political complexity and vast array of readily available resources in the American west.

For the first one hundred thirty years of its political existence. South Carolina maintained its proprietary charter bestowed sea-to-sea Discovery Rights'"^ and did not cede those claims until the United States extinguished them by negotiating the Agreement of 1802.'^' South Carolina's ideological commitment to western land claims prompted the colony to actively oppose Spanish and French colonization in the American southeast. 110 which correspond to three other archaeologically designated sub-regions of Mississippian culture: the Middle Mississippian, the Plaquemine, and the Caddoan.

This dissertation embodies the spirit of Axtell's "call to context" by considering the linguistic, epistemological, ontological, and cosmological perspectives of Native peoples; by actively seeking out Indigenous perspectives on the nature and significance of these concepts; and by considering Indigenous agency from within appropriate cultural parameters of Indigenous structural apparatuses. These are practices that more fully explore the cross-cultural character of historical circumstances during South Carolina's proprietary period, circumscribing events within Indigenous interpretive frameworks and bringing Indigenous referential perspectives to bear on documented historical circumstances. Ill

Section One

Defining Sub-Mississippia

Re-characterizing the Protohistoric Period

This analysis entertains the idea that the protohistoric era in the American

Southeast was a period of Indigenous social reorganization rather than one of apocalyptic collapse and predicates its subsequent historical analysis on this assumption. A profound period of Mississippian sociopolitical reorganization was occurring as European colonists were arriving in North America, so the reorganization of Indigenous southeastern sociopolitical landscapes was not solely the result of European colonization. During these periods of regional metamorphosis, Indigenous peoples modified their

Mississippian legacies to accommodate English traders and to promote the integration of

European traders and trade goods into ancient North American trade networks. My analysis of cross-cultural encounters between Carolina settler populations and Native peoples begins with the assumption of pre-existing commercial and diplomatic infrastructures, which were adopted to the special circumstances and potential opportunities presented by cross-cultural interaction with the English subjects residing in the Charles Town colony.

From this perspective, Mississippian systems of knowledge and the Sub-

Mississippia, Indigenous circumstances of the American southeast directly and indirectly subsidized emerging English commercial ambitions. When the historic events of

Carolina's proprietary period are viewed from such a perspective, English commercial and imperial inroads can be understood as a function of southeastern peoples' willingness 112 to incorporate English traders into pre-existing networks of exchange and English trade- centered colonial strategies. Applying this kind of interpretive framework is a conscious effort to counter-balance wide-spread, but largely unproven, perceptions that Native societies in the American southeast were technologically and demographically overwhelmed by European colonial intrusions.

Re-conceiving the protohistoric period as a Sub-Mississippia era of sociopolitical reorganization is an attempt to implement new critical approaches and apply Indigenous

Studies theories to the study of cross-cultural encounters during the early historic period.

By replacing general, Eurocentric signifiers such as "prehistoric," "late-prehistoric," and

"proto-historic" with "Sub-Mississippia," Indigenous studies scholars ask their audiences to consider the historical landscape of the American southeast from Indigenous perspectives that account for the pre-European contexts of colonial encounters. When used to describe the human history of North America, the three variations of "historic" impose Eurocentric perspectives on societies that developed in the absence of European influences. Superimposing a Eurocentric vision of the past on North American circumstances devalues Indigenous American cultural contexts by arbitrarily subdividing the experience of Indigenous American societies into three distinct spheres, a practice that deemphasizes cultural continuity and structurally prohibits systematic inquiries into the significance of Native historical agency.

The concept of a Sub-Mississippia era is a product of Indigenous Studies

Theory."^^ As Peter Kulchyski notes in his contribution to Expressions in Canadian

Native Studies (2000), Indigenous Studies methods and practices involve "the creation, 113 recognition, or legitimization of new knowledge and new forms of knowledge"

(Kulchyski 2000, 13), and "may be seen as part of a broader movement within academia to question the now dominant standards for inquiry that were laid down in large measure by the western Enlightenment tradition" (Kulchyski 2000, 15). Kulchyski states that

Native Studies begins with "the setting right of names... the carefiil calculation, the deliberate, cautious, but necessary practice of righting names" (Kulchyski 2000, 13). The concept of a Sub-Mississippia Era is a practical application of this theoretical assertion, an effort to characterize the social, political, and religious contexts of the cross-cultural encounters of southeastern America's contact period more precisely by taking account of

Indigenous perspectives when they are available, by imposing Indigenous Studies interpretive frameworks, and employing Indigenous Studies theoretical models. The term Sub-Mississippian re-characterizes the protohistoric period in order to shift analytical focus away from a perspective of cultural termination and demographic collapse and to promote interpretive perspectives that prioritize transformative processes of cultural maintenance and preservation in the protohistoric an colonial eras. This theoretical shift requires challenging accepted assumptions concerning the lack of continuity between the historic tribes and confederacies of the American southeast and their Mississippian predecessors.

Seeking out the cultural contexts that inform the circumstances of Native agency and more appropriately contextualize their actions is attained in part by seeking out

"enduring cultural customs" (Axtell 1997, 15) of Indigenous southeastern peoples and tracing them backwards through time towards their origins. Often, this process leads to 114 the threshold of the Southern Appalachian sub-region of a Mississippian World, where the ancient traditions of mound construction, intra-continental exchange networks, shared ceremonial cycles, a widely disseminated set of sociopolitical organizing principles, and an over-arching religious structural apparatus that shaped and regulated the contours of everyday practice. Given the historically documented overlap of Mississippian reorganization and European exploration characteristic of the Sub-Mississippia southeast, the probability of Indigenous cultural continuity is high and worthy of much closer academic scrutiny.

Until recently, historic scholarship on the American southeast has had little interest in taking account of Mississippian influences on the circumstances of the Sub-

Mississippian South because it was assumed that Indigenous southeastemers shared little in common with prehistoric Mississippian societies. Archaeologists, like historians and ethnohistorians have embraced the idea of a Mississippian cultural collapse.

Archaeological assumptions of cultural disparity across the Sub-Mississippia era are based on an inherent tension between archaeological and historical evidence. Recent interpretations of available archaeological data argue that Mississippian societies, like other moundbuilding polities in North America, were socially stratified societies, which utilized inherently unstable form of political organization because local leaders lacked the political power to enforce their will on outlying areas. In others words, most archaeologists and historians argue that absent military force Mississippian leaders lacked the coercive authority required to create stable political units. Conversely, documentary evidence from the earliest European observers consistently characterizes Native societies 115 as loosely confederated townships and describes Indigenous political structures as

"egalitarian." European observers characterized Native southeastern societies as egalitarian because they perceived that political participation and governmental oversight cut across all levels of southeastern tribal societies. These European observers were not as quick to notice the administrative complexity of Southeastern political organization, which was dependent on a multi-tiered system of advisory committees, public administrators, and local community leaders. Because of the perceived lack of political complexity in tribal confederacies and archaeological characterizations of chiefdom societies as highly structured, hierarchal, societies, the alleged lack of sociopolitical and cultural continuity between prehistoric natives and historic Indians has rarely been challenged. From strictly academic perspectives, there seemed little reason to assume any degree of cultural continuity between them. Additionally, the paradigm of southeastern cultural collapse solves a multitude of theoretical and methodological difficulties facing archaeologists and colonial era historians alike. Historians face the difficulty of establishing cultural continuity in the absence of documentary sources on which they depend so heavily and the larger problem of explicating the influences of societies they have little intimate knowledge of. Archaeologists face challenges from contemporary Native peoples over their hegemonic control of sacred Indigenous sites and legal complications from enforcement of the Native Graves Protection and Repatriation

Act if they openly acknowledge and argue for substantial sociopolitical and cultural continuity between prehistoric and historic Native societies. In the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century, there was a concerted effort, first by amateur and then 116 by professional archaeologists and historians, to disassociated "Indian" claims to or control over North Americas most ubiquitous public monuments (Mann 2003, 51-104).

More recently, historians (Gallay 2002 and Hahn 2004) have noted the importance of Mississippian influences on later generations of Indigenous southeastemers, but they have not been highly motivated to seek out the fiill nature or extent or the possible implications of these connections. While recent historical scholarship concerning the colonial southeast has become increasingly concerned with incorporating Spanish and French documents to create a more complete historical picture of the Imperial southeast, but they have continued to avoid extensive use of archaeological data, tribal perspectives, or critically informed interpretations of documentary evidence, which would present North American History as a continuum of events rather than disassociated and random acts of peoples that, at least until 1492, lacked the ability to make sense of their own pasts.

Historical archives continue to serve as the primary sources for data concerning

Indigenous Americans. And they remain the primary sources of historical accounts that have attempted to describe native political and social institutions or tried to incorporate

Native perspectives. These methodological practices as well as accompanying ethnocentric theoretical parameters have segregated historic Indigenous institutions from their Native roots. Historic Native polities have been understood as societies radically transformed by their adaptation of European technology or as societies overwhelmed by an invasion of disease and technologies beyond their comprehension, perspectives that are paternalistic and prejudicial. In either case Native polities are portrayed as bearing 117 little resemblance to their progenitors, which is an unfortunate misrepresentation of the facts. Archaeologists Cameron Wesson and Mark Rees' summary of this academic logjam is useful background information for those interested in Southeastern Native

Studies.

Archaeologists and Historians have long acknov^ledged that European contact acutely affected Native American cultures. However, two diametrically opposed interpretations of these effects have permeated anthropological research for the majority of this [twentieth] century. An earlier generation of scholars downplayed the disruption European contacts represented to native cultures, while a later generation has exaggerated these same impacts. The differences in interpretation appear to be based more on the theoretical approaches and a priori assumptions of individual researchers than on discer- nable differences in the archaeological or historical records. (Wesson and Rees 2002, 2)

Wesson and Rees go on to note that "dramatic changes most certainly occurred during the protohistoric period, but these changes (like those for other non-Western cultures contacted by Europeans) did not completely sever native peoples from their pre-contact cultural predecessors" (Wesson and Rees 2002, 3).

In addition to the well-documented difficulties of constructing Indigenous histories primarily from Euro-American source material, "the archaeological record presents its own difficulties with regard to protohistoric culture change" (Wesson and

Rees 2002, 3). According to Wesson and Rees,

Chief among these impediments are divisions within the discipline of arch­ aeology that have marginalized protohistoric studies. Theoretical and methodological boundaries between prehistoric and historic archaeologies have made studies of protohistoric phenomena problematic. Prehistoric archaeology has a traditional bias toward 'untainted' pre-contact cultures, while historic archaeology has been biased toward indigenous cultures with suitable historic records (Beaudry 1988; Deagan 1988; Euler 1972: 202; Galloway 1993: 101; C. Hudson and Tesser 1994; Lightfoot 1995; Trigger 1982; 13, 1985: 118; W. R. Wood 1990). Such disciphnary divisions, 118

coupled with other research obstacles, have limited archaeological and historical inquiry into protohistoric culture change, resulting in a proto- historic Southeast which was, until recently, a terra incognita. (Wesson and Rees 2002, 1-2)

Theorizing a transitional Sub-Mississippia world rather than a cataclysmic protohistoric period directly addresses these academic shortcomings, which continue to adversely affect the production of colonial American histories and limit scholars' ability to properly contextualize the Indigenous character of southeastern historical circumstances. From an Indigenous Studies perspective, the Sub-Mississippia Period describes an era of Indigenous transition, a period of metamorphosis during which

Indigenous political institutions and social traditions were modified to accommodate changing circumstances and incorporate different trading partners and new commodities, while maintaining some degree of internal integrity, processes which likely were modeled on the previous experience with Mississippian exchange networks and the difficulty of exercising administrative control in chiefdom societies. Writing southeastern histories that take account of such a transitory period allows the experiences of historic Indians to be contemplated from within their aboriginal Mississippian contexts. Adopting a Sub-

Mississippian theoretical perspective provides a better way to discuss the circumstances of trade between Indians and Europeans, one that avoids terminology that accentuates the arrival of a western European notion of "history" rooted in written documents and fails to capture the vitality, agency, and continuity of Pre-Columbian indigenous societies in

North America. 119

Archaeological Evidence for Sub-Mississippia Sociopolitical Reorganization

The time frame of the Sub-Mississippia period varies across geographical parameters, lasting for at least one hundred years in Florida and up to two hundred years in Carolina, depending upon the date and location ascribed to the initial phases of social reordering among Mississippian peoples and the establishment of a permanent European presence to begin the processes of historic documentation. Archaeological data suggests that Mississippian societies were undergoing a general process of structural reorganization that predated European arrival in North America, and it is likely that the appearance of Europeans exacerbated, rather than determined, environmental and political factors, that were slowly changing the face of Mississippian societies throughout.

The decline of Cahokia, almost universally considered both the epicenter and the apex of Mississippian culture, is commonly dated to the mid fifteenth century. While it hardly seems appropriate to challenge expert opinions,it is equally unwise to assume there was a wholesale, collapse of all Mississippian societies throughout the Southeast during the fifteenth century. Emerging interpretations of new archaeological evidence suggest that Mississippian societies were hardly in a state of ruin during the late seventeenth century or even in the early eighteenth century, when Coweta "emerged as a an independent political unit" (Hahn 2004, 13) along the lower Chattahoochee River in present-day southwestern Georgia. As previously noted, the Natchez, who resided in the

Lower Mississippi River Valley, maintained their Mississippian structured society until the early eighteen century when their settlements were destroyed by the combined 120 military efforts of the French and the Choctaw, who had Mississippian origins themselves. It is significant that Natchez refugees sought protection among the

Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee, all of whom celebrated the Mississippian traditions of their moundbuilding ancestors even after Removal in the 1830s (Heard 1986, 264).

Steven Hahn's recent publication, The Invention of the Creek Nation 1670-1763, is representative of the historical attempts to reconcile the historically ambiguous relationship between late Mississippian societies of the American southeast and the

"Indian tribes" encountered by Europeans during the early historic period. Hahn states,

"Coweta, like most southeastern towns of the historic era, rose out of the ashes of an earlier civilization that appeared in the region, usually referred to as the Mississippian culture" (Hahn 2004, 13).

Ultimately, Hahn's text is a useful and beneficial resource for explicating the circumstances of Charles Town's dependence upon Indigenous knowledge, institutions, and traditions, but characterizing the final epoch of mound construction as an apparition is problematic for those who wish to envision Indigenous history as a process rather than a series of isolated events. Hahn's use of the singular tense suggests a monolithic

Mississippian culture, a description that fails to capture, or even acknowledge, the regional diversity of Mississippian cultural expression.

Hahn's description of Coweta rising "from the ashes" is especially misleading because Coweta did not create itself in a vacuum; North America was not tabula rasa.

Coweta and other Indigenous towns, regardless of their emerging tribal affiliations, were situated in a matrix of social reorganization predicated upon the structural apparati of 121

Mississippian networks, which incorporated newly arriving European settler populations of all nationalities into preexisting networks of commercial, religious, and intellectual exchange. Hahn's theoretical approach is characteristic of historical efforts to regulate

Mississippian principles of governance and traditions of commercial and intellectual exchange to the confines of a late prehistoric period distinct from the circumstances of

Indigenous experience in the historic era.

The reluctance of historians to deal directly with the ambiguity of Mississippian influences is understandable. From a historical perspective, little can be said with certainty regarding Mississippian societies. The information that is available is usually a product of anthropology and archaeology, not history, requiring historians to venture out of their field of expertise. The archaeological record is complex, contested, and far from complete. In many cases the evidence archaeologists examine has been damaged or removed from its original archaeological contexts by private landowners who fail to appreciate the cultural and historical significance of Mississippian sites, or commercial

"pothunters," who too readily appreciate the economic significance of Mississippian artifacts. Mound sites have frequently undergone previous excavations by amateur archaeologists or been looted. All of these factors compromise interdisciplinary efforts to understand the degree of Mississippian influences on the commercial and intellectual exchange networks in the early colonial period as well as the subsequent construction of subjective and collective tribal identities (Mann 2003, 105-67).

From an Indigenous Studies perspective, even some of the most recent historical narratives that attempt to incorporate Indigenous southeastern perspectives, whether they 122 are geo-political (Gallay 2002) or ethno-political (Hahn 2004, 4) treatments, are problematic for a number of reasons. Mississippian societies were not in a state of complete disarray prior to the arrival of European explorers; Mississippian influences on the continent were too profound and too widespread to have simply "vanished" from native peoples' consciousness as completely as some scholars might wish to imagine.

Moreover, careful observation and analysis reveal that indigenous peoples in the historic era exhibited many cultural affinities with their moundbuilding ancestors. Most importantly, contemporary Native Peoples offer their own histories and traditions as evidence of their direct connection to moundbuilding societies and North America's ancient past. While it is certainly possible to construct rhetorical arguments that discount, elide, or ignore the importance of these relationships, it is equally possible to embrace the difficulties and ambiguities of archaeological data in order to construct arguments that trace the continuity of these traditions and their importance to the tribes of the historic era.

More recent interpretations of the archaeological data increasingly suggest a pattem of re-orientation among Mississippian chiefdoms that dates from the fourteenth to the early seventeenth century rather than wholesale collapse. In his contribution to

Patricia Galloway's anthology The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, David S. Brose writes,

The final sub-period (from ca. A.D. 1350- European contact) shows major geographic concentration into a limited number of major sites, with aban­ donment of much inter-center territory. Major Mississippian earthwork construction, extreme status-differentiated burial, and geographic expansion seems to slow, and occasionally (locally) completely stop, between A.D. 1250 and AD 1350. There is a wide spread reorientation of secondary 123

Mississippian sites, and non-Mississippian sites into a defensive posture (by location and fortification). And it is to this period that we must assign the spread, if not the development, of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. (Brose1989, 29)

Brose's comments suggest that even in a state of systematic decline of inter­ regional interaction between Mississippian polities, Mississippian peoples were reorganizing and reordering their societies to meet new sociopolitical and environmental challenges. Since the inter-regional trade networks of all North American

Moundbuilders, not just those of Mississippian peoples, is well-documented, it seems logical to characterize the decline of their commercial and diplomatic networks as radiating outward from Cahokia, a process that would require the "reorientation of secondary Mississippian sites" (Brose 1989, 29) to more circumscribed, perhaps regional, spheres of influence.

This interpretation is supported by Mallory O'Connor, author of Lost Cities of the

Ancient Southeast, who writes.

During the Late Mississippian phase (AD 1500-1700), there was a fiirther Reduction in diversity of subjects in art and a concentration on a few specific motifs, such as the rattlesnake, the piasa, the thunderbird, and the death mask. The Citico style of the Coosa, represented by conventionalized and abstracted rattlesnake designs, is characteristic of this phase. So is the Spaghetti style found along the Gulf Coast. Forms and patterns had become set. Repetition replaced innovation. Technical skill was still evident, but the creative spark had largely been extinguished. (O'Conner 1995, 81)

O'Conner surmises that this situation resulted from of an organizational breakdown of artisan specialization, previously subsidized by Mississippian power structures. O'Conner states, "Chiefly power had been severely eroded by this time, and there was a shift throughout the region to less-organized social structures. European 124 intrusions and the spread of Old World diseases exacerbated this process, ultimately leading to the complete breakdown of Mississippian society" (O'Conner 1995, 81).

As we have seen, O'Conner's assertion that disease was a primary catalyst for the demise of Mississippian polities is a widely debated hypothesis. O'Conner agrees with

Charles Hudson (1976, 1990, and 1997) and Hudson and Tesser (1994) as well as

Rangel, Biedma, and Elvas' reports first person accounts of the Soto's expedition

(Clayton, Knight, and Moore, 1993) who argue, or suggest, that Spanish soldiers and their animals were the first to bring European diseases to the region. As we have seen, recent scholarship on the introduction of European diseases casts uncertainty on such assertions and the possibility that Mississippian chiefdoms collapsed in few generations between Soto's expedition and the permanent arrival of European settler populations.

Some archaeologists maintain there is no direct evidence of wholesale Mississippian depopulation (Smith 1987, 84; Smith 1994, 257-75; Gallay 2002, 27-8). Chester De

Pratter (1994) maintains that since children tended to serve as the primary carriers of these diseases, it is unlikely that Spanish explorers were the source of these deadly contagions. Scholars such as Galloway, (1996, 230), Muller (1997), Kelton (2002), and

Ritcher (2001) argue that diseases likely spread at a slower rate that has been traditionally accepted, and that epidemic disease was problematic rather than a devastating aspect of late pre-historic North America.

The timing of the introduction of epidemic diseases is a key issue in the demographic debate. Stannard reports "the first known explosion of European disease occurred in January of 1494 on the northern coast of Hispaniola (Stannard 1992, 203). If 125 trading relationships existed among the native peoples of Florida and those of the

Caribbean, biological agents may have been introduced to North America shortly thereafter. Even in the absence of substantial interaction between Native peoples in the

Caribbean and Florida, the historical record clearly demonstrates that European diseases significantly affected Indigenous populations all along the eastern seaboard by the beginning of the seventeenth century. Dobyns reports that a devastating plague of some sort killed large numbers of Timucuan people in 1564 (Dobyns, 1987; 275-6). At about the same, time Indigenous Virginians were experiencing a devastating series of European diseases (Stannard 1992, 102) and by the turn of the seventeenth century "an epidemic of measles-or possibly bubonic plague-had swept through Florida (Stannard 1992, 102).

In the southeast, historical accounts seem to contradict contemporary archaeological assertions of increasingly circumscribed Mississippian networks. While archaeologists generally agree that Cahokia was abandoned during the fifteenth century, de Soto's chroniclers document a large number of thriving Mississippian polities in the mid-Atlantic region as late as A. D. 1540 (Elvas 1993, 83), approximately one hundred years after the apex of Cahokian cultural expression and hegemony. Additionally, archaeologists Williams and Shapiro have demonstrated that viable Mississippian societies occupied the Oconee River valley of northeastern Georgia possibly as late as the middle of the seventeenth century, which continued to function within Mississippian cultural parameters for at least fifty years after mound construction had ceased sometime around AD 1600 (WiUiams and Shapiro 1996, 132). David G. Moore's Catawba Valley

Mississippian: Ceramics, Chronology, and Catawba Indians (2002) suggests a similar 126 dynamic was at work in the central and western piedmont regions of present-day North

Carolina. Given these circumstances, it seems unlikely that the collapse of Mississippian societies radiated inward from the periphery. If as most archaeologists maintain, Cahokia was in a state of decline the fifteenth century, it seems to have had only marginal impacts on southeastern polities, who although apparently affected by disease and circumscribed

Mississippian horizons, were continuing to flourish when encountered by Ayllon (1520),

Narvaez (1526), Soto (1540), as well as Aviles and Pardo (1565).

If we turn to Native accounts that report significant conflicts between moundbuilding polities, the processes of Mississippian regionalization in the Southeast might be interpreted as reactions against hierarchal form of social organization characteristic of chiefdoms in the Mississippi River Valley. The Iroquois, Shawnee,

Delaware, Cherokee tribal traditions relate that conflict among Moundbuilding societies led to the virtual abandonment of present-day Kentucky and its designation as "a dark and bloody ground" (Mann 2003, 115). Iroquois traditions suggest that acceptance of the

Great Law of Peace was the result of dissatisfaction and conflict with Moundbuilding societies (Mann 2003, 116). In fact, when tribal traditions are accounted for, the importance of North American Moundbuilding traditions as explanatory models emerges.

For example. Indigenous oral histories and tribal traditions support David Brose's assertion that the late Mississippian societies in present-day eastern Tennessee exhibited more decentralized approaches to political than are typically associated with chiefdom societies, a political strategy exemplified by the movement of temples fi-om the tops of platform mounds to edges of plazas (Brose 1989, 27-40). Incorporating tribal traditions 127 explicating the historical significance of mounds can also be used to explain the transitory practices of Native peoples such as the Shawnee, who were known to Carolina colonists as the Savannah. Tribal mound histories also explain, at least in part, the chronology of Southeastern reorganization and the dissemination of cultural traits associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex as well as the rise of the politics of southeastern confederation.

Recent developments in archaeology demonstrate the academic necessity of considering the North American context of early cross-cultural encounters, especially those occurring throughout the southeast after the establishment of Charles Town.

As we have already seen. Wesson and other archaeologists have called for a reexamination of protohistoric culture change, interrogating the underlying assumptions behind the reorganization of Late Mississippian polities. In that regard, archaeologists have begun to question interpretive models that rely on an "elite-centered view of social agency," which have traditionally structured "studies of social power in the southeast"

(Wesson2002, 111).

In this view, culture change is brought about though the actions of high- ranking members of society acting through the manipulation of social, political, and religious institutions. This elite centered view of social agency has spilled over into the analysis of protohistoric culture change, only instead of an omniscient, near-omnipotent indigenous elite being responsible for social change it is the European who has seized the reigns of control. (Wesson 2002, 111)

Many archaeologists have also begun to think more critically about models of protohistoric culture change that emphasize European trade goods and diseases "as the principle factors in region wide declines in sociopolitical complexity" (Wesson 2002, 128

111). Vernon J Knight writes, "Standard historical treatments concerning the Indian trade in the Southeast are written, for the most part, from the European point of view... We see portrayed here a race of primitive materialist... 'vain children of the forest,' behaving something like a lucky youth with a five-pound note turned loose in a candy store of English vanities and trifles" (Knight 1985, 169-70).'^

Moreover, archaeologists are also seriously questioning "the function of disease as the prime mover of protohistoric cultural change" (Wesson 2002 112). Wesson writes that "much additional archaeological data on local population declines are needed to more fiilly evaluate claims concerning the effect of depopulation in protohistory, not simply continued extrapolation of numbers from unreliable Spanish accounts" (Wesson

2002, 112). When these new theoretical approaches are coupled with emerging

Indigenous Studies theories, practices, and interpretive models that take account of

Native philosophies, cosmologies, and systems of knowledge, the real work of redefining the Sub-Mississippia southeast can begin.

Because Indigenous American societies were forged in the crucible of North

American circumstance, these societies are inherently and fundamentally different from their conceptual counterparts in Europe and the rest of the Old World."^^ When considering cultural development or historical circumstances of the Sub-Mississippia period by marshalling culturally-constructed, ethnocentric concepts such as the nature of political power, warfare, agriculture, and diplomatic protocol, it is necessary to incorporate these concepts cautiously and critically. When considering the major influences on cross-cultural exchange during the early colonial era, it is possible to 129 dismiss the possibility of Indigenous cultural continuity across the protohistoric period and argue that the "egalitarian" societies of the American southeast were formed in the demographic vacuum imposed by European disease (Borah 1964; Dobyns 1983, 1991;

Dunnell 1991; Ramenofsky 1987, 1990; and Marvin T. Smith 1987, 1994) or as a reaction to the presence of Europeans, their diseases, and their trade goods (Axtell 1981;

Blakely and Detweiler-Blakely 1989; Braund 1993; Cottrell 1954; Crane 1928; Dobyns

1983, 1991; Durschlag 1995; Fairbanks 1952, 1958; Gallay 2002; Gatschet 1969; Green

1982; Martin 1978: Mason 1963; Morris 1993; Ramenofsky 1987, 1990; Roberts 1989;

Saunt 1998; Marvin T. Smith 1987; White 1983); however, such approaches are at odds with the belief that individuals and communities cope with the contingencies of the moment and plan for the possibilities of the fiiture by making use of the past. Such a position is also at odds with "the nature of human society and with the inherent capacities of social actors" (Wesson 2002 113).

Native Peoples in the southeast used their pasts to come to terms with rapidly changing circumstances and to make plans of their future survival. In many cases this meant marshalling knowledge from their Mississippian pasts in order to neutralize the violent sociopolitical impacts of the Spanish encomienda and later to open new trade relationships and military alliances with English settlers to offset Spanish influence.

Using redefined and reorganized Mississippian protocols to promote their own self- interests, Indigenous southerners, especially those associated with Southeastern tribal confederacies such as the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Creek, engaged in multi- faceted forms of diplomacy, juggling diplomatic relationships with European Imperial 130 powers in order to leverage the best commercial relationships, secure their own domestic tranquility, and maintain internal relationships predicated upon ancient standards of social organization. The dynamic nature of interaction among Mississippian polities would have provided Native peoples with extensive diplomatic experience and certainly left them well prepared to negotiate difficult situations with new sets of partners, allies, and enemies that were arriving from Europe. Native southeastemers coupled over one hundred years of experience with Spanish colonization with Indigenous American traditions of trade, diplomacy, and intellectual exchange inherited from a Native past that did not include Europeans. Native recourse to the historical precedents of Mississippian cultural achievement provided the philosophical structures and logistical frameworks for political consolidation, for co-existence with foreign peoples, and for maintaining and preserving their cultural heritages. 131

Section Two

Identifying Connections between Sub-Mississippia Peoples, Historic Tribes, and Contemporary Native Peoples

Mound Sites as Markers of Enduring Cultural Continuity

Even given the inherent conservatism of archaeological chronologies, southeastern timelines established by archaeologists are enticing because they suggest that fiilly functional Mississippian polities existed in southern Appalachia and the

Atlantic coastal plain. If archaeological estimates are accurate, these Mississippian polities were undergoing transformative processes of social and political reorganization when English colonists arrived from Barbados to establish Charles Town in 1670. While there is no direct evidence of mound construction immediately prior to the establishment of the Charles Town colony, it is safe to assume that Indigenous moundbuilding activity had not ceased in the very distant past.

Archaeologists generally agree that moundbuilding in the Oconee River watershed ended sometime around the turn of the seventeenth century (Williams 1994;

Williams and Shapiro 1996). Historical evidence (Clayton et al 1993) and emerging archaeological data indicate that the chiefdom organization in the Carolina piedmont followed a similar chronology (Anderson 1996a, 1996b; DePratter 1994a; Moore 2002).

Archaeologist David Moore has developed a chronological model for Catawba ethno- genesis that is very similar to the timeline Williams and Shapiro constructed for the

Oconee region. Moore argues that the reorganization of the paramount chiefdom of

Cofitachique located on the banks of the Wateree River near present-day Camden, South

Carolina, began in the Sub-Mississippia period preceding the rise of the Catawba 132 confederacy. David Anderson argues that the Savannah River Valley, Charles Town's southwestern territorial limit, had been abandoned by Mississippian peoples prior to

Spanish exploration, and that Mississippian peoples continued to utilize its resources in the well into the seventeenth century. In other words, Anderson argues that by archaeological standards there is no Mississippian "occupation recognized" despite evidence for continued resource exploitation by Mississippian peoples (Anderson 1996,

156). Anderson acknowledges the existence of Mississippian sites, later associated with historic Cherokee towns, at the headwaters of the Savannah River as well as documentary evidence from English and Spanish sources suggesting the lower regions of the river retained some aspects of Mississippian political and social organization even though occupation of the most predominant mound center in the Savannah river Valley (Irene) ceased "around AD 1450 or shortly thereafter" (Anderson 1996, 163). Viewed from a broad perspective, Anderson's observations tend to support documentary evidence from

Spanish sources suggesting that coastal peoples as far south as present-day Edisto Island,

South Carolina were within Cofitachique's sphere of political influence

It is entirely possible that the Atlantic region from present-day Savannah, Georgia north to the location of the Charles Town settlement was the site of a Mississippian power struggle between the chiefdoms of Coosa, located just beyond the headwaters of the Savannah and Cofitachique in piedmont region of present-day South Carolina (near

Camden, SC). Based on linguistic evidence, Swanton associates the Cusso (Kussoe),

Native peoples living along the Coosawhatchie and Edisto Rivers, the paramount chiefdom of Coosa. On the other hand, Spanish documents relate that Native peoples of 133 the coastal region owed tribute to Cofitachique. If, as these circumstances indicate, the coast region of present-day South Carolina was contested Mississippian territory, it could explain why English colonists were directed to the Charleston area by Native informants.

From an Indigenous perspective, English settlers living on the Ashley and Cooper Rivers could be seen as a buffer between Siouan-speakers in the piedmont and Muskogee- speakers in southern Appalachia, who were utilizing coastal resources via the Savannah

River. Because Charles occupied a limited watershed, English colonists might have been perceived by Native peoples as militarily and diplomatically contained and therefore potentially attractive allies against colonization by the Spain or the Cofitachique, especially since English colonists, unlike Spanish missionaries, readily cultivated trading relationships with Native peoples.

Within the self-proclaimed jurisdictional limits of proprietary Carolina, which was initially approximately a 200 mile radius, only a few generations passed between the cession of moundbuilding activities, the point at which native populations dropped below the critical mass necessary to build and maintain Mississippian centers, and the time

Henry Woodward began to search out potential Indigenous alliances in the name of the

Lords Proprietors of Carolina across the Savannah River. Under these circumstances, surviving Mississippian social and political protocols would have constituted an immediate context for accommodating the presence of the English and their commercial and colonial desires.

In many respects, the issue of exactly when Native southeastern peoples ceased construction and maintenance of mounds in Southern Appalachian sub-region is moot 134 because mound construction was simply the most visible and most readily identifiable marker of Mississippian cultural orientation. Archaeologists use mound construction to create Mississippian chronologies, but mound construction is not necessarily the best standard forjudging the decline and disappearance of Mississippian cultures. Mounds are, however, the Mississippian artifacts most readily assessable to archaeologists. The decision to discontinue maintenance of mound centers does not necessarily demarcate a sharp division between historic and prehistoric, nor should the inability to build or maintain mound sites be understood as a total collapse of Mississippian systems of knowledge or the abrupt end of Mississippian traditions and practices. Since mound construction and maintenance were undeniably labor intensive, it is likely that these activities were among the first Mississippian practices to fall into disuse. The decision to abandon mound construction could have been forced upon native southeastemers by demographic and environmental factors as archaeologists and historians have argued, or the decision one aspect of the active, internally motivated reorganization of governmental power structures, which were becoming increasingly inefficient and problematic.

In either case, Mississippian sites continued to be heavily utilized after moundbuilding had ceased, which is a situation that indicates the social and political capital of these places retained considerable aspects of their original sociological and political value. Mississippian concepts and practices did not necessarily cease to influence Native southerners when mound maintenance became too great a burden. As

Gallay notes, "outward forms rather than inward substance changed for southern Indians"

(Gallay 2002, 29). Given the continued spiritual importance of these places and their 135 obvious historical significance, the inability to maintain the relationship between the physical mound sites themselves and the political models they nurtured should not be understood as divorcing Native peoples from their larger cultural circumstances. The abandonment of mound construction is better understood as a critical moment in the continuum of an ongoing southeastern Indigenous history. The transition of Mound sites from religious, ceremonial, political, and commercial centers to symbolic signifiers of

Native cultures, manifestations of Place Sense that anchor and contextualize southeastern

Indigenous histories and systems of knowledge, is mechanism of cultural preservation and survival, one that clearly illustrates the inherent resiliency of Indigenous southeastern forms of social organization. This shift in signification is a critical historical moment for

Native peoples, but ultimately it is a single episode of Indigenous America's long historical traditions, traditions that, in relative terms, Europeans have only recently interceded in.

Because Mound sites continue to actively shape identity formation among many contemporary southeastern Indigenous peoples (Mann 2003: Mankiller 1993; Arch

1998), the platform mounds of Late Mississippian peoples can be seen as embodying many enduring Southeastern cultural customs. Mounds remain the primary markers of social, political, and cultural continuity between historic and prehistoric Native southeastemers.

Historian Steven Hahn acknowledges the importance of Mounds to Mississippian peoples but fails to recognize the enduring qualities of their cultural signification.

The quintessential markers of the prehistoric chiefdoms...are the earthen platform mounds, which to this day can be found scattered throughout the 136

southeast. Scholars are convinced that Southeastern Indians built these mounds in successive stages, most likely during periodic episodes of rebuilding that occurred when new chiefs were installed as rulers. (Hahn2004, 15)

While Hahn clearly recognizes the importance of mounds to prehistoric societies, he fails to note their existence into the Sub-Mississippia era or to consider their symbolic significance for historic period Indigenous Americans. Considering the cultural implications of mound construction, occupation, and the inherent responsibilities of caring for and maintaining these places, assigning spiritual and symbolic value to Mound subsequent to the height of their practical, political value is not unreasonable, especially since these places continue to retain cultural significance for Indigenous peoples.

Additionally, the survival of Indigenous practices such as the Cherokee gadugi illustrates that historic tribes retained many core Mississippian conceptual principles, such as the concept of public works and communal labor, and engaged in similar kinds of activities.

From this perspective Mounds should be perceived as quintessential markers of tribal identity encoded with enduring cultural value that provide insight into critically important

Indigenous institutions and traditions as well as the transitional processes of the Sub-

Mississippia period.

Clearly mounds played central roles in maintaining cultural cohesion and at certain times extending cultural hegemony over surrounding areas. Hahn refers to these possibilities when he writes.

Evidence suggests that the mounds represented the 'navel of the world' from which sprang the town's (if not the entire chiefdom's) people sometime in the remote mythical past...Stratigraphic profiles suggest, moreover, a certain degree of political stability, as each phase of re-building (or 'capping,' as it is called) indicates the transmission of power from one generation to the next. A mound 137

likewise servered as a literal symbol of the chiefs elevated status, as his or her private dwelling and other sacred building were routinely built on the summit of such earthworks. (Hahn 2004, 15)

Emphasizing the importance of place as a structural organizing principle is a productive way to trace southeastern political transformations, but Hahn fails to acknowledge many obvious parallels between prehistoric mound-centered political organization and historic town-centered political organization. Tracing the connections between pre-contact mounds, Sub-Mississippia towns, and the historic towns of southeastern peoples at the time of English colonization is difficult, and although demonstrating the physical (geography), spiritual (cosmological or religious), and cultural (political and social) continuities between Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia native peoples requires novel methodologies and the application of divergent interpretive models, it is necessary if Indigenous historical agency is going to be reliably incorporated into Eurocentric narrative traditions.

In addition to Charles Town's location in the midst of interactive Mississippian polities on the Atlantic and the geographical match between larger interactive Sub-

Mississippia regions located across the Savannah River in the American interior and

Carolina's territorial claims, evidence of cultural continuity between historic documented and Sub-Mississippia Native communities is available through comparative analysis of social and political contexts of these sets of Indigenous polities.

Mounds as Markers of Ethnic Identity

The search for cultural continuity between Mississippian mound builders and historic tribes is rightftilly initiated by referring to the histories and traditions of the 138 peoples in question, and while scholars are dependent upon archaeologists for insights into political organization of and interaction between Mississippian chiefdoms in the

American southeast, the descendants of moundbuilders provide direct evidence of the continued spiritual importance of mound centers and the existence of cultural continuity themselves and their ancient ancestors.

Cherokee. Cherokee oral traditions clearly illustrate a perceived cultural continuity between post-removal Cherokee people and their Mississippian origins. Wilma

Mankiller, former Chief of the Western Cherokee, reveals the sociopolitical, historical, and philosophical significance of mounds in contemporary Cherokee life. In discussing the impact of removal, Mankiller reveals the historical importance of mound traditions and illustrates how contemporary Native people such as the Cherokee ascribe power and agency in mound cites, continuing to invest in the cultural capital of mounds.

Long ago, before the Cherokee were driven from their homes in 1838, the people on Valley River and Hiwasse heard voices of invisible spirits in the air. The spirits warned the Cherokees of wars and misfortunes which the future held in store, and invited them to come and live with the Nunnehi, The Immortals, in their homes under the mountains and under the water... Those of the Anisgayayi town came all together in their town houses and prayed and fasted for six days.. .On the seventh day the Nunnehi [came and] lifted up the town house with its mound to carry it away, [but] startled by the [the cries of the frightened people they] let a part of it fall to the earth, where we now see the mound of Sesti (my emphasis). (Mankiller 1993, 45)

Mankiller's perpetuation of the political, social, and spiritual symbolism of mound sites is complemented by practical attempts to reclaim material aspects the

Cherokee's ancient past by reclaiming sacred sites. In 1996, Cherokee activists lead by

Tom Belt persuaded the tribal council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to purchase a 300 acre site containing Kituwah Mound, a place of the utmost spiritual and 139 cultural significance for Cherokee people (Hooley, 2005, 1). Kituwah holds a great deal of spiritual and ethnic significance for many contemporary Cherokee people because it said to be the place where the creator gave laws and the first fire to humans. Many

regard it as the birthplace of the Cherokee people, "a place from which smoke from an eternal fire emerged through a hollow cedar trunk" (Hooley, 2005, 2). According to Tom

Belt, "This is the place where the people we call the Cherokee began...They were directed by God to come here, and the very first fire was given to the people here.. .this

place wasn't just a town—this was like the Vatican. This was the holiest of holies"

(quoted from Hooley 2005, 2). Today Kituwah symbolizes the social, political, and spiritual unity of the Cherokee people.

Before Removal, Kituwah served more practical sociopolitical and spiritual

needs. The mound supported a Temple, where an eternal fire was tended by priests and

leading citizens. During an annual ceremony called the Busk or Green Com Ceremony,

representatives of other towns came to get fire from the Temple and bring it back to their communities, a ritual that symbolically unified Cherokee as "people of one fire" and

required individuals to resolve personal and clan disputes. In this way, Kituwah was the

center of an extended Cherokee community as well as one of the earliest and largest

Cherokee towns. Archaeologists estimate that prior to Cherokee Removal, Kituwah had

been inhabited for approximately 10,000 years and that at one time as many as 200 hundred people lived near the mound site (Hooley, 2005, 1-2).

Recently, Cherokee individuals have begun to resurrect the ceremonial significance of this place by returning to pray and reviving ceremonial processes. In 140

1998, a group of Cherokee children under the direction of Tom Belt began the process of rebuilding Kituwah Mound by adding a small patch of red dirt to the top of the mound.

Belt describes the significance of this event in the following manner, "You're talking about kids who can't speak Cherokee, who watch TV all the time. All of a sudden they reach back in time and say that's a part of who we are. The very first rebuilding of the mound, it was the children who did it. Our ancestors are buried here. That's what they needed to see. When we begin to do these things again, who we are begins to mean something again" (Hooley, 2005, 2).'^^

Choctaw. Among the Choctaw, the mound known as Nun-nih Wai-ya marks the end of the Choctaw migration and the place where the profit warrior Chahtah called the warriors together for the purpose of organizing a code of laws and establishing the Choctaw nation

(Cushman 1962, 299-300). Theda Perdue writes that this mound served as important

Choctaw cultural icons well into the historic era. Perdue notes that in the first decades of the nineteenth century writes that the new generations of "mixed blood" leaders

brought to their new roles a concept of political authority that came from their mother's people.. .They had traditional lineage claims on their positions and drew on ancient symbols of power. When the 'mixed bloods' made substantial changes to the Choctaw political system, for example, they held the council in the shadow of the Nanih Waiyah, the mound that had given birth to the Choctaws (Perdue 2004, 712).

In her work on Choctaw ethno-genesis, Patricia Galloway has noted cultural trajectories similar to other acts of confederation throughout the southeast.

My study of the origin of the Choctaw people has led to the conclusion that the Choctaws of the eighteenth century were the inheritors of a multi-ethnic protohistoric confederacy. It was multiethnic because to a group indigenous to the Mississippi region it added other groups originating from the Moundville chiefdom of north central Alabama and Plaquemine culture groups from the 141

region west of the pearl River. The confederation was bom in the proto- historic period, AD 1540-1700, from the interaction of two phenomena: the natural cycle of chiefdom development and devolution and the unnatural chaos created by introduced epidemic disease in the beginning of the six­ teenth century. These upheavals led to the gathering together of remnants of fragmented groups into a confederacy, a series of autonomous villages articulated as a tribal organization, but its motley origins account for its failure to be a "pure" representative of that type (emphasis in original). (Galloway 1994, 393)

Creek. Like the Cherokee and Choctaw, the contemporary tribal people known as the

Creek maintain a similar connection to distance Mississippian pasts, and the mechanisms of their confederation may ultimately provide valuable insights into the nature of Sub-

Mississippia political power and social organization in the American southeast.

David Corkran states.

The Creek numbered between seven and eight thousand people established in sixty villages on the Chattahoochee, Tallapoosa, and Coosa Rivers in what is now western Georgia and eastern Alabama. These villages generally consisted of several score single-family clay houses grouped on streets about a central square which held council arbors and a temple. Nearby on the flats stretched the com fields. Some towns such as Coweta on the Chattahoochee and Tuckabatchee on the Tallapoosa held eight or nine hundred people. Because the entity described as the Creek Confederacy was a multiethnic and Multilingual compellation of diverse peoples, it is helpful to divide its constituent members into their representative groups (Corkran 1970, 8)

According to Charles Hudson, the Creek Confederacy and its constituent towns were "classified into two divisions-the Muskogean-speaking Hathagalgi or 'white people'

(also called "those who stick together') and the Tcilokogali or "people of different speech" (Hudson 1976, 236). Later, Europeans applied a geographical classification of their own, referring to Creek affiliated towns as belonging to either the Upper or Lower

Creeks. Muskogee speakers were the dominant division of the Creek confederacy. In early historic times, they occupied the area around the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, with 142 offshoots on the Flint River, along the Georgia coast, and on the Gulf coast from

Apalachee Bay to the Apalachicola River Hudson 1976, 237)/^ Discussions of the Creek and other Southeastern tribal confederacies should be prefaced with James Vernon

Knight's observation that confederation is not an appropriate description of this alliance because confederacy "implies a parity among member groups who ally themselves for a common cause, but in fact Creek towns were never perceived as equal in importance"

(Knight 1994, 374).

Creek traditions maintain that the foundational towns of the Upper Creek,

Tukabatchee, Abihka, Kasihta, and Coweta, were descended from the paramount chiefdom of Coosa (Knight 1994, 374), "one of the largest and most powerftjl polities of its kind in the southeastern United States" (Hally 1994 227). Apalachicola, a

Mississippian town of Hitchiti-speakers, held a similarly predominant role among the

Lower Creek (Knight 1994, 374). The division between the Upper and the Lower Creek became increasingly important after the American Revolution (Heard 1986, 118). As will be demonstrated later, a perception of difference between culturally affiliated towns was characteristic of southeastern political organization, and in many cases, an awareness of these differences remain a part of contemporary tribal consciousness. Whether Native sociopolitical organization is described as alliance or confederation, southeastern political alliances must be interpreted as another manifestation of Mississippian influence that survived into the historic era and continued to inform southeastern political consciousness. 143

Geographically, the Muskogee-speaking towns later associated with the Creek

Confederacy were in the center of the southeast's mound-building cultures, and Creek oral tradition "abounds with stories of mounds of various shapes-round, rectangular, oval, flat-topped, conical, and even serpentine" (Chaudhuri 2001, 6). According to Chaudhuri, the oral history of the Muscogee Creeks refers to the historical importance of the mounds

(Chaudhuri 2001, 7), and that this importance "changed with migration and natural and cultural cataclysms" (Chaudhuri 2001, 134).'^'

Vestiges of mounds still exist in graveyards and the fire pit of the stomp grounds. Commonly, distinctions between early and late Mississippian mound builders and Creek at the time of European contact are often made and perhaps overgeneralized. Very likely, the mound builders represent different phases in the evolution of Creek history from its Mississippian foundation. The building of the Cahokia Mounds appears to have begun around 900 AD and flourished until about 1250 AD, by which time 'the center of Mississippian culture had moved south and east.' Moving south and east, we come across the Great Mound near Macon, Georgia (Ocmulgee, Georgia). The building of this mound, as well as other Georgia mounds, seemed to follow the building style of the earlier mounds at Cahokia. By whatever name they are called-Cahokia, mound builders, early farmers, precursors of Creeks-names do not sufficiently illuminate the possible connections between these peoples and the Creeks. This speculation does not contradict key known facts about Creeks. (Chaudhuri 2001 134)

When the oral histories of Native Peoples are complemented by the introduction and application of archaeological data, a more complete picture of the Sub-Mississippia era begins to emerge, one that strongly suggests cultural and historic continuity between prehistoric and historic America. Carmen B Wesson writes,

Archaeological research does indicate a link between the historic Creek and Lamar Mississippian groups in Alabama and Georgia, supporting the view that the historic Creek developed out of Mississippian antecedents (Fairbanks 1952; Hally 1994; Mason 1963; Moore 1994; H. Smith 1973; Williams and Shapiro 1990). However, contrary to the earlier view of pre-historic Creeks as migrating bearers of Mississippian Ufeways, most archaeologists now 144

see Mississippian culture spreading through the exchange of ideas and ma­ terial items rather than through the wholesale relocation of populations Pauketat 1994; B. Smith; M. Smith 1987). Thus the historic Creek may have in fact descended from groups that occupied the Southeast well before the time proposed by Swanton and others, predating the introduction of Mississippian material culture and lifeways. Regardless of the Creek relationship with the 'original' Mississippians, they are a productive source for analogies concerning at least local manifestations of Mississippian culture. (Wesson 198, 106)

Yamassee. Moving towards Charles Town, we find that archaeologists have identified significant geographical and ethnic connections between Mississippian peoples inhabiting eastern Georgia at the time of de Soto's arrival and the Yamassee, an historic tribe that had a significant positive impact on the security and prosperity of the Carolina colonial enterprise. The Yamassee were a large tribe of Muskogee-speakers, living in the piedmont region of present-day Georgia around the Altamaha River in 1540 when de

Soto's expedition passed through. The Yamassee were staunch allies of the Spanish for almost one hundred years with mission settlements along the Atlantic coast in present day

Georgia and Florida, but the labor demands of the Spanish eventually alienated the

Yamassee and many relocated to the Savannah River, placing themselves squarely within

Charles Town's sphere of influence (Heard 1986, 400).

Yamassee circumstances are relevant to the subject of Indigenous influences on

Carolina's trade and diplomacy with Native peoples because they clearly have

Mississippian roots and their relocation to the Savannah River dramatically changed the dynamics of the Charles Town's Indian slave trade, redirecting the focus of English slaving activities towards the Indian missions of the present-day Florida peninsula after

1680. In 1685, most of the Yamassee Towns migrated to South Carolina under the 145 direction of Chief Altamaha, who was furious at Spanish attempts to send Yamassee people to the West Indies as slaves. Altamaha led these people in their decision to abandon their missions and move to the periphery of Stuart Town south of Charles Town on present-day Edisto Island, where they established twelve towns near St Elena (Heard

1986, 400) and began supplying Scots traders with Indigenous slaves from Spanish missions in present-day Florida. Henry Erskine (Lord Cardross), leader of the Scots who had come to America to establish a Covenanter's refuge, persuaded Altamaha to settle his followers on St. Helena and Hilton Head Islands to serve as a buffer against the Spanish and their Indian allies. Cardross armed Altamaha and his warriors and incited them to raid the Spanish mission of Timucua, west of St. Augustine. The raiders burned several

Timucua towns destroying the churches, killing 50 Indians, and bringing back 22 warriors as slaves. Upon their return Lord Cardross met them at the Savannah River and purchased the slaves and plunder (Heard 1987, 12).

While it is often difficult to link particular late-Mississippian mound sites with

Indigenous towns and communities in the historic era, it is somewhat less problematic to associate historic tribes with the Mississippian province in which they originated, whether they continued to reside in these places during the historic era or not. The

Yamassee are an excellent example of this archaeological reality because historic and linguistic data link the Yamassee to Mississippian provinces in present-day eastern

Georgia but historians, ethnologists, and anthropologists continue to struggle in characterizing the exact nature of the relationship between the Yamassee and Muskogee- 146 speakers from the lower Chattahoochee who migrated to lands formerly occupied by the

Yamassee near present-day Ocmulgee, Georgia.

conee River

Savannah \ Flint Alttyrnaha iver River

ha River Ocmulgee River

Figure 15: Mississippian Chiefdoms Encountered by Hernando de Soto in Present-day Georgia circa AD 1540. Adapted from a map in Hudson (1994), Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704, University of Georgia Press, 77.

A team of southeastern archaeologists (William Green, Chester DePratter, and

Bobby Southerlin) has been successful in "cormecting the eighteenth-century Yamassee towns of Chechesse, Altamaha, and Okatee to the sixteenth-century [Mississippian] provinces of Ichisi, Altamaha, and Ocute" (Green et al 2002, 17).

While the four interior Georgia chiefdoms of Toa, Ichisi, Altamaha, and Ocute, later formed the what became known as the Lower Yamassee, the origins that formed the Upper Yamassee remain problematic. Certainly part of the Upper Yamassee were formed by Guale groups that abandoned the 147

Georgia coast in the last two decades of the seventeenth century. This includes the towns of Ospo, Zapala, Asao, Satuache, and Tulafma. How­ ever, other groups such as Pocotaligo, Pocosabo, and Tomately are of less certain origins...There are two other groups, the Tuscagy and the Chehawes, whose origins can be traced back to the province of Coosa, that seem to have some relationship to the Yamassee. (Green, DePratter, and Southern 2002, 17).

Given archaeological evidence confirming the presence of interactive

Mississippian polities in the immediate vicinity of Charles Town, contemporary

expressions of the immediacy of the cultural and spiritual significance of Mounds, and

the emergence of Indigenous confederacies from identifiable spheres of Mississippian influence and occupation, the presumption of cultural and political continuity between

Mississippian societies in the Appalachian sub-region and Native polities encountered by

Charles Town's colonists is a plausible hypothesis. 148

Section Three

The Mississippian Legacy of Trade: Southeastern Exchange Networks

The Indigenous Network of Trading Paths

The existence of intra-continental exchange networks associated with North

American mound building societies has been well documented, and their existence is one aspect of North American archaeology that remains undisputed. The extent the body of scholarship demonstrating the scope and extent of Indigenous American exchange networks begs a ftindamental question: How was it possible for Native peoples to move raw materials such as copper, mica, and galena and redistribute finished products manufactured at mound complexes over North America's extensive and diverse landscape? I believe the answer to this question directly informs the study of cross- cultural interaction in the early contact period because the answer informs our understanding of the ways in which Indigenous concepts of trade and cross-cultural interaction enabled, promoted, and sustained commercial relationships with European trading partners.

In the study of Indigenous trade between mound building polities in the American southeast and the possibility that these ancient traditions influenced the nature and conduct of trade with Europeans during the historic era, few resources provide more insight into the extent of Native exchange networks and the importance of a pre-existing

Indigenous infrastructure than William Myer's text Indian Trails of the Southeast (1971.

Myer's text was a product of his research for the Smithsonian Institution and the

American Bureau of Ethnology (1928), and he compiled an extensive list of aboriginal 149 and colonial era trails, which John Swanton edited and published after Meyer's death.

Although Myer makes little effort to distinguish one from the other, it is almost certain that the colonial era trail system developed out of and was predicated on an aboriginal network of trails that served as conduits for trade among mound building polities. It is hard to imagine where such an extensive system of trade routes could have come from if they had not grown out of the mound building context of Indigenous trade, travel, and diplomacy.

Myer has essentially created an Indigenous road map that documents routes of cross-cultural interaction and illustrates the links between important trade centers. In many cases, these Indigenous centers of Pre-Columbian trade and intellectual exchange came to be critical links in the emerging colonial trade networks. These interconnected trading paths facilitated the formation of coalitions between Native peoples and European traders and helped forge a middle ground of converging interests during the early historic era. In other words, the trade routes of the historic era pass through places previously associated with the exchange networks of mound building societies. Just as often, these trade routes correspond to the system highways and thoroughfares that meet the demands of contemporary interstate commerce.

Meyer documents, for example, the existence of a trade path between the headwaters of the Savannah River watershed in present-day South Carolina and the headwaters of the Coosa River in present-day northern Georgia. Myers labels this route the "Old Indian Path between Coosa and Tugalo," or trail number 87. This path linked territories historically associated with two Mississippian paramount chiefdoms, Coosa 150 and Cofitachique. The point of interface between these two polities was the Savannah

River Valley, which according to archaeologist David Anderson had cycled through periods of heavy Mississippian occupation but was more or less abandoned by the beginning of the seventeenth century except for three sites in the headwaters region,

Tugalo, Estatoe, and Chauga, which were "occupied into the eighteenth century, when they were prominent Lower Cherokee towns" (Anderson 1996, 163). Tugalo, one of the last fully functional Mississippian polities in the Savannah River Valley (Anderson 1996,

163), quickly became a major trading center in Charles Town's rapidly expanding trade with Indigenous peoples, providing access to lucrative markets among the Cherokee and

Creek as well as access to the Illinois Country via the Tennessee River.

Litdl* Eir Cli»ter 3 Cluster

Remtert ! Cluster

Hftilywood 1 Cluster

LamaK Profipce Cluster

Neislerl Cluster

Figure 16 Tugalo's Location relative to Late Southeastern Mississippian Provinces. Adapted from a map in Williams (1994), Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704. 185. 151

Tugalo was indeed strategically located. Tugalo's location was critically important for the English colonial objectives of expanding trade with Native peoples, removing the military threat of posed by the Spanish presence in west Florida and the

French outposts in Mobile and on the lower Mississippi River, and enslaving Native peoples. Since Tugalo was located on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains it constituted a gateway into the heart of Cherokee and Creek territories. As a major trading factor located between competing Sub-Mississippia societies, Tugalo commercial and diplomatic prestige increased, becoming a center for coordinating Carolina's repeated efforts to reconcile differences between the Cherokee and Creek, Carolina's two most important trading partners after the Yamassee War (1716).

Tugalo immediately became the center for trade Charles Town's trade with the

Cherokee. The principal administrator of the Cherokee at the town of Tugalo was

Theophilus Hastings, who served as "factor" from the time of his appointment in October of 1710 (McDowell 1955, 5) until his appointment to a similar position among the allied towns of the Creek in 1718 (McDowell 1955, 248-9). Hastings, a slave dealer

(McDowell 1955, 53), who eventually rose to the rank of Colonel in the South Carolina militia, directed the activities of five assistants in his administration of South Carolina's trade with the Cherokee.The Middle Settlements of the Cherokee were located along the Little Tennessee River in present-day western North Carolina. The Little Tennessee led to the Cherokee Settlements in present-day eastern Tennessee, who are known in the documentary records as the Overhill. They established their towns along the riparian environment of the Tennessee River, which swings south and west before flowing north 152 and emptying into the Ohio River at present-day Paducah, Kentucky. A short portage from the headwaters of the Chattahoochee and Coosa Rivers, Tugalo facilitated access to the markets of the "Lower Creek" settlements on the present-day Georgia-Alabama border and the "Upper Creek" settlements of present-day Alabama. From Tugalo,

Charles Town's traders also had relatively easy access to the Alabama and the Tennessee rivers, which led to lucrative markets in the American heartland.

Heading west from Tugalo, the Tugalo-Coosa trail roughly follows the route of

United States Highway 76 towards the Etowah Mounds located near present-day

Cartersville, Georgia and Coosa located near present-day Rome, Georgia. In route to these principle mound sites, the trail passes the historic Cherokee settlements of Little

Echota and New Echota, where a mixed-blood faction of Cherokee led by John Ross established a Cherokee National Government in 1828.

Tugalo marks the western end of trails that reached to present-day Petersburg,

Virginia, a route that encompasses both "The Lower Cherokee Traders' Path prior to

1775" (Myer 1928, Trail 77), which passes through Catawba territory in the Carolina piedmont and "The Occaneechi Path" (Myer 1928, Trail 80), which passes through

Saponi, the Old Haw Fields, Eno, and Occaneechi Town before reaching its easternmost point at the James River in present-day Virginia. Each of these historic Native towns are associated with sites of significant Indigenous settlement prior to the arrival of European settler populations. In the early colonial era, these sites nurtured the rise of cross-cultural exchange networks with English traders arriving from the east, ultimately promoting

English colonization by offering English ambassadors access to Native military alliances 153 and exchange networks, which English subjects used with great skill to offset competing

French and Spanish colonial interests after the establishment of permanent English colonies at Jamestown (1607) and Charles Town (1670). Tugalo is also the nexus of many north-south trade routes that connected Mississippian polities in the Middle

Mississippian sub-region to Ocmulgee and Tallahassee further south on the Gulf coast as well as routes to the southeast that lead to Charles Town and Savannah on the Atlantic coast.

North of the colony on the coast, Charles Town traders established an important trading factory at Winyah near present-day Georgetown, South CaroHna (McDowell

1955, 75-6, 80, 109, 202, 210, 233, 257, 260, 276, and 313). Myer Identifies the "Trail from Charleston to Winyah" (Myer 1928, Trail 117), a route that eventually leads to

Cheraw settlements on the banks of the Pee Dee River. Near the present-day North and

South Carolina state line, this area is in close proximity to present-day Camden, South

Carolina, which scholars have identified as the heart of the paramount chiefdom of

Cofitachique (Hudson 1993; Moore 2002).

Another major trade route that had profound significance for the westward expansion of Carolina trade and diplomacy was "The Lower Creek Trading Path" (Myer

1928, Trail 60), which started at the Carolina trading factory of Savano Town (present- day Augusta) and passed through Ocmulgee (present day Macon), near the future home of the Ochese Creek people before going west through western Georgia and present-day

Birmingham in central Alabama. In eastern Mississippi the trail merges with numerous others on the Tombigbee River, which lead to various points on the Mississippi, 154 including Greenville, Mississippi and the point where the Arkansas and White Rivers merge with the Mississippi River ("Route from Tombigbee River to the mouth of the

Arkansas," Trail 69). Close scrutiny of these Indigenous trail networks reveals that many of these historic Native settlements could be reached via overland routes or river navigation.

Trade and freedom of movement are the result of the presence of the diplomatic super-structures that allow for cross-cultural interaction. Although mound building societies shared' over-arching cultural similarities, they were linguistically diverse and increasingly subject to regional adaptations and manifestations of Mississippian sociopolitical organization. Travel and trade would be impossible if there were not wide­ spread acceptance of practices designed to overcome linguistic diversity and institutionalized mechanisms of diplomacy that made multi-ethnic interaction possible in the first place.

Mobilian Jargon: A Case Study in the Survival of Indigenous Trade Jargons

In his discussion of the frontier exchange economy and the deerskin trade as a market system, Daniel Usner addresses the problem of cross-cultural communication, noting the solutions to such difficulties often had Native origins. Usner cites the existence of "trade patois understood across tribal boundaries," specifically "a lingua franca called Mobilian" (Usner 1992, 258), as evidence that Indigenous peoples had developed ways to overcome southeastern linguistic diversity. Usner asserts that many

Louisiana colonists spoke Mobilian "instead of or in addition to distinct tribal languages"

(Usner 1992, 258). To illustrate his point, Usner cites Lieutenant Jean Francois 155

Dumont's descriptions of Mobilian jargon's utility. Dumont observes, '"When one knows it, one can travel throughout this province without needing an interpreter'" (Usner

1992, 258). Usner goes on to state,

Antecedents of Mobilian may have existed in the Lower Mississippi Valley Before European contact, but economic relations with the colonial populace of Louisiana undoubtedly accelerated and expanded its use-resembling the evolution of Delaware, Occaneechee, and Catawba into trade languages along the Atlantic coast. Based on the western Muskogee grammar of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Alibamon languages-all mutually intelligible- Mobilian served as a second language, mixing, with wide variation, lexicon and phonology derived from both Indian and European speech. Andre Penicaut spent many of his early days at Indian villages around Biloxi and St. Louis Bays and thereby 'learned their languages tolerably well...especially Mobilien, the principal one, which is understood in all the nations.' Well before the mid-eighteenth century, Mobilian became familiar to colonists and Indians west of the Mississippi River. All Caddo villages, as reported by Le Page Du Pratz, contained someone who could speak this 'Langue vulgaire.' (Usner 1992, 258)

Emanuel J. Drechsel conducts a more detailed analysis of Mobilian Jargon, which provides fiirther insights into the Mobilian jargon's wide distribution, its commercial utility as well as its sociopolitical fiinctions, and its possible origins. Drechsel writes,

Mobilian jargon "bears several sociohistorical implications of significance for

Americanist ethnology, ethnohistory, and possibly archaeology, with some important consequences for our understanding of Indian societies and the South at large" (Drechsel

2001, 175). Mobilian jargon is not related to the language of the Mobile Indians; rather, it is "an indigenous lingua franca named after the post and town of Mobil or its residents"

(Drechsel 2001, 175).^'

Three of most intriguing aspects of Mobilian Jargon are its "unique [Muskogean] grammatical pattern, its wide range of indigenous functions, and its geographic 156

distribution matching closely with that of the Mississippian Complex" (Drechsel 2001,

180). These characteristics "provide strong indications for a pre-European origin and a

specific role as a lingua franca of pre-Columbian Mississippian societies, which probably

included speakers of all major language families of eastern North America such as

Muskogean and isolated Gulf languages, Algonquian, Siouan, Caddoan, and perhaps

Iroquoian" (Drechsel 2001, 175-6).

Throughout its history Mobilian jargon remained a "second language," and

according to Drechsel, recognition of its "true linguistic and sociocultural role allows us

to argue for a greater linguistic variety among southeastern Indians than Americanists

acknowledged until recently" (Drechsel 2001, 178). As Drechsel also notes, familiarity with Mobilian jargon and it sociolinguist roles allows scholars to consider the possible implications of greater social complexity as well as "more complexity in language-and- culture relationships among southeastern Indians than is conventionally recognized"

(Drechsel 2001, 179). Even more significantly, the existence of Mobilian jargon pidgin...

calls into question the simplistic one-to-one identification of a language group with a particular society, still customary in much of Americanist anthropology. Instead, it suggests, as standard, bi-and multilingual com­ munities with rather diverse sociolinguistic arrangements, whose members did not necessarily share a single first language. Prime examples of such communities are the Tunica-Biloxi, who once spoke a Gulf isolate and a Souian language, and the Coushatta, in whose community one could hear three Muskogean languages (Koasati, Alabama, and Choctaw) until recently. Ethnohistorical research indicates similar bi-and multilingual communities among the Creek and their affiliates, who in multilingual environments spoke a Muskogean-based contact medium probably interpretable as an eastern variety of Mobilian Jargon. (Drechsel 2001, 178) (emphasis in the original).^^ 157

Loosely defined, pidgins are simplified forms of speech, which are commonly a mixture of two or more languages. Possessing basic grammars and vocabularies, pidgins are used for communication between speakers of different languages. As such, Mobilian jargon provides a model for understanding how linguistically diverse southeastern native peoples interacted with each other and neighboring communities. Mobilian jargon also provides an "elegant solution to a long-standing but frequently disregarded puzzle in the ethnology of southeastern Indians-a great linguistic diversity, yet substantial cultural uniformity from the Atlantic Coast to the western rim of the Mississippi Valley"

(Drechsel 2001, 180). Furthermore, the existence of Mobilian jargon suggests that the multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic southeastern towns of the historic period were not anomalies resulting from the external pressures of European disease, technology, or colonization. Rather, these linguistic and social arrangements should be understood as inherent aspects of Indigenous social organization and diplomacy. The survival of trade pidgins such as Mobilian jargon is strong evidence of Mississippian influences on the sociopolitical reorganization of Sub-Mississippia periods throughout the southeast.

James Mooney noted the importance of Mobilian Jargon as a possible mechanism of communication and cultural diffusion at the turn of the twentieth century (Mooney

1900, 235), but Drechsel's research indicates that Mobilian Jargon probably played critically significant rolls in southeastern trade and diplomacy both before and after the arrival of Europeans. In addition to functioning as "a highly adaptable medium"

(Drechsel 2001, 179) in dynamic political and economic processes of diplomacy and exchange between chiefdoms in southeastern North America during colonial and possibly 158 among the administrative levels of paramount and complex and paramount chiefdoms during pre-Columbian and Sub-Mssissippia eras, Mobilian jrgon was

.. .not only a direct reflection of partnerships among larger kin groups such as clans and moieties, which often crisscrossed linguistic boundaries, but also mirrored the sociopolitical phenomenon of non-kin-based alliances such as twin and multiple towns, which brought together different southeastern Indian groups in response to disasters (crop failures, epidemic diseases, and defeat in conflict) and which resulted in bi-and multilingual communities in recent history and pre-Columbian times. (Drechsel 2001, 178-179)

In addition to the practical importance ascribed to Mobilian jargon by Dumont and LePage and the sociopolitical and socio-historical importance ascribed to Mobilian

Jargon by Usner and Drechsel, Mobilian jargon's grammatical pattern, its wide range of indigenous functions, and its geographical distribution throughout the Mississippian culture area, suggests Mobilian pidgin "had a much longer history than is evident from historical records" (Drechsel 2001, 180). Accordingly, the pidgin's characteristic word order and the survival of loan words such as bayou "would be as much survivals of the

Mississippian Complex as pre-Columbian archaeological remains of conch shells, pottery, and mounds with their distinctive ceremonial motifs" (Drechsel 2001, 178).

Ball Games and Indigenous Diplomacy

Although in the strictest sense stickball games are not ceremonial activities, ball games should, never-the-less, be seen as a critical part of the social organization of

Southeastern societies on the village, town, and national level because they served as a mechanism of diplomacy and a way to order the internal relationships of towns and chiefdoms. During the historic era stickball games were labeled "the little brother of war," a designation that, no doubt, stems from the perceived chaos of the games, which 159 often pitted whole towns against each other. However, the descriptive phrase and the function of the event could be understood in less literal terms. When considered in the light of Southern organization concepts, the significance of stickball games, as a

Mississippian survival, could be re-conceptualized as a means to enact diplomacy and social regulation.

Historians and archaeologists consistently assert that chiefdom societies were politically unstable and that the ability of elite members to govern effectively was circumscribed by a lack of coercive power. Alan Gallay's criticism is typical of these arguments. Gallay writes, "Only with difficulty, and the threat of military reprisal, could paramount chiefs maintain influence and control over their more distant villages" (Gallay

2002, 27). Superficially, Gallay's argument, which he has borrowed from archaeologist

David Anderson, seems valid; however, closer scrutiny reveals Gallay's argument is biased by Eurocentric conceptions of poHtical power, and Hobbesian assumptions concerning the development of human societies, especially the assumption that human societies grow and develop according to universal criteria predicated upon European models of the nation-state.

Eliding the significance of three thousand years of moundbuilding activity and the inherent stability that such a deep timeframe suggests, Gallay writes, "With this pattern of rise and fall, there was no linear development to a more sophisticated political structure, and it is unclear what new factors would have been necessary for the southern chiefdoms to have evolved, if at all, into states without first having outside states organize chiefdoms into confederacies as a mode of control and taxation" (Gallay 2202, 160

27). A more careful consideration of enduring cultural traditions of Southeastern peoples leads me to believe that Southern chiefdoms did in fact exercise significant control over outlying regions, but that methods of social control were determined according to the

Indigenous criteria inherent in Southeastern organizational principles, which operated in accordance to the logic of dualism and balanced opposition. The enduring Southeastern tradition of stickball provides an excellent opportunity to explore the possibility that relationships of political power, international diplomacy, and chiefdom alliance were conducted according to the primary organizing principles of Southeastern systems of knowledge. As Charles Hudson has previously noted, "The ball game, as a kind of halfway measure between peace and warfare, was an essential mechanism in the formation of larger social entities, including the Creek Confederacy. It was a means of expressing and managing political relationships between relatively self-sufficient and autonomous groups" (Hudson 1976, 237). With the exception of the Caddo and some

Native Floridians, "the ball game was played in one form or another by most of the

Indians in eastern North America" (Hudson 1976, 408).

Stickball was a very serious matter for Southeastern peoples. Several weeks of formal negotiations about the conditions under which the game would be played preceded the match. Only those with the greatest athletic ability were allowed to participate, and accomplished players garnered much prestige for the abilities. Players ritually prepared themselves by observing rigorous training regimens, observing dietary restrictions, attending a game dance the night before the match, fasting, going to water, and a ceremonial scratching by one of the town's priests (Vermum 1994). These ceremonial 161 preparations were probably similar if not identical to preparations for war (Hudson 1976,

411-12).

The rules governing ball games reflected the political, social, and spiritual dualism that structured nearly every other aspect of their lives and beliefs. According to

Hudson, "Among the Creeks this game was only played between chiefdoms of opposite fire." He goes on to say,

A chiefdom could play any chiefdom of the opposite fire, but each chiefdom usually had a particular rival or rivals. When two chiefdoms had never previously played each other, either could challenge the other to a game. But when two teams had previously played, the loser of the game was expected to challenge the winner.. .The losers were ashamed to talk about it afterwards, and they were anxious to win a rematch in order to 'bring the game back.' They played with the understanding that if a team were to lose three or four consecutive games, then that team and its chiefdom became of the same fire as the winner. In this way it was possible for a chiefdom to shift from one fire to another, and some chiefdoms evidently changed several times. (Hudson 1976, 235-36)

Indigenous Mechanisms of Diplomacy: The Calumet of Peace

Thus far I have introduced four aspects of Pre-Columbian and Sub-Mississippia

Indigenous influences that directly influenced and affected trade and diplomacy in the colonial period: 1) The ancient historical context of exchange between three distinct phases of moundbuilding cultures, especially the Mississippian peoples who continued to actively occupy American southeast long after the arrival of European colonists; 2) The centrality of mounds as ethnic identity markers and symbols of the living histories of

Native peoples indigenous to the southeast; 3) The existence of an extensive network of indigenous trails that facilitated travel between Mississippian polities, historic Native towns; and 4) Colonial era English trading factories, and the survival of Muskogean- 162 based pidgin languages, which enabled Pre-Columbian cross-cultural communication and created the necessary linguistic environment for the rise of multi-ethnic, multi-lingual talwas during the historic era.

Next, I will consider the possibility that Native peoples possessed mechanisms of diplomacy rooted in Mississippian traditions of trade and exchange, which came to positively influence Carolina's commercial and colonial ascendancy. French records offer extensive documentary evidence of diplomatic behaviors among Indigenous peoples in the Mississippi Valley. A comparison of French and English documentary evidence reveals striking similarities between the experiences of French explorers on the

Mississippi and English explorers on the Atlantic coast. Since Mississippian peoples throughout the southeastern moundbuilding region shared the religious iconography, political organization, symbolic architecture, and spatial relationships associated with

Mississippian moundbuilding societies, it is not unreasonable to assume that they also participated in similar kinds of diplomatic behavior as well. If the Mississippian polities were linked through extensive exchange networks that spanned most of the eastern woodlands, commonly recognized diplomatic procedures would have been a necessary requirement for it survival and perpetuation. The actions of Carolina trader Thomas

Welch illustrate the probability of this assertion in an anecdotal manner.

Welch was a South Carolina trader, who opened commerce with the Mississippi

River peoples in 1698 after making a remarkable overland journey from Charles Town to the mouth of the Arkansas River. By the turn of the eighteenth century, Welch and

Anthony Dodsworth had established alliances with the Chickasaw and other powerful 163 tribe, mounting a substantial threat to French influence among the Native peoples of the

Mississippi Valley. In 1707, Welch and Thomas Naime opened diplomacy for the sole purpose of destroying the French post of Mobil and enslaving Native peoples allied with them (Heard 1986, 384). In the absence of Indigenous navigational and diplomatic knowledge, Hastings adventures would have been utterly impossible. Indigenous and

European emissaries apparently moved somewhat freely between throughout the southeast, which would have been extremely difficult without predetermined protocols to ensure peaceful passage through and interaction with diverse Native groups. A similar kind of freedom of movement is evident in Spanish exploration of the southeast as well.

Spanish military power might have initially provided this kind of security, but after such protracted interactions. Native peoples certainly became aware of Spanish vulnerability.

In 1698 between LaSalle's initial explorations of the Upper Mississippi River and

Iberville's subsequent mission to the Lower Mississippi, Welch visited Chickasaw setdements in the vicinity of the Mississippi River. Yet this was not the first contact between Englishmen and Chickasaw peoples living in the region. Citing French documentary evidence, historian Alan Gallay writes that English traders were established among the Chickasaw twenty years prior to Welch's arrival (Gallay 2002, 103). Whether they were traders from Carolina or Virginia remains to be proven conclusively, but given its location and direct access to Sub-Mississippia networks via the Cherokee and Creek,

Charles Town seems to have had the commercial advantage even though Virginians had been involved in the Indian Trade for a much longer period of time. French documents indicate that English traders from Virginia had reached Shawnee territory on the Ohio 164 and Wabash Rivers in 1670. Such early contacts between the Shawnee and the

Chickasaw, and the trading opportunities the presented, might help explain the establishment of Chickasaw and Savannah^"^ towns in close proximity to Charles Town on the Savannah River soon after its settlement by 1670. Blocked from direct access to

Virginia by the Blue Ridge Mountains, interested Native parties probably followed

Mississippian trading routes into the southern Appalachian region near the Cherokee town of Tugalo, where English goods could be ftinneled through the mountains and redistributed across the southeast via reorganized Mississippian trading networks.

In addition to the presence of English traders, Gallay reports that "Scots traders operating out of Port Royal, who came from the South via trade with the Creek followed

English traders [to the Mississippi] in the early 1690s" (Gallay 2002, 103). As a result,

Carolina had commercial contact with Chickasaw peoples from a very early date. As

"Indians of the Mississippi Valley" (Gallay 2002, 103), the Chickasaw would have had direct knowledge of the role of the "Calumet of Peace" (Iberville 1981, 39). The abundance of English goods in Chickasaw towns in spite of the fact that there were no permanent European settlements for hundreds of miles (Gallay 2002, 104) indicates that the Chickasaw were experienced traders who could locate distant resources and possessed the ability to overcome a variety of obstacles in order to obtain the products they needed and desired. Chickasaw commercial success was obviously predicated on

Native systems of knowledge, which must have by necessity included a familiarity with

Mississippian methods of travel, trade, and diplomacy. Chickasaw people did not become experienced traders who could locate distant resources and overcome a variety of 165 obstacles by living in a cultural vacuum or a Mississippian wasteland. It is difficult to imagine exactly how Chickasaw would have come to possess mastery over such a vast array of information quickly enough to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the appearance of English traders if they did not already possess these skills as a result of their knowledge of Mississippian systems.

The ability to move raw materials, finished products, and ideas between

Mississippian polities was necessarily dependent upon the ability to cross and re-cross cultural, linguistic, and geographical boundaries. The Calumet of Peace Ceremony was used extensively by Sub-Mississippia peoples throughout the Southeast, and it is likely a

Mississippian survival that allowed Mississippian peoples to realize their desire to engage in trade and diplomacy. As a surviving Mississippian intellectual diplomatic concept, it was instrumental in bridging the cultural and logistic gaps between Indigenous and

European trading partners. The Calumet of Peace represents an important aspect of demonstrating Sub-Mississippia influences on English trade and exploration. Gallay notes that "complexity of calumet ceremonies and the depth with which they were practiced among indigenous peoples in the Lower Mississippi Valley implies a long-term tradition, not a new introduction" (Gallay 2002, 107). And like the survival of Mobilian trade jargon, the survival and historically demonstrated diplomatic importance of the calumet suggests that Indigenous Americans had their own concepts of trade and intercourse, that these interests were not limited by cultural differences, and that

Indigenous diplomatic practices were used to incorporate European traders into Native exchange networks for material, pohtical, and cosmological reasons. It also suggests that 166

Pre-Columbian diplomacy was every bit as nuanced, complex and well developed as

Mississippian political organization.

The Calumet of Peace's historically recorded uses include its use as a diplomatic overture that expressed a desire to enter into negotiations and means for defusing potentially dangerous situations. According to Gallay, "the calumet ceremony welcomed to both friends and enemies while providing a truce from hostilities. It provided an opportunity to interact-to negotiate and trade-but it did not, in and of itself, comprise the making of an alliance between the participants" (Gallay 2002, 106). In many respects, the Calumet of Peace is best viewed as an escalating process or series of ritualized introductions, which might range from chance encounters between hunters, traders, or agricultural laborers to more formal, town-centered diplomacy, which demanded participation from all of a town's inhabitants and determined whether or not a permanent relationship might be established.

According to Gallay, "the calumet was a pipe used by many Mississippi Valley

Indians in the welcoming ceremonies that were essential to all inter group relations"

(Gallay 2002, 102). The French had "encountered similar or identical ceremonies"

(Gallay 2002, 106) during their northern explorations, and the fact that later French representatives were able to recognize, comprehend and utilize this indigenous mechanism of cross-cultural interaction suggests that the calumet ceremony was versatile, readily accessible, and geographically widespread. As such it was an effective diplomatic tool that gave innovative, culturally astute, European traders a means of expanding their influence and promoting their commercial and colonial self-interest. As 167

Gallay notes the calumet linked the French and Indians "across chasms of inscrutability, suspicion, and fear" (Gallay 2002, 107), just as it had bridged similar chasms between

Mississippian peoples and polities prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Because, "the Arkansas welcomed Marquette with the calumet ceremony" (Gallay

2002, 102) in 1673, French explorers who followed had the advantage of knowing how to express their peacefiil intentions and their desire to open negotiations. Having learned enough of the form and function of the ceremony from the Illinois, Marquette was diplomatically prepared to descend the river because he knew how to "share this particular cultural rite with the Arkansas to initiate friendship and exchange" (Gallay

2002, 102). Marquette passed this knowledge those who followed him, and at the turn of the eighteenth century, French explorers Pierre Le Moyne d' Iberville and his brother

Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville made extensive use of the ceremony during their three missions of exploration to the Lower Mississippi. Their knowledge of the Calumet of Peace gave them the ability to move freely among and negotiate openly with the

Indigenous peoples of the region in a way that would have been impossible without an appreciation of the power of the Calumet Ceremony. Without question, knowledge of this ceremony provided Iberville and Bienville an opportunity to curb the English colonial ambition of controlling the Mississippi by opening and actively pursuing liberal policies of trade and alliance with the region's Native inhabitants. Because the English traders at Charles Town had separate relationships with Chickasaw peoples and were conducting their explorations of the region via these relationships, it is safe to assume 168 that English representatives had a similar knowledge of the ceremony and its diplomatic power.

John Swanton provides four important descriptions of Calumet ceremonies on the lower Mississippi River. These first person accounts come from eighteen and nineteenth century anthologies that include the collected works of French colonial representatives.

Swanton utilizes the observations of Father Pierre-Frangois-Xavier Charlevoix (1682-

1761), the Jesuit Le Petit, Le Page du Pratz, and Dumont de Montigny to demonstrate the practical importance of this ritualized procedure of Indigenous diplomacy.

One of the most detailed descriptions of the Calumet Ceremony provided by

Swanton's comes from Father Charlevoix (Swanton 1911, 134-35). Charlevoix's account contains many details that aid in translating, contextualizing, and explicating the protocols of Indigenous diplomacy. Charlevoix notes "Treaties of peace and alliances are made with great pomp, and the great chief on these occasions always supports his dignity like a true sovereign" (Swanton 1991, 134). One important characteristic is Charlevoix's observation that the ceremonial activities were coordinated through a multilevel administration, one that resembles the layered political organization typical of the administration of historic southeastern towns. This "great chief directs preparations for the arrival of ambassadors through designated "masters of ceremony" and names those who are charged with maintaining these envoys, "for it is at the cost of his subjects that the he defrays the expenses of the embassage. The day of the entry of the ambassadors every one has his placed assigned him according to his rank" (Swanton 1911, 134).

Processional marches into the host town are a fundamental aspect of this diplomatic 169 process. The Calumet precedes the diplomatic entourage with the bearer of the Calumet turning "themselves on every side, with many motions, and making a great many grimaces and contortions" (Swanton 1911, 134), while the accompanying representatives sing. After entering the town and approaching the leader, the calumet is filled with tobacco and offered to the leader. These representatives smoke together, blowing the first whiff of tobacco towards the sky, the second towards the earth, and the third round about the horizon (Swanton 1911, 134). Next, the calumet is presented to "the relations of the great chief and the subaltern chiefs" (Swanton 1911, 134). Then the visitors approach and rub the stomach of the great chief, "after which they rub themselves all over the body; and lastly they lay their calumets on forks over against the great chief, and the orator of the embassy begins his speech, which lasts an hour"(Swanton 1911, 134).

After feasting, the great chief honors the visitors by visiting their accommodations, where the great chief is given a place of honor. Only after the visitors have hosted the town leader, engaged in gift exchanges, and honored the town's warriors, they are permitted to walk about the village. When the visitors depart, the master of ceremonies supplies "all the provisions they may want for their journey, and this is always at the expense of private persons" (Swanton 1911, 135).

The Jesuit priest Le petit provides a similar, but complementary, description of the ceremony as it was practiced among the Natchez people (Swanton 1911, 135-6). This account supplies additional details of the ritual visit of the town's great chief to the lodgings of the visiting diplomats. Le Petit writes that in the evening following the rituals of smoking and feasting, 170

The ambassadors, with the calumet in their hands, go with singing to find the great chief, and having raised him on their shoulders, they transport him to the quarter in which their cabin is situated. They spread on the ground a large skin, on which they cause him to sit. One of them places himself behind him, and putting his hands on he chiefs shoulders, he agitates all his body, while the others, seated in a circle on the ground, chant the history of their distinguished deeds. After this ceremony, which is repeated night and morning for four days, the great chief returns to his cabin. When he pays his last visit to the ambassadors place these on stake at his feet about which they seat themselves. The warriors of the nation having arranged themselves in all their finery, dance around, striking the stake, and in turn recounting their great exploits. The day following this last ceremony it is permitted to the ambassadors to walk through the whole village, which before they were not able to do. (Swanton 1991, 135-36)

Some of the most revealing observations Swanton provides concerning the role and function of Calumet ceremonies within the context of Indigenous societies was written by Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz in 1759. Describing the Calumet Ceremony as it was practiced by the Chitimacha (Swanton 1911, 340-41), du Pratz states that "when the natives are tired of making war.. .they address themselves to a neutral nation friendly to those with whom they desire to make peace" (Swanton 1911, 136).

They go with the calumet to this nation through countries which are not frequented. They bring with them some slaves which they have taken during this war. They give these slaves to this people with presents in order to pur­ chase peace by means of these messengers, to whom it is accorded, because ordinarily these mediators take the part of suppliants, bring them to their own homes and adopt them as I have said before, in order to make one nation under a single name. If, on the contrary, the enemies accept the peace which is pro­ posed to them through the neutral nation, the suppliants go to carry the peace calumet and presents [to hem]. In this manner peace is concluded. (Swanton 1911,136)

Swanton also turns to Dumont de Montigny for another description of the

Calumet's regional variation (Swanton 1911, 136-38), an example that provides insight into its ubiquitous nature. According to Dumont, "There are very few persons who have 171 not heard of the famous calumet of peace. It was formerly the symbol of friendship among the savages, and with this passport one might travel in safety among all these barbarous nations" (Swanton 1991, 136). Dumont's description clearly illustrates that

Indigenous peoples in North America possessed firmly established diplomatic procedures for opening negotiations with foreign peoples, and when compared to the descriptions provided by Swanton from the documentary record, a distinct pattern of diplomatic engagement begins to emerge.

According to Swanton's analysis, diplomacy begins when couriers deliver notification of intention of presenting the calumet, which can occur for a variety of reasons such as ensuring continued friendship between the treating parties, obtaining assistance against enemies, or for some reason, "whatever it may be" (Swanton 1911,

137). The host can reject or accept the overture although in most cases the overtures of visiting diplomats were "ordinarily accepted" (Swanton 1911, 137). Visiting couriers return to their party with news and to prepare for the ceremony the next day while preparation within the town also begins. In its most formal contexts, the Calumet ceremony required elaborate preparations, including the preparation of food, applications of ceremonial body paint, and donning magnificent regalia, which is adorned with an abundance of feathers and rattles. The next day the visiting troop heads towards the town, the Calumet going first and all members singing and dancing. A drum keeps the pace, and the crowd answers him with cries which they utter in cadence" (Swanton 1911,

137). The Calumet bearer is followed by those with the gifts, "continually advancing toward the cabin of the chief whom they wish to honor" (Swanton 1911, 137). The 172 honored chief remains seated, "surrounded by all his officers-that is to say, warriors and

Honored men" (Swanton 1911, 137). The one who bears the calumet, fills the pipe with tobacco and places it to the lips of the chief, lighting it with a lighted coal. After lighting the pipe, it is passed "to all the spectators," while the presents such as dressed skins, bear's oil, and sometimes slaves are presented (Swanton 1911, 137). An explanation for the visit follows, and the host chief grants or rejects the proposal, but whatever the decision, the presents are welcomed and the Calumet remains with the chief as a pledge, and the strangers are treated as honored guests (Swanton 1911, 137). There are feasts and gift exchanges over the course of the next four days or until the town's leader celebrates with the visitors inside their own cabins, which signals and end to the ceremony. Only at this time are visitors are allowed to tour the entire town and upon their departure, they are given whatever provisions they lack for their return home (Swanton 1911, 137).

The details that emerge from Swanton's collection of observations of the Calumet

Ceremony provide a backdrop against which the events of contact era encounters with the

Native peoples of the Lower Mississippi Valley as well as earlier historical accounts of the Calumet ceremony can be more accurately read. Swanton's examples are complicated by issues of authorship and the fact they were written in the eighteenth century when the forms, but probably not the basic functions, of the Calumet ceremonies had may have undergone regional alterations, so from a comparative perspective, it is fortunate that earlier descriptions of the Calumet have survived. One of the most early important descriptions of the Calumet of Peace comes the French military officer Pierre

Le Moyne d'Iberville, "who overcame a lack of formal education and the social stigma of 173 a paternity suit to develop his reputation as the Canadian hero" (McWilliams, T.S. 1981,

1). The juxtaposition of Swanton's collection with Iberville's firsthand accounts are significant because a comparison of their elements illustrates the multicultural circumstances of the Calumet's use, its temporal continuity, and evidence of a wide geographic distribution, the same qualities that made Mobilian jargon a utilitarian diplomatic mechanism. More significantly, Iberville's journals provide a clearer, perhaps somewhat more reliable, picture of how the events of the Calumet unfolded in less formal circumstances than those of Swanton's informants.

Iberville had been selected to complete La Salle's explorations of the Mississippi

River in 1697, and the journals of his three expeditions to the Mississippi "provide a microcosm of the contest for empire and a chronicle, of fascinating detail, of what daily life was like as a representative of the old world encountered life in the new world"

(McWilliams, T.S. 1981, 5). His brother, Jean-Baptiste LeMoyne de Bienville, had acquired considerable knowledge of Indian languages during his years on the Gulf coast and therefore played an important role in Iberville's attempts to explore the Mississippi

River and bring the region's indigenous peoples into the French sphere of hegemony.

Daniel H. Usner Jr. writes that in the spring of 1699 "Indian groups from the Gulf

Coast and Mississippi River were establishing formal relations" with the French garrison at Biloxi Bay. These formal relations were opened at least in part through Calumet ceremonies.

The ceremonial entrance into Fort of Maurepas of chiefs from nearby villages- Pascagoulas, Biloxis, Moctobis, and Capinas-was perhaps the grandest of Several occasions in which the calumet, a long, hollow cane decorated with feathers and attached to a stone pipe was offered to Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, 174

commandant of this French occupation. Iberville, who would have preferred not to smoke, 'did indeed draw some puffs' from the pipe and had his face rubbed with white powder. This feast of the calumet lasted three days, during which the Indians sang and danced to the music of their drum and gourd rattles. On the third day they carried Iberville to a clearing in front of the fort, sat all the Frenchmen on deerskins around a stake, and one by one struck the post with their 'wooden head-breakers' and boasted 'noble deeds' they had done in war.' (Usner 1992, 13)

While reconnoitering Mobile Bay area in February of 1699, Iberville states that he fired signal shots as means of notifying Native peoples of his presence in order to avoid surprising them. Although there is no Native response to Iberville's overture at this stop on the Gulf coast, he reveals no anxiety over the possibility his peaceful intentions will misinterpreted, apparently confident that his warning shots and rudely carved images of a calumet on a tree will convey his peacefiil diplomatic overtures to Native peoples he has never seen. On February 3rd, Iberville writes that he came upon "traces of Indians and some huts, from which they had moved on not more than six days before. I fired several musket shots to make myself known, and I made pictures on trees, of a man shown carrying a calumet of peace and having three ships, just as I had come there"

(Iberville 1981,39).

For the next two weeks, Iberville's party and the local inhabitants played a game of cat and mouse. Iberville was fortunate to have learned of the power of the Calumet because the Native people he encounters are cautious about making contact with his party. Without knowledge of its power, it is likely Bienville would have found his task even more difficult because Native people would have been even less likely to risk approaching his party. Two weeks later, Iberville once again encounters signs of Native populations along the bank of the river and follows two overland trails with Bienville 175 following in a canoe and one of ships at an even further distance to "avoid frightening the

Indians" (Iberville 1981, 43). On February 14"^' Iberville left axes, knives, glass beads, and Vermillion at his camp site because he "was sure that two Indians who came at sunrise to watch me from a distance of 300 hundred yards would come there after we left" (Iberville 1981, 43). Pursuing Indians in canoes across the river, Iberville eventually locates an Indian camp, finding an "old man who was too sick to stand" (Iberville 1981,,

44). According to his own account, Iberville made the man comfortable by placing him in a shelter, building a fire, and establishing his own camp at a safe distance. When

Bienville returns with a captive woman, Iberville led her to the old man and left her, after giving her several presents and some tobacco to take to her men and have them smoke"

(Iberville 1981, 44). Apparently, Iberville's caution and knowledge of Indigenous protocols had the desired effect. His knowledge of the calumet and the ritual importance of tobacco, Iberville enticed a positive Native response. The next day, three men and two women "came along to sing the calumet of peace to me.. .One of those men sang, carrying a whitened piece of wood, which he held up n the air, offering it to me"

(Iberville 1981,44).

I met them at their canoes, where they made a sagamite of Indian com to Feast us; I sent for something with which to feast them, in return, and gave them presents of knives, shirts, tobacco, pipes, tinderboxes, and glass beads. More of their men joined them. They went off and spent the night half a League from there. (Iberville 1981, 44)

On the 16"', Iberville joined entered the Native camp and convinced its inhabitants, who Iberville identifies as Annochy (Biloxi) and Moctoby people, to go aboard his ships only after leaving his brother and two Canadians as "hostages." 176

Bienville and the others were held in a village on the west side of the Mississippi, and when Iberville arrived at the village to redeem his companions, he was met by Bayogoula and Mugulasha hunters who had arrived the previous day after hearing the canon which had been fired in honor of the Annochy and Moctby visit aboard the French vessels.

Once again Iberville was obliged to abide the protocols of Indigenous diplomacy, something he finds increasingly tedious at least in part because he does not smoke regularly.

When we got to where my brother was, the chief or captain of the Bayogoula came to the seashore to show me friendliness and courtesy in their fashion, which is being near you, to come to a stop, pass their hands over their faces and breasts, and then pass their hands over yours, after which they raise them toward the sky, rubbing them together again and embracing again. 1 did the same thing, having watched it done to the others. They did the same thing to the Annochy, their friends. After our meeting and amenities on both sides, we went to my brother's tent, to which all the Bayogoula made their way to show friendliness to me and all my men, all embracing one another. I had them smoke, and we together we all smoked an iron calumet I had, made in the shape of a ship with the white flag adorned with fleurs-de-lis and ornamented with glass beads. Then [I gave it to them] along with a present of axes, knives, blankets, shirts, glass beads, and other things valued among them, making them understand that with this calumet I was uniting them to the French and that we were from now on one. I feasted them with sagamite made with plums and had them drink brandy and wine, of which they took very little, marveling greatly at the brandy we set on fire. About eight o'clock at night the chief and seven others came and sang the calumet to me, giving me a present of three of their blankets made of muskrat, making me the ally of four nations west of the Myssyssypy, which were the Mougoulascha, Ouascha (Washa), Toutymascha (Chitimacha), Yagueneschyto and east of the river, the Bylocchy, Moctoby, the Ouma (Chaoctaw), Pascoboula, Thecloel (Natchez), Bayacchyto [a Choctaw town near present-day Cheneyville, Louisiana], Amylcou. At my camp they sang until midnight, and my men sang with them. (Iberville 1981, 46-8)

The preceding passages raise interesting possibilities when considered in the context of Indigenous exchange protocols because they embody aspects of Indigenous 177 ontologies that survive into the historic period, where they continue to structure political organization and ritual ceremonialism. Iberville's extended period of interaction with the representatives of various Native towns is initiated by the presentation or "offering" of a

"whitened piece of wood," with an accompanying song. While we cannot know what the white piece of wood was or what it might have represented, it color is significant because white is the color of peace, diplomacy, and sanctuary. Since the central article of each phase of Iberville's diplomacy among Mississippi River Valley Natives is the calumet, perhaps the piece of white wood was a pipe stem or meant to represent one, which is of course useless without bowl or calumet itself, something Iberville is prepared to provide.

Eighteen days after first seeing signs of Native peoples on the Gulf coast, Iberville negotiated with Bayogoula hunters and representatives of other Native polities under the protection of the Calumet, an occasion that at least superficially appears to adhere to more formal protocols. Iberville, believing he was on an eastern fork of the Mississippi

River, planed to take soundings at the mouth of the Mississippi, not realizing he must take a series of river passages to reach his desired destination. With Native hunters headed in one direction and Iberville's expedition in another, Iberville states, "The chief of the Bayogoula came to me to tell me that he was going hunting for buffalo and turkeys and in four days would back at the place where I had slept the first time I went ashore and that there we would feast one another" (Iberville 1981, 48). Apparently, Iberville strategies of advanced warnings, gift-giving, and reliance his knowledge of the power of the Calumet had been successful in bridging cultural and linguistic barriers to diplomacy 178 and exchange as well as the cautious and shrewd nature of the region's Indigenous inhabitants.

It is difficult to determine exactly when Iberville "opened" these relations or if his later ceremony with Bayogoula and Mugulasha was related in someway to his overtures to Annochy and Moctoby he first encountered. It is possible Iberville's display of canon and gunfire was perceived as a means signaling his desire to negotiate, while he meant only to signify his presence in order to avoid a confrontation. The diplomatic process is obviously initiated after songs have been offered. By the time Iberville's party shared food and presented their gifts, they entered a negotiation process familiar to the

Indigenous participants. After these initial contacts, there is a period a debate when the

Native representatives retire to their own camp to rest and probably to discuss the significance of the encounter and the potential outcomes of further interaction. Perhaps they expected him to visit their camp. When Iberville proposes an exchange of emissaries to encourage a visit to his ships, he is unwittingly dabbling in Native protocols. What Iberville characterizes as an exchange "hostages" with the Annochy and

Moctoby people he has encountered might be understood as a gesture of good faith from an Indigenous perspective, which might have been understood in less adversarial terms as an exchange of emissaries or perhaps even a ritualistic adoption symbolizing the creation of new diplomatic relationships. This possibility is supported by the fact that Bienville doesn't actually rejoin his brother when Iberville heads off in search of the mouth of the

Mississippi. 179

As Iberville's story unfolds it becomes more obvious that his Native encounters and Calumet experiences are interrelated. After the ceremonious encounter with the

Bayogoula and Mugulasha, which seems to constitutes a second round of Calumet celebrations, Bienville and three other members of Iberville's expedition remain in the company of the Annochy and Moctoby people they had first encountered. Meanwhile, the Bayogoula hunting party that he presented with his Calumet, a prescribed indigenous diplomatic protocol Iberville came prepared to honor, arranged a rendezvous with

Iberville's party four days later at his original campsite in four days (Iberville 1981, 48), a proposal that suggests the Bayogoula and Mugulasha had been aware of the presence of

Iberville's party since its arrival on the coast.

Iberville's presentation of a calumet designed in the shape of a ship, flying a white flag of truce is worthy of closer scrutiny. This gesture, whether it is the conscious result of Iberville's experience in Native diplomacy or Marquette's previous Mississippi

Valley encounters or the unintended result of Iberville's eamest desire for strategic advantage, is significant because it adheres so closely to the Native diplomatic protocols subsequently documented by French colonial officials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Iberville's calumet precedes his physical presence, informing others of his intentions and facihtating his desire for diplomacy and negotiation. He follows the pipe in stages from the Biloxi and Bayogoula hunting parties into an Ouma town. It remains in the possession of his "hosts;" its white flag was apparently a mutually recognized sign of peace and certainly a signal of his desire to negotiate. 180

The Bayogoula missed the February 21^' rendezvous, and on the 27"^ Iberville with his party reunited in two Biscayans and two bark canoes with twenty days provisions, Iberville decides "to go to the Myssysypy, which the Indians of this areas call

Malbanchya and the Spaniards call Palisade" (Iberville 1981, 49). On this journey,

Iberville proceeded in much the same manner as before, working his way cautiously up the river, taking soundings, and occasionally firing canister shots "to give notice to the

Indians if there were any in the vicinity" (Iberville 1981, 53).

On the 14"^ of March, Iberville met "a wooden canoe, or pirogue, as such boats are called in the islands of America, in which were four men of the Mogoulacha nation who were coming to bring the calumet of peace to me, singing after their fashion" a few miles below the landing for the Bayogoula village (Iberville 1981, 58).^^

When we came up to them, they offered it me to smoke on behalf of their nations. Then the bearer of the calumet came into my longboat, and we pro­ ceeded to the village landing about noon; and the Mogoulacha, whom I had in my longboat, sang as we drew near, raising his calumet as high as he could as a mark of joy and assurance. When we drew close to the landing, the Bayogoula and the Mogoulascha, who are two nations joined together and living in the same village, were on the river bank and sang when we arrived. When we left the boat, the two chiefs of each nation came before me and greeted me in their fashion, which I have already described, grasping me under the arms as though to help me walk, and escorted me on to some bear skins spread out in the midst of their people. When I sat down, they gave tobacco to me and to all my men, whom they heartily embraced. The calumet I had given the Bayogoula rested on two forked sticks two feet high in the middle of the assembly, where a man of that nation domiciled with them stood with his eyes fixed on it and without moving from it. They had sagamite brought for me and all my men to eat, made of Indian com, and some of their bread. The afternoon was devoted to singing and dancing. (Iberville 1981,58-9) On the next day "three men came to bring me some tobacco to smoke ceremoniously and to lace my calumet back on the two forked sticks, where one man 181 stayed to guard it" (Iberville 1981, 61). After visiting the temple and its surrounding village, Iberville moved upstream for two days approaching Ouma territory in search of the non-existent eastern fork of the Mississippi that La Salle had mistakenly believed emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. After advancing upriver to the stream which divided

Bayogoula and Ouma territories, Iberville found many palmetto-roofed huts and a red maypole with no limbs, the famous baton rouge (Iberville 1981, 65).^^

On March 19"^, Iberville camped seven or eight miles below the Ouma landing, and his subsequent visit adheres to the same protocols that had characterized his two previous encounters. After establishing his camp, Iberville "had canister shots fired to notify them of my coming, so that I could avoid surprising them" (Iberville 1981, 66).

In the journal entry for March 20, 1699 Iberville writes,

I got to the landing for the Ouma's village at ten-thirty in the morning, three leagues from the place where I spent the night. There I found five men, three Ouma and two Quynypyssa, who were awaiting me with the calumet of peace. They had come from the village upon hearing the shot from swivel-gun. Far off as they were when they saw us, they started singing, and the Bayogoula with me sang as my representative. When we got on shore, we all embraced one another and rubbed one another in their fashion and smoked together. About eleven o'clock I went to the village, the Bayogoula and his men escort­ ing us along the way. The Ouma's deputies marched in front, singing all the way, even though we had to go by a rather bad road fiill of hills or small mountains, quite steep, for almost the entire way. At one o'clock in the after­ noon we came in sight of the village. When 400 hundred yards from it, I was met by three men appointed to bear the calumet of peace to me. I had to smoke ceremoniously, seated on a mat, which I find very unpleasant as I have never been a smoker. These three singers led me to high ground, where there were three huts, 300 hundred yards from the village. Here they made me stop and sent a messenger to notify the chief we had arrived; we waited for instructions about what we were to do. A man came and told us to enter the village. As we were entering, the three singers marched in front, singing, presenting to the village the calumet of peace, held as high as their arms would reach. The chief and two of the most distinguished men came to meet me at the entrance to the village, each carrying a white cross in his hand. They greeted me in their 182

fashion, held me under the arms, and conducted me on to some mats in the middle of the their village square, where the whole village was assembled. Here we smoked again, and they bestowed on me many marks of friendship 1 gave them a small present in advance of what I intended to give them at my longboats. About four o'clock in the afternoon we were given a formal ball in the middle of the square, where the whole village had assembled. (Iberville 1981,67-8)

Apparently, Iberville is participating in an escalating series of ceremonies that progress from the individual to the community level. First, Iberville has difficulty making contact with Native peoples, who undoubtedly are curious about his identity and perhaps suspicious of his intentions because of previous experience with Europeans, who speak strange languages, have difficulty communicating, and often behave inappropriately. After repeated signaling, Iberville is able to make contact with Native representatives only when they have little other choice. From the time of Iberville's humane treatment of the injured Biloxi man, Iberville's diplomatic interaction proceeds successively, gradually incorporating the French representatives deeper into the host society until they are afforded the ultimate honor of touring the town and entering its temple. Iberville's kindness to an injured man cannot be discounted as the catalyst behind his eventual incorporation into Indigenous spheres of interaction and alliance.

Iberville's encounters between February and March clearly involve a cycle of choreographed activities within an escalating hierarchy of Native representatives, each

Native group deferring in turn to more powerful sovereigns until at last the ritual of the

Calumet is played out in front of the town's entire population in a public plaza surrounded by Sub-Mississippia architectural elements. When he leaves the village on the 21 Iberville is escorted to his longboats in the same manner he had been escorted 183 into the Ouma village, with honor, with great care for his personal safety as well as with pomp and circumstance benefiting an important diplomatic encounter.

On March 22, 1699 after obtaining supplies from the Ouma and detailed information from a Taensa informant about the course of the river and the peoples who lived above the Ouma landing, Iberville directed his longboats upriver in order to reconcile the growing disparities between Marquette's navigational information and his own experiences and observations. While Marquette had provided valuable information about how to interact with Native peoples, Iberville found the navigational and ethnographical information Marquette and La Salle had provided practically useless.

Iberville's trip upriver was short because he realized that the Mississippi did not fork and he evidently realized that he was on the same river La Salle had explored in 1682.

Iberville returned the Ouma landing that same evening and dispatched his brother to

"fetch the Bayogoula and his men" (Iberville 1981, 76) for the return trip downriver.

When Bienville arrived in the village that evening, he found the Bayogoula party

"in a debauch with women at the village," and after unsuccessfully urging them to return to the longboats, Bienville "left them and seeming, to be displeased with them, came on as fast as he could and got back at nine o'clock at night" (Iberville 1981, 77). Iberville reports that within the hour "three Bayogoula and six Ouma came back bearing the calumet to us all over again, believing us to be angry.. .They told me my brother's hasty departure from the village had thrown all the people into a turmoil as they thought him to be angry, and that they had been sent to pacify us" (Iberville 1981, 78).

At eight o'clock the next morning. 184

The Ouma chief came along with eighty of his men and women in a group, laden with com, pumpkins, and fowls; and the chief of the Bayogoula and the rest of his men told me that they had believed I would be angry because they had not come the night before with my brother, but that it was too late to come. I gave them a few glass beads, awls, knives, and needles in exchange for their com. After we had shown affection to one another and said goodbye, I embarked. The chief of the Ouma and one of his distinguished men escorted me to my longboat, holding me under the arm to help me walk, lest some accident should happen to me on their land. (Iberville 1981, 78) 185

Section Four

Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia Influences on Indigenous Social Organization in the Historic Era

Social Continuity across the Protohistoric Period

The social continuity between Indigenous peoples of the contact period and

Mississippian moundbuilding societies is evident in a variety of contexts. Southeastern peoples have long shared a number enduring social traditions. The wide distribution of these traditions as well as evidence of overarching cultural affinities among southeastern peoples during the historic period strongly indicates common Mississippian origins.

Southeastern peoples' common Mississippian heritage is built upon similarities in material culture, religious belief and practice as well as shared philosophical and technological systems of knowledge. This sociopolitical common ground developed out of a southeastern cultural complex closely associated with Mississippian societies and earlier moundbuilding societies that preceded them. Archaeologists often refer to this late-Mississippian, cultural matrix as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (Galloway

1989).

These cultural affinities are most readily apparent in the shared epistemologies of southeastern peoples. Throughout the southeast, the pre-suppositions and foundations of southeastern systems of knowledge are remarkably similar. A corresponding claim can be made about southeastern ontologies because the metaphysical foundations for conceptualizing and expressing the essential nature of their perceptions of order in the universe and their employment of organizing principles are surprisingly widespread and nearly universally expressed in both the archaeological evidence being retrieved from 186

Mississippian sites and the documentary evidence addressing the nature of post contact

Indigenous societies.

Clearly, many of the symbolic representations of Indigenous ordering principles and concepts survived the environmental and demographic impacts of the Sub-

Mississippia period. The continued importance of balanced dichotomies such as red and white or water and fire are obvious examples as is the continued value placed on symbolic representations repeatedly identified in artistic and architectural expression.

Since the symbols and practices of moundbuilding societies had already survived thousands of years of adaptation to changing environmental, social, and political circumstances prior to the Mississippian era of moundbuilding, it is reasonable to expect that these characteristic patterns of Indigenous, southeastern signification and representation continued to convey various kinds of knowledge to those who possessed the cultural capital necessary to decode their messages. The enduring legends of the

Com Mother and Uktena are integral parts of Southeastem artistic expression that passed through three epochs of moundbuilding activity and Sub-Mississippia reorganization, suggesting a conceptual continuity of tremendous time depth. Com Mother and Uktena are simply two obvious examples of Indigenous methods of signification that survived periodic reorganization and continue to serve southeastem peoples as vital landmarks for cultural preservation, survival, and continuity though time.^^

We have already seen how the physical presence of Mounds has performed similar functions for historic, southeastem confederacies and their contemporary descendants. Mounds continue to serve as visual reminders of the past; they constitute 187 bridges that ground contemporary, Indigenous, tribal identities in moundbuilding pasts, which span epochs of cultural invention, adaptation, and transformation. The social aspects of continuity between Sub-Mississippia societies and their historic tribal counterparts are most evident in adaptation of Mississippian traditions exemplified by four aspects of Indigenous southeastern Indigenous cultures: widespread diffusion of primary organizing principles characteristic of southeastern cosmologies, overarching ceremonial similarities, strikingly uniform patterns of architectural design, construction, and function, and historically documented Indigenous behavior regarding the regulation of marriage and other social institutions.

Southeastern peoples' belief systems offer evidence of a common Mississippian past. As Charles Hudson notes, "Like all other people in the world, the Southeastern

Indians interpreted most of the humdrum, everyday events in lives in terms of ordinary, common sense beliefs and knowledge. This does not mean that the common sense beliefs and knowledge of the Southeastern Indians resembled our own common sense beliefs and knowledge in a point-by-point fashion, but rather that it was knowledge which was generally shared by all normal adults" (Hudson 1976, 120). Not surprisingly, the organizational principles of Southeastern cosmologies, the fundamental building blocks of universal order and the dualistic nature of human experience, were dispersed throughout southeastern Indigenous societies. Southeastern ceremonial similarities begin on the most fundamental level, reflecting the organizational principles that structured the lives of southeastern peoples and celebrating the symbols of universal order that seemed most representative of this perceived order. These affinities are most readily recognized 188 in the spiritual power and sociopolitical importance ascribed to fire and water, the most readily observable manifestation of the southeastern ordering principle of dualism or balanced opposition. Material manifestations of the centrality of fire suggest a common origin in a more distant past. The dualistic qualities of Fire and Water, like the Green

Com ceremonies, are ubiquitous and long-lived traditions among southeastern indigenous peoples.

The conventional wisdom of archaeologists, historians, and ethnohistorians suggests that the historic tribes encountered by European explorers and settlers were radically transformed societies, which had been cut off from their pre-Columbian ancestors and traditions by the introduction of contagious diseases and the social reorganization that resulted from the introduction of European technologies and trade goods. For many scholars, the transformation from highly structured Mississippian societies to egalitarian tribal bands cannot be satisfactorily explained in any other way.

The most striking difficulty with this interpretation of events is that describing Native societies as egalitarian is problematic. While Native societies might have appeared to be egalitarian to European observers, it remains to be seen if Native societies were in fact egalitarian. Native southeastern societies were highly structured and built upon notions of dualism and balanced opposition, which implies political, economic, and social differentiation. The inhabitants of Native town were probably not committed the idea of equality among themselves even though Indigenous institutions might have appeared to be more inclusive and less exclusive compared to their European counterparts.

Moreover, if we accept that Native polities were in fact egalitarian as it has been defined 189 in western European societies, there is still the problem of reconciling the assertion egalitarianism in historic era Indigenous societies with the hierarchal structures archaeologists ascribe to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, a shared, Mississippian- based, sociopolitical matrix of religious ceremonialism, architectural design, subsistence practice, and material culture. In attempting to reconcile this apparent paradox, it is important to consider the possibility that the assumption of simple political models, which often equate complexity with hierarchical organization, can distort the nature of political and social organizations as well as the nature of change in those organizations.

Because societies constitute a "matrix of symmetrical and nonsymmetrical interactions that link individuals and groups, researchers need detailed knowledge of organizational structures and principles before they can understand change in those structures" (Crumley and Marquardt, 1987, 613-14).

Strictly dividing Late-Mississippian societies from historically confederated

Indian Tribes, and the subsequent exclusion of Indigenous interpretive frames of reference, annex Native southeastern peoples from their cultural foundations and severely handicap the study of the cross-cultural interaction in the Southeast. This is especially true for the study of sociopolitical change in the American southeast. When "Indians" are portrayed as people without pasts, it becomes difficult to adequately contextualize their actions, and as a result, nearly impossible to accurately appraise the importance of their contributions to the formation of American concepts, which are most accurately defined as concepts, ideas, and practices resulting from the confluence of Indigenous

American and European traditions. 190

There is very little debate over the fact that "Mississippian chiefdoms came to resemble each other in many ways" (Payne and Scarry, 1998, 23). Throughout the eastern woodlands, broad similarities in iconographic forms and religious objects that clearly represent a shared cosmology (Brown 1985; Knight 1986; Muller 1989: 25). What still remains largely unexplored is the degree to which southeastern tribal reorganization was structured by Mississippian cultural and sociopolitical influences.

Indigenous Philosophical Perspectives: Southeastern Organizing Principles

Charles Hudson begins his discussion of southeastern belief systems by raising a critical important issue. Hudson states that it is useful to think of overarching belief system of southeastern peoples as a "kind of theory" (Hudson 1976, 120). Southeastern cosmologies are complete systems of knowledge that organize the world according to ordered principles, which means that they are more than a "kind of theory." Southeastern cosmologies are in fact Indigenous theoretical models constructed according to

Indigenous structural and institutional parameters they are built upon. Decoding the complexities of Southeastern belief systems requires taking account of the "basic categories and principles.. .which fit together in a way that is more complete and ordered than anything in our own experience" because "in preliterate beliefs systems, everything is related to everything else" (Hudson 1976, 120-21). As Hudson notes.

The categories and beliefs of the Southeastern Indians represented the world as they believed it existed, and this included both the natural and the super­ natural, the normal and the abnormal, and the sacred and the profane. The social arrangements, customary practices, and rituals of Southeastern Indians make sense only when viewed against the ideological background of their system. (Hudson 1976, 120) 191

The cultural diversity and sociopoHtical complexity of the American Southeast will never be fully appreciated, but a comparison of archaeological data and the earliest written accounts of Europeans suggests "there were in fact substantial cultural similarities among these societies in late prehistoric and protohistoric times" (Hudson 1976, 121).

Even though linguistic diversity is one of the defining characteristics of Indigenous

Southeastern peoples, "when Southeastern Indians began to be dislocated by European diseases, slave-raiders, and wars, they took up residence with other Southeastern peoples with considerable ease, and this implies that they thought in much the same terms even when they spoke different languages" (Hudson 1976, 122).^^

Hudson comments should be considered in light of Le Moyne de Iberville's firsthand observation that "the Bayogoula and the Mogoulascha.. .are two nations joined together and living in the same village" (Iberville 1981, 58). Given the recent contact between European and Indigenous Americans in the Mississippi River Valley and the fact that Iberville is clearly interacting with Sub-Mississippia polities, and in cases such as the

Natchez, Mississippian societies, the formation of multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic towns is an inherently Indigenous sociopolitical arrangement that promoted and enabled Sub-

Mississippia reorganization. If Hudson's observations are considered in light of

Drechsel's research on Mobilian jargon, it is obvious that Sub-Mississippia Native peoples possessed the political sophistication and enabling logistical mechanisms to construct human societies that were fimdamentally and radically distinct from the human societies indigenous to Western Europe. 192

The following discussion of social continuity between Sub-Mississippia and historic Native peoples begins with these basic theoretical observations. For

Southeastern Native peoples, the structure of the universe and the social order of the physical world, which included "three categories of nonspiritual beings, men, animals, and plants" (Hudson 1976, 128), was reflected in almost every aspect of everyday existence, including the spatial arrangement of their towns, their social and political organization as well as their diplomatic relationships and protocols. It is my opinion that by identifying, explicating, and applying Southeastern organizational principles to historical data, we are better able to decode and appreciate historically documented cross- cultural interactions between Indigenous Americans and western Europeans. According to Hudson, "the interrelated structure of the Southeastern Indian belief system is the key to understanding their almost obsessive concern with purity and pollution" (Hudson

1976, 121), and my scholarship is based on the assumption that understanding the ramifications of such a philosophical system is critical to accurately representing Native actions during the colonial era in their proper context.

The central southeastern organizing principle of dualism or balanced opposition was evident in all aspects of Indigenous southeastern experience, including the order of the universe, representations of the sacred, political organization, and the relationships between and among the non-spiritual beings who occupied the earth. Hudson writes,

"The Southeastern Indians lived between two worlds that were neither wholly friendly nor wholly hostile toward them.. .the Upper World and the Under World were opposed to each other" (Hudson 1976, 136). Accordingly, the central organizational concept of 193 dualism or balanced opposition is reflected in the structural order of the Southeastern cosmos.

The Southeastern cosmos consisted of three worlds: an Upper World, an

Underworld, and This World, which was precariously balanced in between. According to

Hudson's synthesis of historical and ethnological data.

In the beginning, just two worlds existed; the Upper World and the Under World. This World, the world on which the Indians lived, was created later. The Upper World epitomized order and expectableness, while the Under World epitomized disorder and change. (Hudson 1976, 14-25)

According to Southeastern theories concerning the order of the universe. This

World was conceived of as a great, flat island resting on the surface of the waters, suspended from the sky vault by four cords attached at each of the cardinal directions.

One enduring southeastern symbol, the cross and circle motif characteristic of historic tribes and artifacts associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, is likely a representation of what may be described as supernatural relationships. As a result.

Southeastern peoples found it necessary to look for and actively seek out ways of living that emphasized shared Mississippian organizational principles, particularly the ideals of dualism and balanced opposition. As Hudson notes, this principle could also be employed to sub-divide the organizational categories themselves, so while the Under World was an ambiguous place of monsters and danger, it was also the source of water, fertility, and a means for coping with evil (Hudson 1976, 166).

One of the more obvious examples of this structural dichotomy is evident in the by relationship thought to exist between the sacred purifiers water and fire. Because water was associated with the powers of the Under World and Fire with powers of the 194

Upper World, human beings inherited the responsibility of ensuring that these sacred substances were always separated; it was, therefore, forbidden to pour water onto a fire

(Hudson 1976 128). Additionally, Southeastern peoples' political organization was built upon the opposition of red and white moieties. Clans symbolized by the color white regulated the internal affairs of the village, town, and nation while clans symbolized by the color red were responsible for external and international affairs of the village, town, and nation. Surviving Cherokee oral traditions suggest that the principle of balanced opposition was applied to relationships governing human beings, animals, and plants.

The story of the origin of disease and medicine illustrate that Southeastern theories of illness/health recognized elaborate correspondences between animals, diseases, and herbal medicines (Hudson 1976, 156-57).

As mentioned above. This World was inhabited by three principle categories of beings—humans, animals, and plants—and the principle of dualism regulated and structured these relations relationships as well. Human beings and animals opposed one another while plants were friends of mankind and assisted humans when the animals sought to destroy them in retaliation for being hunted. The cardinal directions were probably viewed as sets of opposites as well. Red was the color of the East, and it was associated with the sun, sacred fire, blood, life and success. Conversely, black was the color of the West, which was associated with the Moon, the souls of the dead, and death.

North and South constituted another pair of balanced opposites. Blue was the color of the

North; it was associated with trouble and defeat, while white was the color of the South and associated with peace and happiness (Hudson 1976, 132). 195

Change was an integral part of the Southeastern cosmic order. The Under World embodied the inherent possibility of change. Beings inhabiting the Upper World migrated into This World, but as This World became a less ideal place to live, they left to return to the Upper World, leaving their inferior images behind (Hudson 1976, 128). In this manner. This World came to support many of the same features as the Upper World such as chiefs, councils, and town houses although the beings of the Upper World were not subject to the rules that limited the behavior of ordinary people (Hudson 1976, 126).

As Hudson notes, Southeastern peoples' "concern with categorical tidiness"

(Hudson 1976 148) led to the belief that "if a person mixed things from opposed categories, the result was sure to be some form of chaos" (Hudson 1976, 148). As a result, "many rules in Cherokee society had to do with avoiding the mixing of categories, or pollution, while many of their ceremonies were intended to dispel pollution once it occurred" Hudson 1976, 148). In the Southeastern societies, accidents and chance were afforded little agency, and if things went wrong, there was a reason for it. According to

Hudson, "Many of the things which went wrong [were] explained as having come about because people in their communities broke rules of ritual separation or propriety"

(Hudson 1976, 173). Consequentially, pollution and purity were serious matters for

Southeastern peoples.

They affected not only the well-being of the sinner, but of his entire com­ munity and society as well. Living, as we do, in more or less impersonal communities, it is difficult to imagine what it would have been like to live in such a morally intense community. (Hudson 1976, 174).

In the same way that Indigenous Southeastern belief systems were "interlaced with a series of oppositions and polarities, these same structural patterns were evident in 196 the social organization of the Indians" (Hudson 1976, 234), a form of social organization

"similar to the dual organization of other North American Indians" (Hudson 1976, 234).

The social dualism of Southeastern peoples is most dramatically illustrated by the institutions of dual chiefs and by the red/white moiety division characteristic of Creek

(O'Brien 1983, 20-3; Swanton 1928a, 165) and Cherokee (Strickland 1975, 24-6).

Sociopolitical organization based on the concept of dualism was widespread in the

Indigenous Southeast. The division was evident at a Natchez Green Com celebration

(Swanton 1911, 117). Cushman documents its presence among the Choctaw

(Cushmanl962, 26-7). Its wide distribution suggests a common origin. Hudson notes its significance in the following way.

We do not know with certainty how old this pattern of dual organization is in the Southeast, although it is probably old. It is likely that in its oldest form it was the division of clans within chiefdoms into dual divisions. Then as a way of organizing themselves into larger political entities to withstand European colonists, the Southeastern Indians used this same pattern as a Means of organizing chiefdoms with respect to each other. Thus it may be that dual organization is an old pattern which was used to meet new conditions in historic times and perhaps as early as the Mississippian tradition. (Hudson 1976, 237)

Regardless of the antiquity of dualistic sociopolitical organization, the existence of multi-level administrative Native governments clearly demonstrates that the philosophy of balanced opposition clearly influenced Sub-Mississippia sociopolitical reorganization. The strategy of balancing administrative power by creating offsetting political offices is evident even in the northern woodlands, where the Great Law of Peace unified once bitter enemies into a single political entity, the Haudenosaunee (O'Brien

1989, 17-20). 197

In the historic era, the alliances between Creek chiefdoms were expressed through the act of "sharing the same fire." This concept of political organization recreated and symbolically reinforced the belief in a world dominated by interdependent relationships, which required constant attention as well as positive ceremonial acts that ritualistically expressed, cemented, and renewed these relationships through time. Because concepts of political, social, and spiritual power overlapped. Southeastern peoples were constantly reminded of the interdependent qualities of the universe, which was represented symbolically, ceremonially, and literally through their cosmological ordering of the universe, the organization of their societies, and the construction of the urban environments.

According to Hudson, "The Creeks invited people of the same fire to their Green

Com Ceremonies, but they never invited people of an opposite fire..."

Historically, this might have begun with alliances being formed among a series of old, established chiefdoms. These chiefdoms would have been thought of as "white" because in the Southeastern belief system white is the color of that which is old, established, pure, peaceable, holy, united, and so forth. Later, the Creek Confederacy of historic times was perhaps formed when outlying chiefdoms and tribal groups were dislocated by white colonists and forced to form alliances with these "white" chiefdoms. From the point of view of the white chiefdoms, however, these newcomers would have been potential and sometimes actual enemies. They were therefore designated as "red," the color associated with conflict, war, fear, disunity, and danger. While white chiefdoms were linked together with each other in various ways, the red towns were rather individualized and isolated from each other. (Hudson 1976, 235)

Ceremonial Connects: Ceremonial Similarities among Southeastern Peoples

If we return to Iberville's journals, once again we find evidence of widespread, overarching cultural similarities among southeastern Indigenous peoples. Like his 198 accounts of Calumet ceremonies, Iberville's description of a Bayogoula temple is remarkably similar to the observations of other European observers throughout the southeast. Iberville's brief description includes the following observations.

At the door there is a lean-to 8 feet wide and 12 long, supported by two big posts with a cross-beam, which serves as a girder. Beside the Temple door there several figures of animals, such as bears, wolves, birds; on this side is a figure on they call choucoiiacaha [opossum].. .The door of the Temple is 3 feet high and 21/2 feet wide. The chief had it opened by a man and went in first. It was built like all the others in which they are housed, dome shaped 30 feet in diameter and round, daubed with mud as high as a man's head. In the middle were two logs of dry, worm eaten wood, laid end to end and burning. At the far end was a platform on which were several bundles of the skins of deer, bear, and buffalo, which were offering to their god in the form of this Choucoiiacha, which was depicted in several places in black and red. (Iberville 1981,62)

Of particular notice here is the presence of a sacred fire in a temple context. Fire is an essential element of the southeastern cosmology. The concepts associated with fire are critically important to decoding the matrix of social, political, and cosmological relationships structuring the actions and ordering the shared concepts and doctrines of

Indigenous southeastern peoples, what archaeologists have referred to as the Southeastern

Ceremonial Complex (Galloway 1989).

Sacred Fire. In his article "Cherokee Sun and Fire Observances," David Corkran asserts that "the earliest detailed presentation of undeniably Cherokee religious practices is that of Alexander Long, written in 1725" (Corkran 1955, 33). Corkran uses Long's observations as well as later observations from the journals of missionary William

Richardson, to explore the social, political, and religious roles of fire in Cherokee society.^® Corkran provides valuable insights into the role of fire in Cherokee ceremonials during the early eighteenth century and adaptations to its role and the 199 concepts governing its use over time. According to Corkran, "the 'town house' or

'temple' fire occupied a 'sacred' position among the Cherokee." Its centrality to the physical, social, and political needs of the nation was reinforced and symbolized in the spiritual nature attributed to it (Corkran 1953, 21). According to Alexander Long, a trader among the Cherokee between 1711 and 1725, the circular hearth in the Cherokee temple contains a fire that never goes out, but it is probably more accurate to assert that

Cherokee temples contained fires that were constantly monitored by qualified and properly sanctioned persons. This fire exhibited qualities unique from common fire, and no one was allowed to take any part of it from the temple. The ashes of the sacred fires could only be removed from the temple once a year, and even then only by those appointed to do so and only after priests had made offerings and those appointed to remove the ashes had undergone purification. The ashes were stored in a place referred to "skeona" or the place of spirits, a place only qualified persons were allowed to approach (Corkran 1953, 22-23).

From Richardson's testimony, it appears that Cherokee people in the early colonial era ascribed sacred fire with the following attributes: fire was thought to be equal to water in mystical potency, fire had a spirit, the spirit of fire was a source of good things, and fire bore prayers to the Upper World. For this reason, the Cherokee honored fire with dance, song, and prayer (Corkran 1953, 22). Fire was also the most prominent aspect of the annual Cherokee Green Com Ceremony. The Busk Ceremony was practiced throughout the southeast, and among the Cherokee it was closely associated with affirmations of political unity, the renewal of interpersonal and supernatural 200 relationships, and the recitation of the ancient law of the Cherokee (Strickland 1975, 13).

Given the ubiquitous nature of this observance, its goals of social, political, spiritual unification, and the agency attributed to sacred fire, it is likely that the social, political, and ceremonial centrality of fire to Indigenous Southeastern peoples is a Mississippian survival.

Cherokee Fire Priests. In addition to historical evidence from French sources documenting the importance of fire among the Natchez, the enduring Southeastern ceremonial traditions associated with fire, the continued political functions of fire, and the spiritual power attributed to it, the assumption that the historical emphasis placed on fire and its associated concepts among Southeastern peoples is reinforced by James

Adair's identification of a priestly class among the Cherokee, who were considered human manifestations of the spirit of the fire through whom the "Divine Fire works"

(Corkran 1955, 34). Corkran cites the John Howard Payne manuscripts for further evidence of the existence of a Cherokee priestly cast associated with the power of sun and its earthly representative, fire. The Uku, Fire King, or "First Man of the Cherokees"

(Corkran 1955, 34) presided over the Cherokee Green Com Ceremony, which suggest to

Corkran that "the Fire King robed in white sat as the embodiment of the Great Emperor, the Great White Being, the Great King above, the Creator Spirit, or Divine Fire"

(Corkran 1955, 36). The role of the Fire Priests and their relationship to the Creator seems to have origins predating historic era influences. Citing the Payne manuscripts,

Corkran writes that many Cherokee thought of fire as having descended directly from above. 201

They looked upon Fire as the eldest of their heritages, as an active intelligent being in the form of a man, and dwelling in the regions beyond wide waters whence their ancestors came. Some represent a portion of it as having been brought with them.. .This fire, carried perhaps in such a structure as the sacred ark mentioned by Adair as the resting place of the Cherokee Deity or in an earthen pot of the type used by the war priesthood to carry sacred fire to war, was the eternal fire from which all the undying flames in the Cherokee regional temples (such as that Payne mentions having been at Toogulu in ancient time) descended. Fire, the eldest spirit, the grandfather, represented the continuity of the nation with its remote past. (Corkran 1955, 37)

Corkran also turns to a nineteenth century Cherokee informant, Charlie Hicks, who reported that hereditary Cherokee Fire priests, "once known as the Proud" (Auh ne coo tauh nies), were members of one certain family (Corkran 1956, 32). Cherokee oral traditions indicate that the Proud "professed themselves...teachers of Heavenly knowledge from the Creator" (Corkran 1955, 37). The relationship of the Fire Priests to the Creator stems from Cherokee observances much older than Sun Worship, which was presumably introduced by the Natchez after 1731. Corkran goes on to speculate about the metamorphosis of Cherokee political thought by noting,

If, then, the undying fire with its shamans and rituals formed the ancient center of the Cherokee faith it would appear that from it had developed a concept of Divine Fire which manifested itself on earth in temple fires and in the person of the fire Priests. (Corkran 1955, 37-8).^'

According to Hudson (1976, 126), the sun, as the source of "all warmth, light, and life," was a principle deity among Southeastern Indians. Among the Cherokee, sacred fire, the principle symbol of purity, was the earthly representative and ally of the sun.

The Cherokee made daily sacrifices to fire on the household level, strictly observing social prohibitions against mixing fire with any form of water. The Cherokee used the terms "Ancient White" and "Ancient Red" to address fire, suggesting a 202 contemporaneous development with other ancient Indigenous social, political, and ceremonial concepts. While there were various adaptations to the ritual use of fire, often its use was associated with other symbols characteristic of Mississippian and Sub-

Mississippia societies. Hudson reports,

Some Southeastern Indians built their sacred fire by resting four logs together in the shape of a cross, so that the fire burned in the center; others built sacred fire by arranging small pieces of wood or dry cane in a circle or spiral, so that the sacred fire burned in a circular path. Thus the circle and the cross motif also symbolized sacred fire. (Hudson 1976, 126)

Fire's importance to the political life of Southeastern peoples is clearly evident in its use in town houses during debates. Southeastern peoples of the historic era had altered

Mississippian architecture and spatial relationships within the towns, but Mississippian components still clearly dominated the landscapes as Mississippian elements continued to influence the design, construction and placement of towns and the buildings in them.

According to Hudson, "important eighteenth century Creek towns, the ceremonial centers of chiefdoms, were built around plazas," and contained a town house, a square ground or summer council house, and a chunky yard (Hudson 1976, 218), which was likely a designated section of the town plaza or squareground. Town house could be quite large.

The eighteenth century town house in the Cherokee town of Chota was said to accommodate up to 500 people.

When council meetings were held, a small fire was built in the center of the building out of pitch pine, splinters of dry cane, or dry wood with the bark peeled off. These were laid down in continuous series of X's to form a spiral, the flame going round and round until it burned out; or it was arranged in a circle with an attendant cautiously replenishing the end of the circle opposite the flame. Archaeologists have turned up the remains of town houses at such Mississippian sites as Ocmulgee [present-day eastern Georgia] and Hiawassee Island [present-day Tennessee River]. (Hudson 1976, 218) 203

As Corkran states, the Divine Fire was the central expression of Cherokee political thought and Cherokee "nationalism."

Theirs was a theocratic government composed of two phalanxes of priests, the red or war priests, and the white or peace chiefs. The red priests invoked the red phase of the Great Being and with his protection and anger made war upon the enemies of their nation. The white priests handled religious ceremonies of peace, rain-making, the civil functions of allotting lands, building homes, and making judgments in disputes. These two brotherhoods composed the regional councils of the nation, that at Chotte among the Overhills possessing the Fire King, head of all the nation. Referred to as the Oolestooleeh, he sat in white skins, as a living representative of the Great Being Above. (Corkran 1956, 33)

Southeastern Ceremonial Continuity and the Green Corn Festival

Annual Green Com ceremonies were common across eastem North America.^^

John Witthoft documented its practice among Algonquian speakers in present-day New

England, the Iroquois, the Cherokee, southeastern Siouan speakers, the Creek and their neighbors, as well as the Natchez (Witthoft 1949, iii). In the Southeast where it is commonly referred to as the Green Com Ceremony, the Busk took on added significance, becoming one of the most important seasonal ceremonies practiced by Indigenous peoples (Hudson 1976, 366). While its function and expression were subject to regional variations, historical evidence indicates the Green Com Ceremony served at least four primary functions within Native southeastern societies. First, the ceremony served as an affirmation of collective political identity on the local level and quite possibly above the local level on what might be described as the national level. The Green Cora Ceremony was also an affirmation of subjective identity for individuals as well because it required everyone's participation and demonstrated the interdependent nature of community life.

Secondly, the Green Com Ceremony was an occasion for ritual purification. It also 204 served as a mechanism of social, political, and spiritual renewal, which was symbolized by the annual redistribution of fire from its sacred context in the temple or council house to each of the households in a given community. Finally, the Green Com Ceremony unified southeastern peoples by publicly demonstrating the primary aspects of southeastern sociopolitical identity, the affirmation of a distinct political identity, the periodic necessity of purification, and the renewal of relationships that made sociopolitical organization possible, in the ritualized context of this four-day celebration

(Adiar 1968; 82-84 and 100-8; Haywood 1828, 243; Hudson 1976, 365-75; Mooney

1900, 146, 230, 279, 290, 396,, and 452; Patne 1932, 170-95; Skarritt 1849; Witthoft

1949).

Like other aspects of southeastern life, the widespread distribution of Busk ceremonies, its elaborate choreography, and adaptation and utilization of ancient symbolism associated with moundbuilding societies suggests that the Green Com

Ceremony was not a recent development among southeastem peoples but was an aspect of Mississippian culture that survived Sub-Mississippia reorganization.

First and foremost, the Green Com Ceremony was an affirmation of social status and political identity (Hudson 1976, 233). Sharing the same fire is the philosophical foundation for the constmction of political and social identities in the Sub-Mississippia southeast. Among the Cherokee, fire was so important; it was eventually used to represent the concept of home (Hooley 2005, 1). The priority of town affiliation for the constmction of southeastem identity was built upon this nearly universal southeastem concept. The central, and possible the most important, events of the Green Com 205

Ceremony was the process of extinguishing, rekindling, and distributing fire throughout the community.

As part of a process archaeologist David Anderson has called "cycling," southeastern chiefdoms sometimes divided themselves and expanded within the same riparian environment or into others (given the proper conditions), fluctuating between a single administrative level in "simple" chiefdoms and multiple administrative levels in

"complex" and "paramount" chiefdoms (Anderson 1996, 234). When towns divided, the new town continued to be considered a part of the chiefdom it had left until it acquired its own social identity by constructing a ceremonial center of its own and performing the

Green Com Ceremony (Swanton 1915, 327).^^

The concept of "sharing" or "being of one fire" can also be applied to larger political contexts, unifying culturally affiliated towns. As Matt Hooley has pointed out, the eternal flame at the Kituwah Mound was considered the "symbolic life of the

Cherokee, and people from villages all around Kituwah came to light ceremonial fires with if (Hooley 2005, 1). In this way, the autonomous towns of the Cherokee

"confederacy" could be understood to share the same fire and in that sense, it constituted an Indigenous southeastern Nation.

Although the Green Com Ceremony can be interpreted as a celebration of thanks­ giving because it occurred when green com first became edible, the ceremony was more properly concerned with purification. Protocols required the entire community to fast before partaking of the green com. In addition to fasting, the priests and Beloved men 206 and women who orchestrated and conducted the ritual purified themselves by ingesting the Black Drink prior to the start of the proceedings.

Since the Green Com ceremony was the occasion when disputes were publicly resolved, the ceremony served to purify the social order of the community of disharmony, a profound concern in societies throughout the southeast. Sacred Temple fires, which were constantly tended by especially appointed caretakers, were extinguished and ceremonially rekindled under the strict supervision of community leaders with the appropriate ceremonial knowledge. Since the sun was associated with the order and stability of the Upper World, the ritual act of extinguishing and rekindling temple and council house fires symbolically represented the affirmation and purification of spiritual relationships as well as inter-personal human relationships.

At the end of the fourth day, after the physical world had been reordered and political, social, and supernatural relationships that ensured the security of the town had been affirmed and renewed. The entire population collectively purified themselves by

"going to water." Lead by the priests and leading citizens, the people of the town went to a nearby river or stream to purify themselves by praying and bathing together under the direction of the priests.

The Green Com Ceremony was a means to unify the entire community. This goal was accomplished in part by requiring everyone to participate, not only in the ritual acts of purification and dispute resolution but also by actively fulfilling pre-designated roles.

The Green Com ceremony usually began with the performance of public works. The plaza, or square ground as it was later called, was carefiilly swept. The sweepings were 207 ritually disposed of in a predetermined manner that met the prerequisite themes of purification and renewal, which characterized the entire ceremony. The public buildings located around the plaza were repaired or rebuilt, and other community projects such as the repair of storehouses or private residences were completed. Because woman controlled agricultural surpluses, they provided and prepared food for the feasts that followed the redistribution of the fire. Since they controlled the domestic sphere, they extinguished the home fires and prepared the hearths to receive the rekindled sacred fire which was passed from its sacred contexts to each home in the community in accordance protocols of social ranking. Those who refused to participate were considered outside the social order and beyond the protection of the community. In most cases such individuals were regarded with suspicion and in many cases ostracized because they represented a potential source of pollution that could adversely affect the whole community.

Each aspect of the Green Com Ceremony was an act of renewal, a central foundation of southeastern philosophy. Relationships between individuals, among peoples, and with the natural world required constant maintenance. Because in the southeastem universe all things were in a state of tension or balanced opposition, life required constant vigilance and constant attention. These relationships were periodically renewed as a means to recognize and affirm the inter-dependent nature of the universal order and to express the intention to continue their maintenance. Southeastem philosophical principles required active, collective behaviors that ensured the continued prosperity and security of human, natural and supernatural communities. As Rennard

Strickland notes, the Green Com Ceremony also provided an opportunity to recite the law 208 of the nation (Strickland 1975, 11-12), so apparently every aspect of Cherokee life, including the legal principles that order the social world, required a conscious act of renewal to ensure stability.

The continued historical importance of this ceremony is still clearly evident from documentary evidence. In the eighteenth century when the Cherokee were attempting to from a national assembly, the Green Com Ceremony and the National Ball Play provided the setting for the early national councils (Strickland 1975, 56),^'' which had begun by

1757.

Mississippian Urban Planning: Sacred Representation in the Architectural Contexts of Southeastern Towns

Native Peoples of the Southeast maintained real and imagined connections to their collective Mississippian pasts in a number of ways. They practiced similar trades, and as the European demand for processed deerskins suggests, they were skilled and accomplished artisans. Southeastern peoples in both the Sub-Mississippia and historic period lived in the same familiar, well-defined, riparian environments their ancestors had occupied. They played the same games, chunky and stickball being the most obvious.''^

As the survival of the Cherokee gadugi suggests, they willingly participated in traditions that emphasized collective efforts and community labor. They continued to revere

Mississippian symbols and employ Mississippian organizing principles.

Sub-Mississippia towns underwent metamorphoses that both embraced and modified elements of their collective Mississippian pasts. The civic and agricultural landscapes helped reorganizing Native societies maintain real and imagined connections to their Mississippian legacies, while they manipulated Mississippian elements in order to 209 meet new social, political, and economic challenges and opportunities. As Native societies remodeled their sociopolitical relationships, they adapted sites, symbols of power, traditional spatial relationships, and construction technologies to changing environmental and demographic circumstances. Just as leaders of the American

Revolution tried to associate their fledgling republic with the power and glory of ancient

Rome through appropriations of classical philosophy and architecture, Sub-Mississippia peoples modified Mississippian systems of knowledge to serve new purposes under radically altered circumstances.

When considering the philosophical parameters of Indigenous thought and action in the Sub-Mississippia and early historic eras, it is beneficial to consider the significance of Mississippian architectural elements as they were reproduced in the context of historic

Indigenous towns. The similarity of design and use of these architectural elements illustrate spiritual, social, political, and technological continuities that are of critical importance.

Architecture is the most visible physical manifestation of human culture. As such, it encodes much information about a society-political organization, economy, subsistence, aesthetics, cosmology, and gender relations, to list only a few topics and the limits of this information expand as we learn more about the dynamic relationship between people and their environments. (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 1)

The significance of these observations is magnified in the American Southeast because "the architectural similarities of town planning in the Mississippian world transcended linguistic and cultural boundaries as substantial as the differences between medieval Poland and Spain" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 1). Stout and Wesson base this conclusion on two assumptions: 1) "Architecture is one instrument, of widely 210

accepted face and criterion validity, by which we may compare the differences and similarities of societies through time and across space" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998,

3); and 2) "a given design cannot be understood in cultural terms if you divorce it from

its context; the setting of a design is as much a cultural artifact as is the building, space,

or landscape itself (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 4). The Mississippian town is a

microcosm of the southeastern universe.

If there can said to be any physical representation of Mississippian views of the cosmos, it is the town. On the macro level, it reflects the political organ­ ization, economy, and religious beliefs of Mississippian peoples... Its deliberately planned elements are as close to a direct mapping of the Mississippian world as we are likely to get. It is the critical mass of what it was to be Mississippian. (Lewis and Wesson 1998, 227)

Lewis, Stout, and Wesson emphasize the multidimensional nature of

Mississippian sites, rejecting the notion that mound centers were used exclusively for

ceremonial purposes and noting that Mississippian rituals and ceremonies were probably

carried out at sites that lacked mounds and plazas. They write, "In our view, at least,

Mississippian earthworks were a sufficient but not a necessary condition of rituals in the

Mississippian world. The label 'ceremonial center,' therefore, is as meaningless when

applied to Mississippian towns and mound centers as would such labels as 'trade center,'

'habitation center,' 'administrative center,' 'defensive center,' and 'storage center'

(Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 5-6).

The "unifying system" of architecture characteristic of Southeastern communities

between the tenth and seventeenth centuries is "clearly distinguishable from that of

societies in other places and times" arising from the

collective histories and natural environments of the many distinct peoples 211

who are now lumped together by archaeologists under the rubric of 'Mississippian culture.' The main architectural elements include plazas, platform mounds and other earth works, entryways, various means of segregating space and activities, defensive works, and natural terrain features. (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 5)

Plazas

While noting that Mississippian architectural analyses have emphasized mounds at the expense of plazas, the authors point out that this methodological practice of examining Mississippian architectural elements outside of their integrated urban contexts limits our ability to decode architectural evidence. These archaeologists assert it is

"unproductive to view plazas as merely residual spaces around which structures are raised" because they were "an integral part of the Mississippian world" and they were linked with mounds "through the very nature of the building enterprise" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 11). Archaeologists have consistently maintained that structures such as mounds, council houses, and temples were controlled exclusively by elite persons, but have elided the fact that plazas are "places of the people" the world over (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 11). Aesthetically, plazas and mounds work together; the presence of one complements and enhances the symbolic importance of the other, striking a balance that is representative of Mississippian conceptualizations of the universe. While mounds, and the spiritual and political power they represented, cast a long shadow over the communal space of the plaza, "plazas are public areas, where individuals interact and community consensus is built" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 15). From such a perspective, plazas and mounds are interdependent. These architectural features are not 212 isolate traits within a holistic and highly integrated community; they are a means of orientation and a representation of shared community concepts.

So what can be learned about Mississippian peoples from the archaeological examination of their plazas? Probably more than we suspect. We certainly disagree with artistic reconstructions of Mississippian plazas that show them as desolate 'no man's lands' where activities and access were extremely limited. This, we believe, is an image of Mississippian towns that is probably wrong. Although plazas, when viewed archaeologically, are neither visually obvious nor especially interesting, they are architecturally, historically, and symbolically dominant elements of Mississippian towns and central places. As such, they are crucial to the understanding of Mississippian town designs. (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 15)

These observations illuminate the Sub-Mississippia processes of moving sacred structures from the tops of platform mounds to the edges of plazas in an entirely new light, which represents not so much a move towards egalitarianism as a internally-ordered response to increasingly adverse environmental and demographic circumstances.

Mounds

Lewis, Stout, and Wesson maintain that plazas and mounds were complementary features of a larger integrated architectural design, which reflected Mississippian cultural orientations. From their perspective, the relationships that existed between plazas and mounds were "primary and reciprocal" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 16).

Stand in the plaza of any well-preserved Mississippian town site and your attention is drawn by the mass of the main mound that flanks it. Stand on the main mound and your attention is dominated by the space before you. Just as one cannot separate the design of the nave of a church from its chancel, the design of the Mississippian town plaza cannot be divorced from the mounds that flank it. They are contextually interrelated in the Mississippian architectural grammar. (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 16)

According to Lewis, Stout, and Wesson, "a mound's height...is of little interpretive value" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 17) because the construction of 213 structures that rise above the elevation of other architectural elements within any given site functions primarily to place the feature, and the people who control them as well, "at odds with the rest of the community by creating a visible differential between it and the surrounding elements of the total community design" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998,

17). The degree to which the citizenry of Native towns were "at odds with" their leaders and the symbols of spiritual and worldly power is a matter of speculation, but given the integrated nature of Southeastern organizational principles and the priority afforded the concept of dualism characteristic of these categories, it seems unlikely that the degree of alienation would be too great. This perceived differentiation might, in fact, be a form of

Indigenous checks and balances, which was represented and reinforced by the architectural elements of the typical southeastern town. The interdependent nature of the southeastern cosmos would preclude stark divisions between the people and places sharing the same fire even though social status and prestige of clan affiliation might vary widely. Busk ceremonies cleansed, unified, and renewed Native southeastern societies precisely to avoid being at odds with their leaders as well as their physical and spiritual environments. Like many other Indigenous American systems of knowledge.

Southeastern beliefs required active human participation to balance the interests of competing earthly communities (plant, animal, human) and interactive worlds (natural and supernatural). Lewis, Stout, and Wesson hit closer to the mark when they assert that the differences created among the citizens of a given mound center by the architectural design template of the Mississippian town "may have served to elevate the status of an individual, a family, a lineage, a god, or some combination of these" (Lewis, Stout, and 214

Wesson 1998, 17); however, it was through ceremony and ritual that these elite elements were balanced by their conceptual counterpart and reintegrated into the matrix of the community.

Differentiation within Native societies and among Native peoples is often predicated upon the assignment of particular duties, responsibilities and roles within the community, which may or may not carry political capital. So while the "priests" who control ritual knowledge and the caretakers of mounds inherited important roles and duties, researchers should not automatically assume that the roles of these Mississippian

"elites" were disproportionally more important than other community responsibilities or that the particular duties of these individuals were a source of political power as it is understood in European contexts. In Indigenous systems where civic identity is fluid and often constructed in the absence of rigid ethnic and linguistic barriers, it is likely that concepts of political power, diplomacy, and international alliance were endowed with a similar kind of inherent flexibility.

Boundaries and Gates

Lewis, Stout, and Wesson address one other under-explored aspect of

Mississippian town design: the delineation of boundaries within Mississippian communities. The authors note that archaeologists have traditionally defined the "limits of Mississippian towns by physical boundaries such as ditches, palisades, or natural limits of the terrain" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 18). They critique this practice in the following manner.

The main interpretive problem with using these physical features to bound a town is that it implicitly maps our own cultural associations onto the 215

Mississippian landscape. While doing so may often yield an accurate under­ standing of the boundaries of Mississippian towns, we will be unable to tell when it fails unless our research is designed to leave open alternative explan­ ations. What is needed, therefore, is research that seeks to define site limits in Mississippian terms. (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 18)

The authors suggest examining town boundaries on several spatial levels: "at the boundaries that existed between the mound-and-plaza; between neighbors within a town, between the parts of the town enclosed by defensive works and those that were not, between a town and its hinterland" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 18).

Because Mississippian barriers within towns are not sharply delineated, the assertion that Mississippian societies were high structured societies with sharply delineated social "castes" seems counter-intuitive because Mississippian sites lack substantial barriers to prevent interaction between groups even in ritualized or ceremonial contexts. Such a perspective reinforces interpretations of Mississippian political organization that emphasize its inherent "egalitarian" qualities. The integrated, barrier- free designs of Mississippian towns are architectural elements that reinforce collective beliefs of an inter-active, interdependent cosmos. One excellent example of the way in which such concepts were manifested in the design of Mississippian towns is evident in the accessibility of the temple mounds themselves.

Mississippian planners did not exploit the potential of stairways and gates to convey monumentality, or the use of mass to announce the proximity and portals of the powerfiil or the divine. There are no archaeological or ethno­ graphical examples of wide, ramped stairways on Mississippian mounds comparable to the staircases of Greek or Roman architecture, nor is there evidence of Mississippian gateway forms that can be described as anything other than utiHtarian. (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 19) 216

In this regard, it is necessary to keep in mind that although centralized authority was "clearly a part of Mississippian towns, this authority was not necessarily acted out in the context of true social stratification. What is 'strong' and what is 'central' are relative" (Lewis and Wesson 1998, 234).

Clearly, the basic design patterns of Mississippian mound centers clearly reflect

Southeastern understandings of the cosmological order of things, each town recreating the hierarchy of the natural/supernatural world by integrating Temple Mounds, plazas, and riparian environments in symbolic ways as well as through ceremonies that purified, unified, and affirmed the political relationships of Mississippian communities. The stability of the Upper World was represented by the permanence of the Mounds and its order by the ceremonial knowledge of a priestly class that presided over and administered town activities in both the "religious" and "secular" spheres.

Archaeological explorations of Mississippian architecture have revealed "a close relationship between plaza alignments and the courses of adjacent rivers" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998, 8).^^ The physical relationship between plazas, which are communal spaces that "allow all members of society to share in the ceremonies, rituals, and daily life experiences that unite and define a community" (Lewis, Stout, and Wesson 1998,

10), and rivers, which were considered entrances to the Under World, reflects metaphysical relations between the Under World and This World, which was precariously balanced between order and chaos. 217

Section Five:

The Legacy of Mississippian Political Organization

Mapping Mississippian Hegemony

When the subject of scholarly attention is the Indigenous peoples of North

America or the development of Indigenous political institutions and practices, the

disciplines of history and archaeology share similar theoretical challenges.

Historians and archaeologists have struggled with the complexities of cross-cultural

colonial dynamics by adhering to similar ethnocentric assumptions and interpretive

frameworks by attempting to divorce mound building traditions from their Indigenous

contexts, marginalizing Native historical traditions, imposing taxonomies that prioritize

Eurocentric naming practices which are completely unconnected to any Native nation or

tradition, and habitually explaining Native behavior according to evolutionary paradigms

that plot the development of human societies according to racist criterion that employ

European concepts, practices, and institutions as normative touchstones of human

development.

In discussing the contested relationships between archaeologists. Native Peoples, and the cultural edifices that serve as monuments to Indigenous political, social, technological achievements, Barbara Mann writes.

It is bemusing to watch western scholars looking in every direction but oral Tradition for an explanation of mounds, their culture, their history, and their decline. Speaking only among themselves, archaeologists posit vague invasions; climate variations; social progress or regress; successful or failed cropping (apparently either will do); disease; bow-and-arrow hunting; economic struggle between haves' and have-nots; and William Dancy's... 'Darwinian concept of evolution by natural selection.' Any of these (save Dancey's) might contain some truth, but, as presented in the literature. 218

each is isolated, its fragmentation giving no sense of the Native gestalt or its complexity. (Mann 2003, 105)(emphasis in the original)

When considering the political development of southeastern Native polities,

academic treatments of southeastern political organization and the historical interaction

of these polities with European settler populations have consistently emphasized the

centrality of town membership as the most influential component of sociopolitical

identity formation among southeastern peoples. The recent work of historian Alan

Gallay (2002) and ethnohistorian Stephan Hahn (2004) are representative of this

philosophical orientation. Gallay asserts that subjective identity in the early colonial

period was a fiinction of "one's town, which could include several outlying villages"

(Gallay 2002, 112). Gallay goes on to state that town membership was the most

important aspect of southeastern collective identities. He writes that town-centered identities "were usually a more important identity than the larger confederated identity to

which people belonged, and for one reason or another town identity became grafted onto

the larger group, though the Indians themselves retained their town identity" (Gallay

2002, 112).

Gallay's statements are based on his interpretation of the documentary record and on an assumption of Mississippian cultural collapse during the late prehistoric and

protohistoric periods. Gallay's entire geopolitical analysis of the colonial southeast is predicated on this assumption, which permits him to argue that autonomous southeastern towns in the historic era were socially and politically isolated and therefore lacked the ability to form and maintain larger sociopolitical identities except in the most superficial ways. Gallay's interpretation suggests that the circumscribed regional commercial and 219 political perspectives of southeastern peoples were directly proportional to the severity of the Mississippian collapse. As a result, Mississippian influences still shaped the political landscape of the lower Mississippi Valley, where the Natchez maintained a clear historically demonstrated connection to the pre-Columbian, Mississippian past, but the

Mississippian contexts of other southeastern peoples are more easily disregarded because in Gallay's view there is lack of documentary evidence suggesting chiefdoms in the

Southern Appalachian sub-region remained viable and therefore influential.

Described from this perspective, acts of Indigenous "confederation" are explained as reactions to the presence of European colonies and the introduction of revolutionary technologies that reshaped almost every aspect of Native life. Confederation may very well have been the result of changing circumstances throughout the southeast, changes that included, but were not exclusive to, the arrival of Europeans and the establishment of permanent colonies. One problem with this theoretical model is that it effectively writes

Indigenous peoples out of their own histories. Using this kind of theoretical framework precludes the necessity of taking account of Indigenous influences and incorporating

Native perspectives in any meaningful way. An alleged collapse of Mound Building societies conveniently divides Indigenous American historical events at precisely the same time that Europeans arrived, consequentially relieving scholars from the "obligation of acknowledging the least prospect of validity attending any world view but [their] own"

(Churchill, 2003 xv). Unfettered from "anything resembling bona fide epistemological constraints," the European academy is free to "explain" Native peoples in "whatever manner it desires" (Churchill 2003, xv). 220

When considered in the light of Albert Memmi's deconstruction of racist

European thought, Churchill's observation that the study of Indigenous material culture and the analysis of Native histories are dominated by European theories and methods, takes on a greater significance. Memmi writes that "in order for the colonizer to be a complete master, it is not enough for him to be so in actual fact, but he must also believe in its legitimacy" (Memmi 1965, 89). As Churchill notes, colonial legitimacy is often obtained by superimposing ethnocentric explanations over the historical circumstances and behavior of colonized peoples. In the case of Native North America, academic control over Mound centers, sites that retain much of their original cultural and spiritual importance to contemporary Native peoples, exemplifies this aspect of the colonial process. Divorcing Native peoples from the most visible markers of their aboriginal pasts through the physical destruction of mounds and the imposition of Eurocentric explanations of their existence and function promotes the complete colonization of North

America just as Memmi's theories suggest. In the relationship among archaeologists.

Indigenous Americans and the mounds, "we are confronted with an aspect of what

Antonio Gramsci termed 'hegemony'" (Churchill, 2003 xv), which is defined as "a unified description, either overtly or covertly political, of events and phenomenon designed to rationalize the subjugation of one group by others, ultimately making the relationship seem right, natural, and, most of all, inevitable" (Adamson 1980, 170-179).

When attempting to decode the Mississippian influences on the political reorganization of southeastern tribal confederacies, two fundamental questions must be addressed. First, to what degree did the demographic impacts of European diseases 221 isolate Sub-Mississippia southeastern peoples from larger Mississippian contexts?

Second, how were Mississippian elements rearranged to meet these challenges and the new trade opportunities in the historic era? Certainly, demographic factors are part of the calculus of southeastern tribal confederation, but assertions that the primary catalysts for these processes were solely European is openly prejudicial, an unfortunate oversimplification of the complex dynamics of Native sociopolitical relationships.

Additionally, it is difficult to believe that Native peoples completely reinvented their social and political institutions in the relatively brief Sub-Mississippia period characteristic of the Southern Appalachian moundbuilding sub-region.^' Rather, it seems more likely that a process of adaptation and reorganization of Mississippian concepts and principles better explains the rise of tribal governments as they have traditionally been characterized in academic literature.

Southeastern political systems of the historic era operated according to the principles of a direct democracy that demanded almost daily participation on the village level. Such high levels of political participation suggests the governance of Indigenous southeastern towns had an egalitarian quality, an aspect of political organization that many scholars employ to support claims of cultural collapse. However, the administrative complexity of southeastern tribal confederacies and the relatively brief period of time between Mississippian reorganization and the emergence of southeastern confederacies preclude the possibility that the tribal political structures documented by

European observers were not historic inventions but acts of political reorganization resulting from the adaptation of Mississippian political practice. 222

Consensus among representative clans was the elusive goal of these semi- autonomous, polities, which were administered by a four-tiered system of leaders and advisors (O'Brien 1993, 20-3; Hahn 2004, 22). Sharon O'Brien relates that the local governance of Creek towns, typical among southeastern nations, reflected the duality of the town and clan system.

Each Talwa [Creek town] had two leaders: a civil and a war chief The civil chief, or mico, received ambassadors, negotiated treaties, dis­ pensed food from the public granaries, and establish feast days to celebrate successful hunts. Micos were generally chosen by the opposing group. That is, in White Towns the Red Clan members chose the mico from among the White Clans' membership. In Red Towns, White Clan members chose the mico from among Red Clans. The mico, a person who had attained great honor and trust, ruled by persuasion, not command or coercion. A mico who failed to achieve harmony and consensus among members and who brought divisiness to talwa affairs was relieved of his position. A three-tiered system of advisors appointed by the mico assisted in the administration of public duties. A war chief, or tvstvnvke, was chosen by the mico from among the members of the Reed Clans. He advised the mico on matters of war, organized warriors for battle, maintained public order, and arranged important stick-ball games played between Red and White towns. The "second men," henneha, or public works advisors, were responsible for constructing new dwellings, organizing work in the com­ munal fields, and preparing the "black drink," an important tealike beverage consumed at weekly talwa council meetings. One of the henneha served as the mico's Speaker, or chief spokesman. Well versed in law, the Speaker was responsible for conveying the mico's decisions to the people. The "beloved old men," or este vckvlke, were the third group of advisors. These elders had distinguished themselves throughout their lives and were highly valued for their wisdom and good advice. (O'Brien 1993, 22-3)

It is difficult to imagine that such well-articulated forms of governance and social administration developed in the absence of Mississippian influences, especially given the relatively short period of time between the demise of Mississippian polities and the permanent arrival of European settler populations in the American southeast. 223

The similarity and wide distribution of southeastern ceremonial activities is another aspect of Indigenous experience in the southeast that suggests a significant degree of cultural continuity between Sub-Mississippia peoples and the Indians encountered by

European settler populations. Steven Hahn writes, "The Creek euphemistically described the town as comprising a people of 'one fire,' thus linking their outlook to the perpetual deity, the Sun" (Hahn 2004, 20). Hahn's later discussions of this concept seem to contradict his previous assertion that the concept of sharing one fire had a euphemistic quality. In fact, the ritual redistribution of the fire every year during the Green Com, or

Busk, Ceremony was of the utmost social and spiritual importance.

Like most of the major southeastern confederacies, the political necessity of harmonizing group behavior through collective acts of renewal, and dispute resolution was accomplished annually through the restorative and harmonizing goals of southeastern

Green Com ceremonies.

The most important ritual among the Creeks was poskita (literally "to fast"), or Busk, an annual celebration that usually occurred in late July or early August just as the green com was beginning to ripen. Busk typically lasted between four and eight days and involved several days of fasting and dancing, culminating in a grand feast. Though on one level Busk served as a means of thanking the spirits for the year's com crop, it also served an important social function as well. Creeks used the opportunity of Busk to renew alliances and to forgive past disputes, even murder. Symbolically, one of the most important Busk rituals was the ceremonial snuffing out of the town's fire and the rekind­ ling of a new one. The making of a new fire commonly occurred after the end of the fasting period, typically on the forth day. After the old fire had been extinguished, a "priest," often dressed in white (the symbol of peace), kindled a new fire in the town square. Once the fire was kindled, the priest of his deputies took fire to each homestead, where a new fire was rekindled in every hearth. The ritual reaffirmed the association between fire and Sun as the giver of life, but the means by which it was rekindled and distributed reinforced the message of communality. (Hahn 2004, 24). 224

The circumstances of the Green Com Ceremony suggest cultural affinity among

inhabitants of the same town, but the institutional nature of the ritual among nearly all

southeastern peoples suggests cultural affinity across the disparate southeastern cultural

landscape. Similarities such as these are likely the products of predicated upon common

Mississippian legacies bequeathed to the tribal societies that emerged after European

settlement. When the overarching structural parameters of Mississippian influences are

coupled with geographical distinctions created by the watersheds of major rivers and their

tributaries, the processes of demarcating territories and cultivating regional collective

identities above the town or village level can be more readily identified are best

understood as geographical manifestations of place sense and kinship.

Defining Indigenous Nations

When archaeologists, historians, or ethnohistorians attempt to describe the social

and political institutions of Indigenous Southeastern peoples, they often avoid the

challenge of defining nationhood in terms that make Native concepts relevant to the

narrative contexts of contemporary histories. Assumptions such as these are problematic

because they subtly reinforce stereotypical views of Indigenous peoples and imply that

Indigenous Americans lacked corresponding equivalents to the European nation.

One of the most recent examples of this ongoing academic oversight is Steven C.

Hahn's thoroughly researched and informative treatise on the development of Creek

political institutions during the historic era, The Invention of the Creek Confederacy

(2004). In order to properly address the difficulties of identifying and understanding southeastern political development, we should in fairness to Hahn and other 225 ethnohistorians, note two things. First Hahn constructs his argument for the decentralized nature of Creek institutions prior to the arrival of Europeans on the assumption that

"many of the tribal confederacies of the post-Invasion period-the Creeks, Cherokees,

Chickasaws, and Choctaws, for example, did not yet exist in a form recognizable to people of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries" (Hahn 2004, 14). Hahn's assertion rests on the presumption the cultural, social, and political ties between Native societies were not "recognizable," but we feel obliged to point out that these ties were in all likelihood readily apparent to Native "people," even if European explorers and settlers were unable to recognize them. It is possible for Indigenous institutions to exist even though Europeans failed to appreciate and document them.

The second primary assumption of Hahn's scholarship worthy of closer scrutiny because it is representative of historical treatments of southeastern peoples is the assertion that "ancestral Creeks created new rituals, new beliefs, and new social forms"

(Hahn 2004, 19). While no one can doubt that new rituals, beliefs, and social forms did emerge among southeastern peoples as a result of their interactions with European peoples (i.e. the concept of the tribe is the most readily apparent example of this process),

Hahn's chronology is compressed to such a degree that it does not allow for the continuation and transformation of Mississippian principles. Even though he qualifies his assertion of cultural rapid transformation by stating, "This is not to say, however, that the emergent Creek culture was entirely unrelated to the Mississippian culture that preceded it. Rather, it appears that as the hierarchal superstructure of chiefdoms became impossible to maintain, the emergent Creeks came to rely on the social sub-structure of 226 the Mississippian culture" (Hahn 2004, 20). Once again the general tenor of Hahn's observations ring true; however, Hahn's lack of interest in the degree to which "the

Mississippian Culture" shaped the institutions and behaviors that followed deemphasizes the importance of these Indigenous influences and reinforces his ethnocentric assertion that the primary catalyst for confederation was European in origin. Hahn's comments are representative of a subtle kind of stereotyping that places Native peoples in reactionary, rather than proactive, roles, denying Native peoples agency and their institutions and customs enduring influence.

Hahn's problems begin when he defines Creek "nationhood" in according to generalized criteria that can be universally superimposed over any human community.

Hahn's definition is so general that is practically useless.

The concept of nationhood is defined [in this text] as the drawing of territorial boundaries, the creation of institutions of national leadership, and the invention of ideologies that legitimize the existence thereof These categories of analysis are preferable because they offer more precise means by which to assess the historical and cultural dimensions of political change. (Hahn 2004 8)

Certainly Mississippian, and other moundbuilding, societies possessed such concepts; the absence of such concepts would preclude the possibility of hierarchal or stratified societies. The more interesting and productive questions are not whether the Creek possessed these kinds of concepts but how they articulated and manifested them. If we address each of Hahn's criteria for "nationhood," we can begin to understand, through the example of Creek confederation, how Indigenous Southeastern peoples articulated their understanding of what constituted designated territorial boundaries, institutions of national leadership, and legitimizing ideologies in their own particular ways. As the 227

French sociologists Maurice Halbwachs writes, "most groups engrave their form in some way upon the soil and retrieve their collective remembrances within the spatial framework thus defined" (Halbwachs 1980, 156).

Stephen Cornell reiterates the spiritual and historic importance of a defined territory among Indigenous American peoples by noting,

Indians worked their own conceptual transformations, mixing their ideas of places and their ideas of themselves. Thus, for example. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces; 'The Earth and myself are of the same mind. The measure of the land and the measure of our bodies are the same.' History was written in place names and stories that gave space definition in relation to the group and visa versa. 'Every part of this soil,' said Seathl, Suquamish chief, in 1854 'is scared in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.'; To be a member of the group was, among other things, to share in this history, to make particular use of the land not only economically but culturally, as part of a structure of ideas. Space and identity were thereby intertwined; place and group, in Halbwachs' words, 'each received the imprint of the other.' (Cornell 1988, 39)

The complexity of Creek political organization has been noted previously, but it is helpful to remember the multiple administrative levels characteristic of southeastern historic towns and chiefdoms, administrative positions and protocols that were most certainly associated in some way with the problems of governance in politically fluid chiefdoms. Hahn's last criterion of nationhood is the invention of ideologies that legitimize the existence of territorial limits and political institutions. Given the fact that archaeological evidence supports the Creek belief that they descendents of Coosa, it is difficult to imagine Creek communities residing in well defined riparian territories and

utilizing a political system with multiple administrative levels did not already possess 228 ideologies that legitimized and perpetuated their societies and their internal social organization.

Indigenous Interaction with Europeans: Tribes as Phenomenon of the Historic Era

Just as Indigenous America nurtured tremendous linguistic diversity, methods of political organization in North America varied widely.

Some groups, regionally concentrated and sharing both language and culture, lacked political integration of any kind beyond the extended family or the temporary village or settlement, often of fewer than fifty persons. Such minimal political organization (minimal in its inclusiveness) was found par­ ticularly in the Artie, northern California, and among Great Basin groups... At the other end of the spectrum were such tribal confederacies as the League of the Iroquois, in which a limited degree of comprehensive political organ­ ization united distinct tribal groups. (Cornell 1988, 74)

To understand the processes of Indigenous group formation in North America requires the acknowledgement of a "distinction between two dimensions of or aspects of groupness: the organizational and the conceptual" (Cornell 1988, 72). Indigenous approaches to political organization allowed Native societies to emphasize cultural affiliations at the expensive of political identities when circumstances warranted coordinated or collective action. In Indigenous American societies, political organization is most often understood as one aspect of larger group consciousness, and unlike

European societies, political allegiance was not the most important aspect of a person's collective identity. One's political allegiance did not preclude the maintenance of larger cultural identities based upon linguistic, ceremonial, and historical similarities. Political organization did not serve the purpose of constructing absolute cultural barriers and did not necessarily promote exclusive political identities, which very well might have been perceived as political, socially, and spiritually counterproductive. As Cornell observes. 229

However restricted in scope political organization might be many groups were carriers of identities reaching well beyond the limits of political inte­ gration. Far from being merely fragmented associations of disparate villages and bands, they formed what Edward Spicer has called 'peoples': determinable set[s] of human individuals who believe in a given set of identity symbols. (Cornell 1988, 74)

Clearly, these observations apply to the Sub-Mississippia societies of the southeast, which because of the over-arching religious, ceremonial, and social organization patterns characteristic of the "Southeastern Ceremonial Complex" influenced and structured the political reorganization of Sub-Mississippia peoples into recognizable "tribal confederacies." In his comparison of Indigenous and European political organization, Cornell generalizes that that Indigenous American populations adhered to systems of collective identity that emphasized broad categories of cultural, linguistic affinity rather than prioritize collective identities constructed according the rigid political criteria characteristic of European nation-states. According to Cornell,

Indigenous American groups were bound together by

their collective participation in common symbolic beliefs, cultural practice, and social networks and interactions that established and sustained their common identity and subjectively distinguished them from the rest of the world. The particular sets of symbols, relationships, and interactions involved in such collective identity systems might vary widely from group to group. At the heart of most lay real or assumed lineal ties and systems of religious or cosmological belief, as well as language and other cultural phenomenon and historical and often territorial continuities. But whatever the particular structure of the identity system, the point is the product of collective partici­ pation in its various elements: a self-conscious peoplehood. (Cornell 1988, 74-5)

The concept of Peoplehood as an organizing principle is evident throughout North

America in the historic period with groups such as the Cheyerme and the Comanche maintaining "tribal" associations in spite of their loose band-oriented, political 230 integration. As previously demonstrated, Sub-Mississippia peoples of the southeast inherited a great deal from the chiefdoms that preceded them, including ceremonial iconography, cultural practices, social networks and cosmological relationships. When southeastern cosmological systems are properly applied to processes of confederation required by the increasingly difficult sociopolitical circumstances characteristic of the

Sub-Mississippia period, it become apparent that by virtue of their conceptualizations of rivers as sentient beings, whose heads lay in the mountains and whose feet lay at the coast, the "autonomous towns" occupying common riparian environments could be described as inhabiting the same "territory."

As a result, when Steven Hahn addresses the historic events that led to the invention of a "Creek Confederacy," he is really documenting a process that includes the politicization of pre-existing southeastern concepts of identity derived from Mississippian cultural legacies. While interaction with Europeans might have been the primary catalysts behind historic processes of tribalization, the constituent elements of these transformational processes were Indigenous in origin and character. The building blocks of American tribalism are Mississippian survivals. Cornell states, "as a conceptual entity, the tribe is not a creation of Indian-White relations but a survivor of it" (Cornell 1988,

102). The comprehensive identities, circumstantially nurtured through years of interaction and conflict with Euro-American societies had aboriginal roots. Concepts of

Peoplehood were not novel innovation or recent inventions resulting from the development of previous, less inclusive attachments. The origins of Indigenous concepts of Peoplehood lay in more distant pasts (Cornell 1998, 102), and as historical evidence 231 clearly indicates, Native southeastern peoples used the broad, culturally-based organizing principles of Peoplehood to meet the challenges wrought by Indigenous historical circumstances, changing environmental factors, and the arrival of European imperialists.

Cornell's understanding of Peoplehood is based upon the scholarship of Edward

Spicer {Cycles of Conquest (1962), and The Yaquis: A Cultural History who argued that "human enclaves were the direct result of colonialism and that these groups most often were identified as having distinct languages, religions, and territories that the colonizers sought to destroy.. .or claim for themselves" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis

2003, 11). Robert K. Thomas used Spicer's work as the foundation of his own

"perceptive and encompassing view of group identity" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003,

11). Thomas' deconstruction of Indigenous collective identity "went beyond conventional notions of grouping human beings as members of classes, polities, cultural units, races, or religious groups. He deliberately chose the term 'Peoplehood' to transcend the notions of statehood, nationalism, gender, ethnicity, and sectarian membership" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 11), and Thomas added "sacred history" to the three factors Spicer had used to characterize his model of persistent peoples and his understanding of Native identity above the local level.

Holm, Pearson and Chavis write that the four factors of Peoplehood-language, sacred history, religion, and land were interwoven and dependent on one another" (Holm,

Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 12). They go on to say, "The [Peoplehood] matrix itself is universal to all Native American tribes and nations and possibly to all indigenous groups and could equally serve as the primary theoretical underpinning of indigenous peoples 232 studies" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 12). According to these authors, "in the final analysis the factors of Peoplehood make up a complete system that accounts for particular social, cultural, political, economic, and ecological behaviors exhibited by groups of people indigenous to particular territories" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003,

12).

Indigenous Studies scholars (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis, 2003) have expanded on

Spicer's model of enduring peoples in order to develop the Peoplehood model into a recognizable core assumption on which to base the study of Native American peoples and institutions, one that scholars outside of the field of Indigenous Studies can accept and rely on (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 11). Because Holm, Pearson, and Chavis recognized religion is "inseparably linked to language, sacred history, and a particular environment" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 13) in indigenous cosmologies, they substituted the term "ceremonial cycle" for rehgion. As Cornell has demonstrated, in its modified state the Peoplehood model "has vast explanatory potential... As a holistic matrix, it reflects a much more accurate picture of the ways in which Native Americans act, react, pass along knowledge, and connect with the ordinary as well as the supernatural worlds" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 14).

While western taxonomies have employed narrow definitions to characterize various forms of human organization in order to "excuse colonialism and justify the

unilateral abrogation of Native American treaties by the United States..."the concept of

Peoplehood adds a new dimension to political thought concerning disenfranchised or colonized Native American groups" Indigenous Studies scholars (Holm, Pearson, and 233

Chavis 2003, 16) Perhaps most importantly, the concept of Peoplehood challenges the

presupposed hierarchal superiority of nation-states. As the authors note, "nations do not

necessarily constitute a people nor do they have the permanency of peoplehood.. .Nations

may come and go, but peoples maintain identity even when undergoing profound cultural

change" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 17). The concept of Peoplehood is significant

because it better reflects Indigenous philosophies and systems of knowledge, which

prioritize understanding the relationships between human beings, animals, plants,

societies, the cosmos, the spirit world (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 17).

In addressing the question of whether or not there is an explicit connection

between the Mississippian societies of the late pre-historic and protohistoric periods and

the egalitarian tribes encountered by European explorers and settlers, it is imperative to

frame the discussion in terms relevant to the Indigenous polities of the time. Just as

Chief Justice John Marshall dictated that treaties with American Indians must be

interpreted as the Indians would have understood them at the time of their negotiation,

scholars should attempt to define Indigenous southeastern polities in terms that account

for the cosmologies, organizational categories, and histories southeastern peoples used to create their own sense of sociopolitical identity.

While Hahn is correct in asserting that "any understanding of Creek political life, in fact, must begin with an understanding of the towns, since the towns were, and for a very long time, continued to be, the most important political unit among the Creek"

(Hahn, 2004, 20), he fails to acknowledge that the political character of southeastern towns was primarily a fiinction of Indigenous histories. If scholars are ever going to 234 make sense of the cross-cultural dynamics of the American South, they must recognize that the chronologies they use to construct their theories cannot begin with the arrival of

European explorers and settlers. Nor should western scholars assume that the theories they use to construct chronologies must be exclusively European in origin. The

Mississippian influences on the nature and character of historic Native societies, especially their sociopolitical institutions, is too great to allow for a circumscribed vision of Native history and political development.

Mound Centers and Historic Towns: Considering the Sociopolitical Functions of Indigenous Towns

We can ignore the magical elements of Hahn's description of Sub-Mississippia development as rising "from the ashes" (Hahn 2004, 13), but it is not so easy to overlook the fact that the towns that Hahn claims are the foundations of Creek political reorganization are themselves Mississippian survivals. Talwas arose not in the absence of internal pressures but as a result of them. Interaction with Europeans likely helped to shape Mississippian political reorganization, which might be understood as part of larger

Indigenous efforts to better deal with the presence of foreign peoples, but even sociopolitical reorganization and political centralization were reciprocal processes.

European settlers also reorganized their political institutions and centralized political power in order to exercise greater control over Native diplomacy and administer Indian

Policy more effectively.

By framing his academic focus as a search for Eurocentric political organization among Indigenous peoples in North America (we assume that indicates a kind progress towards civilization and intellectual sophistication as well), Hahn precludes the 235 possibility of meaningful insight into the cultures he wishes to know and or at least incorporate into his narrative historical account because his analysis has cut them loose from the cultural moorings. Creek confederacy may be elusive, but it is elusive for many different kinds of reasons; Poor documentation, methods of recording keeping that have been reshaped by external circumstances, and perhaps more significantly because as

Axtell has pointed out the Creek "did things differently" (Axtell 1997, 14). Imposing

Eurocentric standards on Indigenous institutions may help one understand them in their own terms, but it does little towards reaching an objective understanding of Indigenous behavior, political organization, trade, and military participation. The motivations for these behaviors cannot be locate within European institutions and European produced documentary evidence alone. When his study is complete, Hahn's audience will still not be able to understand native agency and motivation in their own right because his methodology only allows him to meaningfully comment on Creek behavior as it begins to accommodate the European colonial presence.

Archaeologists like Randolph Widmer have prepared the way for academic divergence when he advocates "the use of the chiefdom as a general type of society [that] can provide a frame work for evaluating and interpreting incomplete, sketchy, historical accounts" (Widmer 1994, 127). Widmer states,

I believe that this approach is justified not only because of the lack of data, but More important, because the profound social transformations that were caused by European contact. Although there are clearly historical continuities between native and post-contact societies, the dramatic effects of disease, depopulation, settlement disruption, slavery, and foreign military conquest would have resulted in new and very different forms of social organization that bear little resemblance to their original forms. We do not necessarily know a priori which cultural features have changed and which have stayed 236

the same, it is dangerous and inappropriate to use the primary materials alone; it is necessary instead to compare the aboriginal Southeast with similar types of societies elsewhere that have not been so severely disrupted. (Widmer 1994, 127)

While Widmer acknowledges "historical continuities" between aboriginal and postcontact Native societies, he believes that the process of explicating the structure of

Southeastern chiefdoms is best accomplished by comparing North American chiefdoms with other examples within a "general type of society" (Widmer 1994, 127) regardless of their cultural or historical circumstances rather than attempting to identify existent historical continuities that might provide environmentally specific insights into North

American manifestations of a particular kind of social and political organization. Since

Widmer's comparative analysis is necessarily based upon a comparison of archaeological data, he re-creates a closed circle of evidence and interpretation that excludes input from

Indigenous sources.

Indigenous Origins of the Political Structure of Autonomous Towns and Tribal Confederacies

One of the most obvious similarities between Mississippian mound-building societies, the transitional Sub-Mississippia communities that followed, and the confederated Southeastern tribes of the historic era is the central importance of towns in both a political and social sense. In both the Mississippian and historic eras, towns were central aspects of Native social and political life, providing a sense of localized identity and a means for extending notions of collective identity above the local level when circumstances demanded consolidation or collective effort. When the problem of local governance over outlying villages, hamlets, and agricultural areas within chiefdoms of all 237 levels of administrative complexity is better understood, the mechanisms of tribal confederation may become more readily apparent to outside investigators. Exercising political control over and coordinating the activities of tributary communities were necessary aspects of Mississippian local governance. These processes are not well understood, but they almost certainly are the key to deciphering the complexities of

Indigenous tribal confederation.

Historic Indigenous towns in the southeast were arranged around plazas, where

Mississippian games were played and Mississippian ceremonies were performed. They were constructed in close proximity to water just as Mississippian towns had been and in many cases they occupied Mississippian sites. These towns contained many of the same kinds of structures, which were built and used in similar ways. Relationships between centralized town populations and outlying villages and hamlets were probably regulated and managed according to modified Mississippian protocols. As Alan Gallay notes,

"Villages and small family homesteads characterized both pre-contact chiefdoms and post-contact bands" (Gallay 2002 29).

The Cherokee Nation is often defined as a confederacy of approximately eighty autonomous towns in four geographically circumscribed settlements or provinces. The talwa, or tribal town, was the principal political unit of the Creek confederacy as well.

By the time European observers had arrived to document the outward vestiges and most apparent aspects of Indigenous life, the center of the town's political life had been relocated from temples built on top of platform mounds to council houses constructed along the edges of plazas that Europeans referred to as "square grounds." Square 238 grounds were a ubiquitous component of Indigenous towns in the historic period. Sacred

Fire, the symboHc representation of Southeastern poHtical identity and social cohesion, had been relocated from the temples to the council houses as well. Throughout the southeast, Mississippian architectural elements were being adapted to the changing circumstances of the Sub-Mississippia and historic periods, and while it might be imagined that Native peoples in the historic period adopted and used the outward vestiges of Mississippian culture without an appreciation of their cultural or historical significance, it is far more likely that these fundamental Mississippian elements retained much, if not all, of their original power and meaning.

Evidence of the orderly progression of these sociopolitical changes is clearly evident in Gerald F. Schroedl's analysis of Mississippian towns in present-day eastern

Tennessee. Schroedl identifies four periods of evolving Mississippian architectural patterns and political practice. These developmental periods include the emergent

Mississippian Farm Phase (AD 900-1000), the early Mississippian Hiawassee Island phase (AD 1000-1300), and two late Mississippian developmental periods, the Dallas phase (AD 1300-1600) and the Mouse Creek Phase (AD 1400-1600). Schroedl states,

"The Cherokee and other historically documented native American groups represent terminal Mississippian cultures in the region after AD 1600" (Schroedl 1998, 65). While discussing the nature of structures placed on top of mounds Schroedl states, the large, primary structures placed on mounds during late Dallas occupations at Toqua and

Hiwassee Island were removed from the mounds and increased in size during the late 239

Mississippian Mouse Creek phase and the historic Cherokee period (Schroedl 1998, 87).

He goes on to say,

The change to a single large building and the termination of mound use are not solely related to technological or spatial restrictions placed on lateral mound expansion needed to increase mound height while enlarging or keeping summit surface area constant. Mouse Creek and Cherokee buildings were likely increased in size and placed on the ground surface to permit greater public access, allowing greater public participation in community ritual and ceremonial activities. The social distance between individuals was diminished and more individuals gained access to sacred knowledge. (Schroedl 1998, 87)

These adaptations are not necessarily the result of the arrival of Europeans. There is archaeological evidence to support the assertion that origins of these kinds of behaviors can be found within the structural parameters of Mississippian sociopolitical organization. The citizens of constricting Mississippian chiefdoms had at least three options when faced with the inevitability of their demise. They could "presumably shift their political affiliation, willingly or unwillingly, to neighboring chiefdoms" (Hally 1996

126) in which case they could either abandon their territory altogether and take residence in the territory of neighboring chiefdoms or assume a secondary or tributary position vis­ a-vis their neighboring competitors. Moreover, chiefdom populations might also have had the option of adopting more decentralized forms of political organization.

As Hally notes, some chiefdoms "may have been succeeded by politically decentrahzed societies, as was the case evidently the case along the Black Warrior River

Valley, when Moundville phase was succeeded by Alabama River phase after AD 1500"

(Hally 1996, 125). In considering the Mississippian societies of northern Georgia, Hally notes that very few examples of "chiefdom cycling, defined as the 'transformations of 240 that occur when administrative or decision-making levels within societies occupying a given region fluctuate between one and two levels above the local community,'...can be identified" (Hally 1996, 125). Hally argues that chiefdoms in northern Georgia typically

"existed as simple chiefdoms, characterized by a single administrative level above the local community, and most of these 'cycled' between birth and death" (Hally 1996, 125).

Since most of the chiefdoms in this region had relatively short life spans of one hundred years or less (Hally 1996, 124), they existed under conditions that could require their political reorganization at any given moment, which suggests that whatever their forms of governance the parameters of political organization were fluid and likely facilitated movement between varying degrees of political centralization. Furthermore, recently uncovered archaeological evidence demonstrates that the primary mechanism enabling the kind of cycling behavior noted by Hally may have been an inherent part of the

Mississippian political landscape.

In his study of the Savannah River Valley, archaeologist David Anderson has uncovered evidence that council houses, nearly universal features of southeastern towns, were part of a larger Mississippian architectural landscapes that served to promote interaction between Mound centers and outlying villages and hamlets, which are critically important Mississippian elements that have not yet received the kind of archaeological attention they deserve. According to Anderson,

Council Houses were observed in the Rucker's Bottom villages, both when the nearby Beaverdam Creek site was the center of a presumed simple chief- dom and later when Rembert was apparently the center of a complex chief- dom. This suggests outlying communities had at least some autonomy and control over local affairs in even the most complex chiefdom. It further suggests that council houses or public decision-making forums were 241

probably in use throughout the Mississippian period locally, although their role was probably diminished at chiefly centers. (Anderson 1994b, 186)

Anderson asserts that "the replacement of a platform-mound complex by a council house suggests, a more egalitarian form of political organization had appeared, perhaps in reaction to the collapse of local chiefly political authority that had occurred previously" (Anderson 1996a, 163).

Anderson's diction is worthy of further consideration. New methods of political organization rarely appear out of thin air, and if Indigenous governance shifted towards more "egalitarian" forms of representation, it is probable that this new orientation grew out of preexisting political arrangements. If the council house was indeed an aspect of local governance in outlying Mississippian neighborhoods, then the council house was not a new innovation of southeastern town plarming, but rather an established part of the multi-level administrative organization required to control and coordinate ceremonial and subsistence activities within simple, complex, and paramount chiefdoms. From such a perspective council houses did not necessarily supplant temples so much as they filled a political void that was itself a product of adverse environmental and demographic factors as well as conscious attempts to disperse and decentralize political influence and ceremonial responsibilities. Accordingly, the status and importance of council house was likely elevated as the influence of Fire Chiefs declined and it became increasingly more difficult to maintain the major Mississippian architectural components and the political privileges associated with them in southeastern towns. The historic council house may not have been a new irmovation, but rather an appropriation and adaptation of

Mississippian space that served the immediate polifical needs of transformafive Native 242 societies. From this interpretive perspective, the multi-level advisory governments characteristic of southeastern confederacies might also been seen as having been distilled from Mississippian positions and practices, which were relocated into more readily assessable public places. In such a model, Mississippian societies were the repositories of essential sociopolitical information that informed and influenced the reorganization of

Native societies in the Sub-Mississippia and historic periods.

Anderson's recovery of evidence suggesting that council houses were part of a larger Mississippian political landscape that incorporated the villages and hamlets surrounding mound centers indicates that the council houses characteristic of historic, town-centered Indigenous governments had Mississippian origins. To characterize this kind of political reorganization as a collapse is a misleading characterization that fails to capture to dynamic vitality of southeastern forms of governance.

A "wide geographic distribution" is considered one of their defining characteristics of chiefdom organization (Widmer 1994, 126), and decentralized, widely dispersed populations tend to compound the difficulties of governance and social control.

The Lords Proprietors of the Carolina colony faced a similar problem and enacted laws aimed at systematically populating the areas around Charles Town before expanding.

The colonists and settler populations under their control refused to comply with these demands for a variety of reason and the promise of greater individual autonomy was undoubtedly one good reason they chose to disregard their superiors.

Mississippian chiefdoms were "politically complex, with formal hierarchically arranged political offices" (Scarry 1995, 201). Southeastern chiefdoms were also 243

"socially complex with ascriptive status differences that affected access to authority and resources" (Scarry 1995, 201), and they were economically complex as well, "with part- time craft specialization and extensive exchange systems involving elaborate markers of status and office" (Scarry 1995, 201). It is critically important to remember that outlying towns, villages, and hamlets were the fundamental building blocks of Mississippian complexity. These political entities were the empirical components of Mississippian chiefdoms. Whatever social, economic, and political accomplishments Mississippian polities claimed, they were all dependent upon the contributions of local populations residing outside the immediate limits of mound centers. These population centers provided labor for various sorts of local construction. They produced the food that underwrote Mississippian surplus economies. Without these contributions, Mississippian lifestyles would have been unsustainable. The key to understanding the dynamics of

Mississippian societies and the sociopolitical reorganization that led to the rise of southeastern tribal confederacies is deconstructing and explicating the relationships that existed between mound centers and their outlying populations. Understanding the problems of local governance within chiefdoms of all levels of administrative complexity could provide valuable insight in the southeastern acts of Indigenous confederation because it is likely that Sub-Missisippia peoples modified pre-existing political institutions, adapting them to changing environment and demographic circumstances that threatened the survival of southeastern ways of life.

Multi-level administrative governments are defining political characteristics of southeastern confederacies, and the council house is the most recognizable icon of these 244

Native southeastern governments, but it is unlikely that these institutions and their nuanced protocols developed in the relatively short period of time between Spanish exploration and English colonization.

Like the other tribal confederacies of the historic era, the Creek, or Muskogee

Confederacy, was organized around a duel system of political and social organization.

Towns and clans were divided into two groups: one group was symbolized by the color red and the other group by the color white. White towns and clans were historically associated with the activities and responsibilities of peace while the red towns have been associated with the activities of warfare. War and Peace is a familiar dichotomy, but it is

perhaps one that has been superimposed, and this description is fails to capture the

complexity of southeastern political organization. Red and White moieties may also be

understood as representing external and internal responsibilities respectively. That is:

Red clans assumed responsibilities for external aspects of a town's administration while

white clans attended to internal aspects of its administration. If, as some scholars

maintain, the origins of historic tribal confederacies (which were really confederations of

towns) pre-date Europeans, this division of responsibilities could be extended to a

"national" level. Further reflecting the structural principle of duality characteristic of southeastern social and political organization, each town had two leaders: a civil chief and a war chief Among Muskogee speakers, the civil chief, or micco, was chosen from

the opposition. For example in white towns the clans from the red moiety chose the micco from the membership of the white moiety. In red towns, the process was reversed.

Each micco had a three-tiered system of advisors that assisted in the administration of 245 public duties. This advisory committee included the war chief, public works advisors called henneha or "second men," and a third group known as "beloved men and women."

The henneha included public works advisors as well as a spokesperson and legal advisor.

Collectively, these individuals made up the town's governing council, which pursued harmony and the reconciliation of differences through discussion and compromise.

(O'Brien 1989,21-23).

Council houses probably existed in the Mississippian period because even a simple chiefdom, a polity with only a single administrative level above the local community, required an institutionalized mechanism for governing and controlling the outlying areas under their hegemony. Mississippian polities had to coordinate the activities of surrounding villages and hamlets; this would necessarily require a means for communicating information necessary to achieve these ends. The Council house, which in the historic era housed the eternal symbol of political and social unification, provided a forum for public debate and political activism. According, the council house might be understood as an enduring cultural institution, an essential aspect of social administration connecting prehistoric Native societies and historic tribal confederacies.

Whether one chooses to characterizes the relationship between the mound centers and their outlying areas as subordinate or symbiotic, villages, towns, and mounds were intimately associated with one another prior to the European invasion. Villages and towns were in turn structured by the concepts of respect and reciprocity, the importance of kin identity, and the centrality of plants, animals, and spirit beings in southeastern cosmologies, all of which carried over from the Mississippian era (Gallay 2002 29). 246

Anderson maintains that Late-Mississippian societies cycled between three levels of political organization, which archaeologists typically characterize as simple, complex, and paramount chiefdoms (Anderson 1996b, 231-32). From an archaeological perspective, a simple chiefdom is understood as a society that has only a single administrative or decision-making level above the local community. A complex chiefdom is understood as a society with two administrative or decision-making levels over the local community, and paramount Chiefdoms are believed to have exerted "direct or indirect control over a series of other chiefdoms, including at least one other complex chiefdom (Anderson 1994, 232). However, Anderson notes the inherent contradictions of these classifications when he writes.

The actual situation is somewhat more complicated, however because most primary centers, whether simple or complex chiefdoms, maintained direct control over populations in hamlets and villages that were close at hand, thus circumventing the need for a secondary Administrative level. Three-level administrative hierarchies could also occur, specifically when one complex chiefdom acknowledged the authority of another, a situation indicated both archaeologically and in early historic accounts from several parts of the Southeast. (Anderson 1996b, 232)

Whether characterized as paramount, complex or simple, chiefdoms necessarily created and perpetuated an inherent order. Perhaps, as archaeologists maintain, this social order was hierarchical in nature and politically unstable due to a lack of coercive power within the priestly class, but Mississippian social order could just as easily be based upon clan or moiety divisions among the inhabitants wherein social rank was not solely a function of priestly exhibitions of esoteric knowledge and coercive power, but rather upon Indigenous criteria which was passed on in some modified form to the historic descendents of Mississippian societies. The identification of pre-Columbian 247 council houses within outlying Mississippian areas supports the hypothesis that Sub-

Mississippia sociopolitical reorganization was not an ad hoc process, which resulted from the collapse of Mississippian societies. It was not necessary for Native Southeastern peoples to invent completely new approaches to governance, diplomacy, and economic activity. Like other human societies, they looked to their past to explain their present circumstances and prepare for the future.

The Indigenous Phenomenon of Mother Towns

When considering the possibility of a supra-town identity prior to the permanent arrival of European settler populations, it is productive to consider the possibility that towns maintained more substantial relationships with one another than Gallay's model of

Indigenous identity formation posits. Since the concept of a "Mother Town" is as common among southeastern peoples as the concept of "sharing the same fire," researchers must take the time to consider whether or not the Mother Town served as a structural mechanism of shared Identity in the same way that the ritual of sharing the same fire provided a loose, but coherent and systematic, way to keep track of larger political affinities and associations.

In southeastern cosmologies, fire and water were considered sacred elements.

They were, in fact, manifestations of similar spiritual forces, which served to purify, unite, and protect southeastern polities and their citizens. Just as towns that shared the same fire were thought to be united through the power and efficacy of fire, towns that shared riparian environments along the same river might have maintained social, political, and economic relationships because they were connected by the fact that inter- 248 town relationships within common riparian environments were apparently constructed around familial concepts that reflected the importance of kinship in much the same way that clan organization worked to maintain harmony and order within local communities.

Archaeological data suggests that a similar, graduated administrative organization promoted cohesion among chiefdom societies. Even simple chiefdom organization coordinated activities on the village or hamlet level. In paramount chiefdoms, the subtleties of local government would have been amplified by the necessity of weaving additional polities into the ceremonial and political fabric of larger and more powerful

Mississippian centers. The political organization of southeastern towns seems to exhibit similar structural principles. Throughout the eighteenth century, the local governance of southeastern peoples was characterized by caucus organized around clan affiliation, debate conducted in council houses, and attempts to reconcile disharmony. These forms of political organization required multiple administrative levels, which effectively dispersed political power^^ throughout the community.

Native southeastern peoples seem to have had a number of institutional mechanisms for promoting the formation of cohesive identities on a multitude of political and social level. The enduring concepts of Mother Towns among southeastern peoples as well the ritualized practices of integration and restoration of harmony such as the ubiquitous Green Com Ceremony are two of the best examples of this internal infrastructure.

In considering Indigenous identity formation above the local level, the observations of Carolina Indian Commissioner Thomas Naime offer beneficial insights. 249

Sir that at once you may have a notion of ye Indian Govemmt and ye pro­ gression of one Village out of another, I'le Illustrate by an Example,

C

1 2

A B D E

Suppose 1 and 2: to be a river. A; a populous flowrishing Town on ye river side, straightened for planting ground. Upon some disgust, or other reason 2 leading men lead out of Colonies of 30 or 40 families Each and sattle 2 new Villages B:C; Bechancing to florish and increase much , out of it by the same means arise D & E. Now the villages of D & E will respect A and call it their grand father, B their father C their elder brother and these names continue by Tradition to be given them. According to these relations they'le give the Chiefs of these vvillages respect and precidency in their Town houses.. .If ye remove all be but a small way, they continue one nation.. .but if.. .they remove a great way they by degrees alter their Language & become an other people. (Naime 1988,62)

The relationship Naime observes between towns residing on the same river assumes greater significance when it is considered from the southeastern cosmological perspectives. Many Cherokee rituals required "going to water," which is a form of spiritual purification that required bathing in rivers and streams (Hudson 1976, 172-3).^^

Since people who reside on the banks of the same river share the same water and are obliged to guard against its spiritual pollution,^" they likely ensured its purity by actively managing the environment and those who used it. While it is probable that southeastern peoples recognized other peoples' usufructuary rights to particular joint use areas, it would be in their political and cosmological interests to strictly order and maintain these environments by means of controlling local populations and maintaining close relations within common watersheds. The existence of Mother Towns, the 250 possibility of kinship diplomacy between Indigenous polities, and the spiritual necessity of seeking balance, harmony, and natural order suggest that a broad sense of cultural identification would be preferred over narrow identity construction that could not allow for the strict environmental management from town to town. 251

Section Six

Southeastern Geopolitical Landscapes

The Political Geography of Charles Town's Sub-Mississippia Influences

In general terms, Charles Town was surrounded by at least five distinct regions of

Indigenous residency, which correspond directly to regions of Mississippian and Sub-

Mississippia occupation. Describing these zones of Indigenous occupation is difficult because Native geography was reckoned according to natural boundaries created by the riparian environments Indigenous peoples inhabited. Understanding southeastern

Indigenous geography is complicated by European practices of naming, which tend to subdivide rivers that are essentially unchanged except for the addition of tributary sources.

Roanoke

Twr

^-^OipeFew Yadkin- S. Pee Dec- Little Pee Doe^

Ocoaee- I vOcinulgi9e-\, ^ Aitamaha ^Ogeedboe^ Charles Town (1670)

St. V

St. Augustine (1565) Figure 17: River Basins of the American Southeast. Adapted from a map in Anderson, (1996a). Political Structure an Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, University of Florida Press, 172. 252

When the colonial southeast is considered from Indigenous perspectives that use riparian environments as the standard of geographical measurement, it is much easier to discuss the distribution of Mississippian, Sub-Mississippia, and historic tribal societies and to demonstrate continuity among them (See Figure 13).

The occupation of riparian environments is a fundamental characteristic of

Mississippian societies. Mississippian peoples used floodplain agriculture to cultivate com, a dietary staple and the basis of a Mississippian surplus-economy that subsidized far flung exchange networks. Aside from the practical advantages of occupying riparian environments, Mississippian ascribed spiritual power and ceremonial significance to

Water, which was dialectically balanced by Fire.

Like their Mississippian ancestors, southeastern Native peoples used water as a sacred purifier and considered rivers living deities. Since Native towns within common watersheds and river drainages often shared cultural characteristics and maintained super- communal identity by applying the kinship terms of clan organization to towns and maintaining relationships in accordance with these practically universal Southeastern

Indigenous concepts (Galloway 1994, 407), it is possible to argue for a super-local political integration among Indigenous towns, which appeared scattered, isolated, and autonomous to early European observers.

Given the political, economic and religious centrality of water, it is reasonable to assume that rivers and watersheds assumed critical importance for Mississippian and

Sub-Mississippia concepts of geography as well. Social, political, and spiritual borders were calculated according to the natural variables of riparian landscapes, and recreating a 253 holistic colonial geography of the southeast requires considering these Indigenous social, political, and religious perspectives.

Initially, Charles Town's placement on the periphery of a Mississippian World among reorganizing Sub-Mississippia polities is best approached in general geographical terms, and so I have designated five broad geographical regions of Indigenous residency surrounding Charles Town at the end of the seventeenth century. Region one encompasses two extensive river basins, the Wateree/Board/Santee and the Yadkin/Pee-

Dee/Little Pee-Dee. Region two corresponds to the Savannah River, which constituted a border between Charles Town's immediate Indigenous influences and more remote

Native polities that would assume greater significance as Carolina extended its colonial horizons. The third region of Indigenous residency I identify is the

Oconee/Ocmulgee/Altamaha river basin, which immediately adjacent to the Savannah

River. The fourth region also encompasses two extensive water basins, the

Chattahoochee/Flint/Apalachicola and the Coosa/Alabama basin further west. Region four is easily subdivided, but because the area in question corresponds to historic Creek territory, I have combined them. Region five corresponds to the Termessee River Valley and the territory of the Cherokee. Additionally, a sixth region can be identified north of proprietary Carolina within the Tar, Neuse, and Cape Fear River Valleys, but because

Charles Town's interaction with Native societies in these river basins was limited until

John Lawson expedition at the beginning of the eighteenth century, I have not included it in this survey of the geographical placement of survey of Indigenous polities around

Charles Town. 254

As Figure 17 illustrates, Charles Town was established in the Edisto/Salkahatchee watershed, which is circumscribed by much larger river basins that originate in the

Appalachian Mountains. North of the colony, region one was occupied by Siouan speakers, who were likely associated in some way with the paramount chiefdom of

Cofitachique. Cofitachique was centered in the Wateree/Broad/Santee basin, but its hegemony could have easily extended to the Pee-Dee and Little Pee-Dee Rivers in the lower half of the adjacent watershed. In the northern half of the Yadkin/Pee-Dee/Little

Pee-Dee river basin, Mississippian peoples living along the Yadkin and Upper Catawba

Rivers have been identified as the origins for the contemporary Catawba Nation (Moore

2002). Region two corresponds to the heartland of Cherokee territory. Located at the headwaters of the Savannah River, the Cherokee had the added advantage of occupying territory along the Tennessee River, which flows north into the Ohio, providing relatively easy access to the upper Mississippi.

In the late seventeenth century, the Savannah River constituted Charles Town's southwestern frontier. Archaeologists have demonstrated only minimal Mississippian occupation of this area immediately prior to English colonization, but by the time Charles

Town was established, the Savannah River Valley had become home to number of displaced northern Indigenous groups such as the Westo, the Savannah (Shawnee), the

Yamassee, and finally after the War of Spanish Accession (1701-1708), the Apalachicola.

Immediately beyond the Savannah River lay the Oconee River Valley. The Oconee

River valley was likely the original home of the Yamassee and other Hitchi-speakers

Valley was likely the original home of Hitchi-speakers like the Yamassee. Ultimately, 255 the area would become an Indigenously controlled gateway into the territories of former

Mississippian polities also undergoing processes of centralization and confederation. In this vast region of Sub-Mississippia structural reorganization, Carolina traders found pre­ existing avenues leading to material wealth and imperial conquest. By the last decade of the seventeenth century, the Oconee River Valley had become home for Muskogee- speaking towns. Relocated from the lower Chattahoochee River to the confluence of the

Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers, these southeastern polities were known to Carolinians as

Ochese Creek Indians, and they constituted the nucleus of a multi-linguistic and multi­ cultural Creek confederacy (Hahn 2004, 51-52).

A second layer of Indigenous polities beyond the Southern Appalachian

Mountains constituted the fifth region of Indigenous hegemony, where populous

Muskogee-speaking towns were established throughout present-day western Georgia and central Alabama. In the historic era, this territory would be associated with the multi­ ethnic, multi-lingual talwas of the Creek Confederacy.

At the time Charles Town was established, the Sub-Mississippia societies surrounding the colony retained many of their Mississippian characteristics, occupying riparian environments, practicing maize agriculture, and worshiping the Com Mother, and having considered the general parameters of Charles Town's Indigenous geopolitical landscape, it is possible to narrow the focus of this regional division of Native polities to particular rivers and their surrounding watersheds in order to demonstrate that Charles was indeed established on the periphery of a Mississippian World in the midst of Sub-

Mississippia societies, which were able to utilize their knowledge of Mississippian trade 256 and diplomacy to incorporate English traders, goods, and ideas into former Mississippian exchange networks. The following pages examine the three regions of Indigenous residency that the most immediate affect of trade and diplomacy in proprietary Carolina.

Highlighting Charles Town's geographical placement among Sub-Mississippia polities clearly illustrates the Indigenous contours of Charles Town's geopolitical contexts.

EstabHshing Carolina's geographic proximity to former Mississippian sites of cultural hegemony and spheres of political influence is the first step towards proving that Native peoples were able to bring their Indigenous histories and traditions to bear on the environmental and demographic challenges they faced during the colonial period. By recalling and utilizing their knowledge of Mississippian tradition of diplomacy and long distance exchange, and marshalling their past experiences with Spanish explorers and missionaries. Native peoples were able to take advantage of the political and military opportunities presented by English colonists interested in trade.

The following sections present archaeological data supports the assertion that

Charles Town was serendipitously placed among tribal polities with Mississippian origins and a Sub-Mississippia desire to bolster their increasingly marginalized political and economic status by seeking out new, advantageous trading and converting the prestige gained from obtaining and disseminating novel commodities into political capital into political and spiritual power.

Region 1: Sub-Mississippia Peoples of the Carolina Piedmont

Archaeologist David Moore's research on the Mississippian origins of the historic

Catawba peoples (2002) supports many of the assumptions my analysis of the Charles 257

Town slave trade is based upon: 1. The settlers of Charles Town established their colony in the midst of reorganizing Mississippian societies; 2. Indigenous peoples were in many ways well prepared to incorporate alien peoples and commodities into long-standing systems of trade and alliance, and 3. The Carolina traders were able to tap into pre­ existing networks of trade and diplomacy.

Moore seeks to establish "an archaeological interpretation of the Protohistoric period" by asking the question, "What are the origins of the protohistoric populations of the Catawba valley?" (Moore 2002, 186)7' One important result of his research is the discovery of evidence supporting his hypothesis that "groups practicing South

Appalachian Mississippian lifeways occupied not only the south-central Piedmont of

North Carolina (Pee Dee culture) but also an equally large portion of the western

Piedmont" (Moore 2002, 185). The geographical location of Mississippian polities and their relative proximity to Charles Town is critically important. While the Mississippian antecedents of Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw cultures were important catalysts for

Carolina's later commercial and imperial expansion, their impact during the proprietary period was less direct. These nations constituted a second layer of Indigenous polities that lay beyond Carolina's original territories. Charles Town was not situated in the middle of Mississippian networks, but on the easternmost edge of what was until recently a vast network of interactive polities among Sub-Mississippia communities, which who were still well-acquainted with protocols of Mississippian interaction and still possessed the ability to serve as intermediaries between English traders and Native polities such as 258 the Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw that were more completely immersed in Mississippian culture and more fiilly integrated into Mississippian exchange networks.

Wo&tttm Ptodmont R«Oion

Chxiiotfe. NortU C ttraSiiM

North Carotina

Cataw^ River Basin

Figure 18: Headwaters of the Catawba and Yadkin Rivers. Adapted from a map in Moore (2002), Catawba Valley Mississippian: Ceramics, Chronology, and Catawba Indians, University of Alabama Press. 3.

When John Lawson headed up the Santee River towards the Carolina interior

(1701), he seemed to be unaware of the fact that he was headed into the heart of the ancient chiefdom of Cofitachiqui that had been visited first by de Soto and then Juan

Pardo in the sixteenth century (see Figure 15).'^ Recently discovered documents that chronicle Pardo's expedition have been influential in locating Cofitachiqui near present day Camden, South Carolina (Moore 2002, 24)^^

Domingo de Leon, a soldier, notary, and interpreter under Pardo's command, describes Cofitachiqui, at that time identified by the Spanish as Canos; he locates the town (more accurately described as a series of villages) at the junction of two rivers thirty leagues from the sea (Worth 1994, 5). Leon describes the settlements, which he places forty leagues north of St Elena (Port Royal) in the following manner. 259

... the junction of these rivers marked the beginning of population along the north-western branch of the river, and towns were spaced at between half a league and a league apart. Canos was said to be twelve leagues upriver from this first town, and comprised a district stretching for twenty leagues in which the towns were more closely spaced. (Worth 1994, 5)

Catawba River

(}."C0P1TACHEQU1 Pee Dee•River

Silver Bli

•'OCUTE

ULanwr N Cowafi'» ( Oconee Rrver {LansJina \ Charles Town

Figure 19: Mississippian Provinces and Centers within the Self-Proclaimed Limits of Proprietary Carolina. Adapted from a map in DePratter (1994), Forgotten Centuries: Indiansand Europeans in the Anfierican South, 1521-1704, University of Georgia Press, 210.

Although Lawson almost certainly encountered the vestiges of Cofitachiqui, he did not mention it by name (Moore 2002, 17). Instead, the first community he mentions is Sewee, which he describes as "formerly a large nation" (Lefler 1967; 17) located on the Santee River. Two days further up river, Lawson encountered the Santee. After another five days at the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree rivers, he reached the 260

Congaree settlements just south of present day Columbia, South Carolina. Another sixty miles brought him into the Wateree nation, Siouan speakers living near present day Great

Falls, South Carolina. The Waxhaw, who lived close by in a series of towns, still maintained a council house worthy of Lawson's notice (Moore 2002, 17). Next Lawson entered the towns of the Esaw, Sugeree, and Kadapau, "the core groups of what would become known as the Catawba Confederacy over the next half century" (Moore 2002,

12). These settlements were located southwest of Charlotte near the confluence of the

Catawba River and Sugar Creek. According to Moore, control of trade with the

Virginians constituted the catalyst for their association (Moore 2002, 11), but it is likely they were also affiliated through language, geography, ceremony, and perhaps, a shared

Mississippian heritage.''^ Because the settlements of the Esaw, Sugaree, and Kadapau were once the heart of the great Cofitachiqui and marked the half way point of the Lords

Proprietors' original trading monopoly (1677), Charles Town incorporated a great many former Mississippian polities into their sphere of influence with their original surveys.

All of the Indians within this 200 hundred-mile limit, who were on friendly terms, with the Carolinians were considered Settlement Indians, and so were considered indispensable allies, trading partners, and providers of essential services by many associated with the colony, especially the Lords Proprietors.

Among the scholars who associate the historic Catawba peoples with the chiefdom of Cofitachiqui are Charles Hudson and Steven Baker. Moore constructs his model of Catawba ethno-genesis on Hudson's description of the seventeenth century

Catawba as a "chiefdom occupying a strategic position in the southern piedmont" 261

(Hudson 1965, 232-3). Apparently Hudson sees evidence of inter-regional integration among Chiefdom societies, citing the Catawba's "cultural affiliations with the Cherokee and Muskogean-speaking chiefdoms to the south and political affiliations with hill tribes in the northern piedmont" 1965: 233)

Baker's also sees a Catawba-Cofitachiqui connection.

The peoples who eventually became known as Catawbas were linked together in what seems once to have been a northern division of the Greater Chiefdom of Cofitachique. This northern political structure probably existed from some point in prehistory, was evident in the early eighteenth century, and remained viable longer than the lowland or southern division of the Greater Chiefdom. Other researchers have also indicated that the northern peoples were organized into a confederacy and Hudson specifically believed it was affiliated with the southern chiefdoms. This northern structure was known at different times under the general name of Ushery [by Virginians], Esaw and Catawba [by Carolina]. (Baker 1976: 155)

Moore, citing Baker's scholarship for support, argues that Cofitachiqui was able to

"maintain centralized authority until the 1670s or 1680s when the combined pressures of

Spanish and English contact, disease and Westo Indian aggression proved too strong to withstand" (Moore 2002, 42).

Baker argues that colonial trade provided a catalyst for indigenous

(re)centralization after Mississippian structural apparatuses began to falter., writing "The centralized structure of the Indian trade.. .seems to have offered an alternative to the indigenous structure of authority...the Indian peoples of South Carolina were led to focus their allegiance on Charles Town rather than on the native officials of Cofitachique"

(Baker 1976, 9-10).

Moore's analysis is based upon his synthesis of upper Catawba River Valley archaeology (post ADIOOO Mississippian sites): a comparison of the characteristics of 262 ceramic artifacts discovered in this area, a similar synthesis of sites and ceramics within the middle and lower Catawba River Valley, and his recent excavations at the McDowell site (west of present-day Marion, North Carolina) and the Berry site (eight miles north of present-day Morganton, North Carolina). His analysis includes a discussion of Lamar ceramics, a ceramic style associated with Mississippian polities throughout the Southern

Appalachian sub-region. Moore discusses Lamar ceramics "in the context of regional chronologies from Georgia, the Appalachian summit region, the Pee Dee River Valley, the Savannah River Valley, and the Wateree River Valley" (Moore 2002, 164).'^

Lamar pottery is significant because its distinctive characteristics provide the constituent elements in the construction of chronologies for the Southern Appalachian sub-region. The widespread diffusion of its characteristics illustrates the cultural continuity of the region and suggests the existence of exchange networks that facilitated its dissemination. According to Halley and many other archaeologists working in the area (Anderson, Hally, and Rudolf 1986; De Pratter and Judge 1990, 56-58; Hally 1979;

Rally and Rudolf 1986; Rudolf 1986; Smith 1981; WiUiams 1984; Williams and Shapiro

1990), these changes "occur in the same relative order and are roughly contemporaneous throughout the Lamar area" (quoted in Moore 2002, 165).

Moore's conclusions are critically important for establishing a Mississippian context for Carolina's early Indian trade, whether that trade included the exchange of slaves, deerskins, or other commodities. What emerges is a clear sense of regional integration among Mississippian centers in the Southern Appalachian sub-region.

Moore's research has helped reorder the vision of the Southern Appalachian sub-region. 263

The Pee Dee culture, which is associated with the South Carolina piedmont immediately adjacent to Charles Town, is no longer considered an invading culture, but rather, a

"regional center of South Appalachian Mississippian that interacted and evolved with other regional centers scattered from the Coastal Plain of Georgia and South Carolina to the western North Carolina mountains" (Ward and Davis 1999; 125) (quoted in Moore

2002, 187). Moore's research extends the geographical parameters of these inter-regional networks by demonstrating that "the late prehistoric peoples of the Catawba Valley were also independent participants in the same interregional cultural system" (Moore 2002,

187), but given their location above the piedmont fall line and below the Appalachian highlands, they seem to be outside the Southern Appalachian sub-region, established by archaeologists. According to Moore, the interaction of these regional centers was not based on the replacement of Siouan tribes by expansive Mississippian populations, but instead on "interaction between a variety of 'chiefdom' and 'tribal' communities in these and surrounding regions" (Moore 2002, 187). From this perspective, the upper Catawba and Yadkin region are best understood "as a Mississippian frontier, a part of the northernmost extent of Lamar from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries"

(Moore 2002, 187).

Moore's characterizations of the region have important implications for understanding the role of Mississippian influences on the expansion of English commercial ventures in the southeast. Referencing Beck (1997), Moore writes, this

"model suggests that Mississippian Chiefdoms in the upper Catawba and Yadkin region were situated in this particular locale to take advantage of a system of trails connecting 264 the region to polities in northeast Georgia, east Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and the

South Carolina piedmont" (Moore 2002, 187).

Citing a later collaboration with Beck (2001), Moore goes to say.

Long-distance communication and exchange may have provided emergent leaders ...with knowledge of Mississippian ideas and strategies being successfully pursued by distant peoples, and may also have contributed to a local political economy based upon the production of a staple surplus and access to exotic trade goods such as shell, copper and salt. Finally, it is suggested that social power in frontier Mississippian chiefdoms was less secure than that seen in core Mississippian chiefdoms such as Moundville. As a result, leaders in the upper Catawba and Yadkin region emphasized group-building activities such as mound construction and the use of corporate mortuary facilities to achieve their persuasively organized regional chiefdoms (emphasis in the original). (Moore 2002, 187-88)

Moore raises another important issue when he states, "To characterize these cultures as regionally interacting centers still begs the question: what is the mechanism

by which Lamar culture spread into North Carolina?" Near the end of his conclusion,

Moore raises the issue more directly. What is the evidence that the spread of Lamar style

pottery vessels into the Catawba Valley was accompanied by the same level of social and

political complexity with which Lamar culture is associated in other parts of the South

Appalachian region?"

The issues of cultural diffusion and the degree to which chiefdoms in present-day

North Carolina were integrated into regional Mississippian networks touch on core issues

regarding the incorporation of Indigenous Studies methodologies into explications of social and political organization in southeastern chiefdom societies and the degree to which these structural components spilled over and influenced the native peoples in the early historic era. If Moore is correct in asserting Mississippian origins for the historic 265

Catawba People then Charles Town's access to the vestiges of Mississippian exchange networks is more direct than previously imagined. Strategically situated on the

Occaneechi Trading Path, which passed through Native communities such as Saponi, the

Old Haw Fields, Eno, and Occaneechi Town before terminating at the James river in present-day Virginia (Myer 1928), the Catawba were potentially a very valuable for

Carolina, serving as a buffer against northern aggressor, furthering Charles Town's colonial ambitions of cutting Virginia's traders off from interior markets, undermining

Spanish encomienda system, and providing military support for Carolina's attacks on the

Westo (1680), and the Tuscarora (1711). Moore's model raises interesting questions of its own, especially concerning the validity and reliability of Spanish characterizations of indigenous social structures. Were educated and literate people like de Soto and Pardo able to translate what they witnessed and experienced accurately enough to warrant the emphasis later scholars have placed on them? It is one thing to describe landscapes and the direction of forced marches but quite another to accurately represent aspects of foreign societies. Moore raises these issues when he questions whether or not Spanish documents are reliable enough to be used in our attempts to locate the towns they described. Moore writes, "If the interpretations are accurate, then the Spanish documents show evidence of mid-sixteenth region integration, multi-community organization, social ranking, and perhaps economic stratification within the study area" (Moore 2002, 188; my emphasis), characteristics contemporary archaeologists assert were the structural base of North American chiefdom societies. 266

The degree to which Spanish observations can be trusted remains open to debate, but certainly it is unwise to accept them uncritically. However the utility of Spanish documentary evidence can be improved if used in conjunction with indigenous perspectives on social organization, dynamics, and the nature of political power and allowances are made for the inherent difficulties of cultural translation.

Region 2: The Savannah River: Carolina's Gateway to Former Mississippian Networks of Exchange

While Moore's conclusions support my assertion that Sub-Mississippia polities occupying the piedmont regions of present-day South Carolina and western North

Carolina positively influenced European settlement patterns and Carolina's colonial designs, the scholarship of David Anderson demonstrates that a similar situation existed on the southern frontier of the Charles Town settlement as well. Anderson is an influential archaeologist, who has written extensively about Mississippian polities in the southeast. I have drawn extensively from two articles, "Chiefly Cycling and Large-Scale

Abandonments as Viewed from the Savannah River Basin" (1996a) and "Fluctuations

Between Simple and Complex Chiefdoms; Cycling in the Late Prehistoric Southeast"

(1996b), in order to demonstrate the dynamic history of Mississippian societies in the region south of Charles Town prior to European settlement, and to that suggest

Mississippian institutions and traditions facilitated English imperial and commercial aspirations during the proprietary period.

According to Anderson, "the Savannah River basin of Georgia and South

Carolina provides a dramatic record of chiefly cycling, the emergence, expansion, and fragmentation of complex chiefdoms amid a regional landscape" (Anderson 1996a, 150). 267

The Savannah River is south and east of present day Charleston, South Carolina (see

Figure 16), which corresponds to the site of the Charles Town colony founded in 1670 by

Barbadian settlers under the direction of Joseph West (Lesser 1995, 23).'^ Anderson's

research reveals a string of Mississippian sites along the banks of the Savannah River,

which were occupied between from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries (Anderson

1996a, 150). Mississippian sites along the lower reaches of the river were abandoned

Spiro "V Savannah River Valley

Figure 20: Late Mississippian Centers and Provinces. Adapted from a map in Scarry (1996), Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, University of Florida Press. 6. earlier than those near the headwaters, a movement that might be interpreted as a defensive response to the arrival of and increased interaction with Europeans. If it can be assumed that these mound centers occupied strategic sites, they might have provided attractive locations for resettlement during the Sub-Mississippia and historic eras in the 268 same way Muskogee-speaking towns from the Chattahoochee River relocated themselves to Ochese Creek in the Oconee River Valley (Hahn 2004, 51-2). Anderson writes, "The

Savannah River Basin was occupied almost continually throughout prehistory, from the

Tug»lo\

Ipker's Bottom**, iUifus Bidlard Beaveittfttn Siic^ teeavwdam Creek- XRembert

Mason's Plaitiaiioi Hollywood

I*.

Figure 21: Major Mississippian Sites in the Savannah River Valley (AD 1100- 1450). Adapted from a map in Anderson (1996a), Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, University of Florida Press, 155. 269

Paleoindian era through the Mississippian period," noting Mississippian polities utilized the region "from circa A.D. 1100...to sometime after circa A.D. 1600, when the last chiefdoms in the headwaters region collapsed under the repeated trauma of European contact." During this period, "a number of simple and complex chiefdoms emerged and declined in the region" (Anderson 1996, 150). While Anderson calculates that

Mississippian societies in the Savannah River Valley "collapsed sometime after circa A.D.

1600" (Anderson 1996a, 150), Archaeologists Williams and Shapiro date the end of dynamic Mississippian settlement patterns in the nearby Oconee River Valley to A.D.

1650. These circumstances indicate that regional Mississippian reorganization did not instantaneously cease and continued to influence the behavior of indigenous peoples in the region. Apparently, proprietary Carolina was the site of Mississippian, Sub-

Mississippia, and historic overlap, replete with resident Mississippian populations

(Tugalo, Estoe, and Chauga), Indigenous (Westo and Savannah) and European (Spanish,

French, Scots, and English) emigrants, and Native societies (Cofitachequi and Catawba) undergoing processes of reorganization as they dealt with the permanent present of

European settlers. The previous five centuries of Mississippian history and tradition profoundly shaped the reorganization of Native societies as well as initial acts of cross- cultural interaction with Europeans of Spanish, French, and English origins. This context of Mississippian regional reorganization provides an essential backdrop to a discussion of events in the historic era.

According to Anderson's research, significant portions of the central and lower

Savannah River Valley were "abruptly abandoned" around A.D. 1450 and "remained 270 depopulated for almost two centuries" (Anderson 1996, 151). Anderson maintains that these events in the Savannah Valley were part of a larger Mississippian trend, stating that similar trends occurred slightly earlier in the Central Mississippi Valley and at about the same time in the Middle Tennessee and Cumberland River Valleys (Anderson 1991 151;

Welch 1991; S. Williams 1990). However, Anderson fails to account for continued

Mississippian occupation and resource exploitation in the coastal and piedmont regions of Carolina, circumstances Moore, William, and Shapiro have shown continued for another two hundred years.

Anderson's study of the Savannah River Valley is based upon "more than one hundred archaeological survey and excavation projects...conducted in the past century"

(Anderson 1996a, 151). Utilizing "a number of highly sensitive ceramic markers" associated with Lamar pottery, provides "fairly precise" temporal resolution of plus or minus fifty to seventy-five years. The result is, in Anderson's words, "fine-grained

Mississippian sequences" ultimately predicated upon "a large number of local radiocarbon determinations," which provide "absolute chronological controls" (Anderson

1996a, 151). Anderson is careful to acknowledge that the Mississippian archaeological record from the Savannah River basin is far from ideal or complete, and that his overview of political change is based upon data emerging only from the major mound centers

(Anderson 1996a, 152).

Archaeological evidence marshaled by Anderson is augmented with "additional clues about the causes of political change during the Mississippian period in the Lower

Piedmont" obtained from "an intensive survey of a series of clearcut tracts in the western 271

portion of the Savannah River basin just to the south of the Russell Reservoir" (Anderson

1996a, 170), and cypress tree ring data was also used to obtain "dendrochronologically

based reconstructions" (Anderson 1996a, 176) to determine relative climate changes in

the region.

Anderson also incorporates zoo-archaeological data, primarily deer-element

occurrence obtained at the Rucker's Bottom. These in indicated that choice cuts of meat

were being removed from the butchering site and then exported from Rucker's Bottom

(see Figure 17), possibly as a form of tribute to a larger, presumably more powerful

center (Anderson 1996a, 163). Deer bone evidence presumably reflects the political

hierarchy of Mississippian societies, and is explained by Anderson as a submission of a

tribute to a nearby center, which Anderson identifies as Beaverdam Creek. Similar

evidence was obtained at the Beaverdam Creek site, where almost twice as many deer

forequarters were found in the faunal samples. Anderson claims this evidence supports

the inference that the elites at this site were receiving food from elsewhere" (Anderson

1996a, 188).

Mississippian societies emerged in the Savannah River valley during the first half of the twelfth century, two in the mountainous headwaters and two at the mouth of the

river. The first truncated mounds appeared in the Appalachian headwaters region at

Tugalo and Chauga. Along with Estatoe, these sites "were occupied into the eighteenth century, when they were prominent Lower Cherokee towns" (Anderson 1996a, 163).

Around A.D. 1200 as many as nine mound centers were located in the Savannah River valley: four of these centers are classified as simple chiefdoms, but there is evidence of 212

"several double mound centers suggesting that complex chiefdoms might have been forming" (Anderson 1966a, 158). There is debate over whether local clusters were occupied simultaneously or sequentially in order to minimize environmental complications resulting from human occupation (Anderson 1996a, 158), but Williams and Shapiro's research in the Oconee river Valley suggests that complex chiefdoms may have existed in the same watershed at the same time (Williams and Shaprio 1996, 146-

47).

Anderson presumes that these mound clusters were interactive simple chiefdoms.

Complex chiefdoms may have begun to emerge downriver at the Mason's plantation and

Hollywood sites around A.D.I250, where archaeologists have discovered the presence of

"elaborate trade goods.. .from perhaps as far away as the central Mississippi valley"

(Anderson 1996a, 160). Over the next one hundred years, complex chiefdoms would develop throughout the Savannah basin.

Anderson speculates that the presence of two complex chiefdoms in close proximity to one another may have presented an untenable situation, but given Williams and Shapiro's Oconee Valley research and Anderson's acknowledgment that the rise of the Rembert center in the Savannah River Valley (see Figure 17) failed to have a significant impact on the development of the Tugalo and I.C. Few mounds in the upper part of the drainage (Anderson 1996a, 162), this assertion remains subject to debate.

According to Anderson (1996a, 163), around AD1400 there were three sites of political power in the Savannah basin (see Figure 22): the Irene site at the mouth of the river; Rembert above the fall line; and Tugalo in the Appalachian headwaters region. Of 273

Figure 22: Major Mississippian sites in the Savannah River Valley (AD1450- 1600). Adapted from a map in Anderson (1996a), Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States, University of Florida Press, 164. the remaining Savannah River Mississippian polities, those in the upper part of the basin, at Rembert and Tugalo, "likely retained a traditional hierarchical chiefdom organization"

(Anderson 1996a, 163).

According to Anderson, sometime after A.D. 1450, the Rembert and Irene centers were abandoned, and "the lower basin apparently remained unoccupied and only minimally used'' (Anderson 1996a, 163 my emphasis). However, the Tugalo site continued to be occupied, eventually becoming a commercial center for the Carolinian's

Indian trade (Journal of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade), Chauga was reoccupied for the first time in two centuries, and a new center emerged at Estatoe (Anderson 1996a, 274

163). The location of these towns at the headwaters would become a matter of strategic importance as the Carolina trade expanded during the early eighteenth century since they were only one hundred twenty-five miles from Coosa, the gateway to towns on the

Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Chattahoochee Rivers. Tugalo, Chauga, and Estatoe were equal distances from the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River. Loosely affiliated with one another, these towns, which were later clearly identified with historic Cherokee culture

(Anderson 1996a, 163), were united by means of a common language, similar riparian environments as well as shared ceremonial cycles and their Mississippian heritage.

Even though Anderson's data, based on the distribution of Late Mississippian components from circa A.D. 1450-1750, "strongly support the inference that the lower reaches of the basin were depopulated during this era," he acknowledges that evidence of

Mississippian occupation of these sites is completely absent from the archaeological record. Anderson surmises that these "assemblages.. .may represent the remains of isolated hamlets, short-term camps, or special activity areas" (Anderson 1996a, 168). So, it may be inferred that, although Mississippian populations were concentrated near the headwaters region, they continued to utilize downriver resources. Sub-Mississippia peoples, possibly associated with surviving Mississippian centers or communities formerly associated declining Mississippian polities undergoing processes of reorganization, were also a recognized part of Savannah basin social and political landscapes. Even though some aspects of their archaeologically identifiable

Mississippian traits, most notably mound construction, had come to a halt in the seventeenth century. Native peoples were by no means completely severed from these 275 influences, and so had ready access to Mississippian cultural models that may have influenced Indigenous sociopolitical reorganization. Anderson writes,

No Late Mississippian components are known from the lower part of the basin near the river mouth, indicating the abandonment of the Irene site was only a part of a process affecting a much larger area, something also indicated by the comparatively few components found in the Inner and Lower Coastal Plain. Although more Late Mississippian components (78.3%) come from the extreme western part of the basin near the Oconee River, which was densely setded at this time (Freer 1989: Jefferies and Hally 1975). In the headwaters area, in contrast. Late Mississippian components are more widespread; many are historic Cherokee in age, and appear to come from hamlet or town sites (Schroedl and Riggs 1989: Smith et al. 1988). (Anderson 1996a, 168)

Anderson's interpretation of data leads him to believe that the depopulation of the lower Savannah basin occurred gradually over the course of the Middle Mississippian period, rather than abruptly at the end of this sub period. Thus, Anderson surmises "the consolidation of Early Mississippian single-mound centers into one multimound center at

Rembert during the Middle Mississippian subperiod did not result in a decline in the number of sites and possibly people in the area" (Anderson 1996a, 169). In fact,

Anderson speculates that the opposite was true, that the "formation of a complex chiefdom locally may have facilitated population growth" (1 Anderson 1996a, 69), which further supports his supposition that the decrease in Mississippian components from the

Middle to Late period was part of a larger pattern of abandonment and depopulation characteristic of the entire Savannah River Valley.

While Mississippian populations were concentrating in the upper reaches of the

Savannah River Valley and the Lower Savarmah was undergoing demographic reorganization, large Mississippian populations were present in the major drainages to either side, the Oconee and Santee-Wateree-[Catawba] basins (Anderson 1996a, 171). 276

This is a disparity Anderson reconciles by incorporating environmental factors, especially the geographical size of these respective river basins.

Cofitachique >i 'iJ Savansah River

Oconee River

Figure 23: Mississippian Abandonment of the Savannah River Valley. Adapted from a map in DePratter (1994). Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704, University of Georgia Press, 210.

Since the Savannah River Valley is much smaller than those to either side,

Anderson speculates that the Savannah River chiefdoms may have been at something of a disadvantage simply by virtue of their location.. .[and] thus could have been forced to relocate to other areas by more powerful chiefly neighbors" (Anderson 1996a, 171).

Anderson concludes by noting the abandonment of Savannah River Mississippian sites was caused by combinations of factors, of which the size, location, and nature of the resources in the Savannah River basin compared to nearby drainages, as well as changes in the regional political landscape and varia­ tion in growing season rainfall, were among the most important. The rise 277

of powerful Mississippian societies in the Oconee and Santee-Wateree drain­ ages to the west and east of the Savannah, respectively, may have been the single most critical factor. During the period of initial Spanish contact in the mid sixteenth century, the provinces of Ocute and Cofitachequi were present in these areas, and it is suggested that their strong rivalry and bitter enmity had an effect on the politics along the Savannah River, who were literally caught between them. (Anderson 1996a, 190)

Region 3: The Oconee River Valley: Charles Town's Link to Sub-Mississippia Talwas

New research supports the assertion that the English settlers of Charles Town entered a vast system of Mississippian exchange networks by means of the Savannah

River, an Indigenous backdoor into a dynamic world of trade and diplomacy. Even though these networks were undergoing processes of reorganization and reorientation, they still proved an invaluable asset to English commercial enterprises, providing markets, infrastructure, and diplomatic protocols that enabled the rapid commercial expansion of the Carolina economy and provided England an advantage in her imperial competition with Spain and France.

Like David Anderson, Mark Williams and Gary Shapiro have worked extensively in the field of southeastern archaeology, but their recent investigations of the Oconee

River Valley in eastern Georgia are of special interest for this particular project. Coupled with the preceding surveys of the Catawba and Savannah River Valleys, Williams and

Shapiro's investigation of Mississippian polities in the Oconee Valley provide an essential context for historic assessments of social and geographic flexibility among indigenous American communities noted in historical and ethnohistorical accounts of the early colonial period, especially with regard to their settlement patterns, their land management technologies, and their interactions with one another. Secondly, Williams 278

!

Figure 24: Major Rivers and selected Mississippian sites in present-day Georgia. Adapted from a map in Williams (1994). Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704, University of Georgia Press, 185. and Shapiro's detailed examinations of this particular riparian environment in northeastern Georgia illustrate the need for a call to context, investigations that focus on regional manifestations of Mississippian culture, and the relation of these regional manifestations to more general suppositions about Mississippian culture as opposed to general accounts that seek to unite the entire American southeast under arbitrarily imposed criteria. Finally the work of Williams and Shapiro raises important questions about the number of Mississippian sites in the region and the size of the human populations necessary to animate the social, ceremonial, and political attributes of 279

Mississippian life, suggesting that archeological assessments of the scope and scale of these societies is more likely to expand than contract.

Oconee River chiefdoms were located just beyond the sphere of proprietary South

Carolina's influence and at least four sites (Dyar, Scull Shoals, Shinholser, and Little

River) were actively occupied by Mississippian peoples during the first half of the seventeenth century (see Figure 25). The immediacy of its location and the viability of its Mississippian societies during the late Sub-Mississippia era make the Oconee River

Valley an essential element of this inquiry into the contexts of Carolinian commercial achievement.

The Oconee River is immediately adjacent to the Savannah River Valley, the colonial frontier of Charles Town's proprietary government. The headwaters of the

Oconee are northeast of present day Atlanta, Georgia in the Chattahoochee National forest between Mt. Airy and Gainesville, Georgia. At this point, the Oconee and

Savannah Rivers are approximately seventy-five miles apart. The Oconee and Savannah diverge as they run toward the Atlantic Ocean, and in southeast Georgia near Lumber

City in Jeff Davis County, the Oconee is joined by the Ocmulgee River, where it is renamed the Altamaha River. From this point, the river eventually passes the site of Fort

King George and enters the Atlantic Ocean north of Little Saint Simons Island. Each of these places, the Oconee Province, the Oconee, Ocmulgee, and Altamaha Rivers, and

Fort King George, are sites of significant colonial events, but the present survey is particularly interested in the Oconee Province.

Williams and Shapiro describe the Oconee Province in the following manner. 280

The Oconee Province is a Mississippian period polity made up of several mound centers, outlying hamlets, and homesteads located along the Oconee River in the Piedmont of northern Georgia.^^ These Oconee Valley Mississippian sites formed a dynamic settlement system that spanned the period from AD 950 to AD 1650. (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 128)

Shoals

Cold Springs

^boulderbone

Figure 25: Mississippian Sites in the Oconee river Basin. Adapted from a map in Williams (1994). "Growth and Decline of the Oconee Province." Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704. University of Georgia Press. 181.

In the construction of chronologies, Williams and Shapiro, like Moore and

Anderson, rely on Lamar ceramics to construct "fine-scaled" (Williams and Shapiro

1996, 128) chronologies, which accurately capture the "dynamic history of the mound 281 centers associated with this settlement system" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 128).

Williams and Shapiro assert that this careftil attention to chronological detail "has facilitated the understanding of the political dynamics of a relatively simple chiefdom- level society, and perhaps, has much to tell us about more complicated ones" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 128).

The authors explain the advantages of this relative dating method in the following manner,

The data required to divide the Oconee Valley Mississippian sequence into Units sufficiently small for the intended analysis comes mainly from ceramic seriation rather than radiocarbon analysis. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, it is now apparent to us that even the first standard deviation for those Mississippian carbon dates available provides too gross a time scale for the temporal control we require...This degree of chronological refinement... permits us to unravel the complex details of settlement growth and decline discussed below. Even this however is probably not the limit of possible chronological refinement. Kowalewski and Williams (1988) have recently shown that it may be possible, using a series of ratios for these same ceramic attributes, to recognize ceramic temporal units of as short as twenty to thirty years late in the Lamar period [1400-1650]. (WiUiams and Shapiro 1996, 131)

In their overview of Mississippian occupation of the Oconee Valley, the authors note that the location of mound centers during the first two centuries of Mississippian life in the valley can be "easily" explained by their "ideal" environmental settings, a

"situation that changes dramatically with the founding of the Shoulderbone site around

A.D. 1325" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 133). In contrast to the placement of earlier mound centers on expansive fioodplains preferably located above the fall line,

"Shoulderbone was situated on an upland ridge adjacent to a small creek, that, itself, was a tributary to another creek that eventually flowed into the Oconee River...in an area with negligible floodplain soil" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 133). 282

Williams and Shapiro explain this deviation from typical Mississippian practice in the following manner,

The environmental characteristics favored by Mississippian peoples across the southeast (Shapiro 1983; Smith 1978)... are not found at Shoulderbone, so we must look for an extra-environmental explanation of its location. Be= sides its unusual environmental setting, there are three more remarkable characteristics of the site's placement. First it was placed precisely 47 km equidistant from both Scull Shoals and Shinholser, the other two mound sites occupied when it was settled. Second, it was located on an important historic trail that provided east-west communication outside the valley, and finally, it was placed at the Oconee Valley's easternmost edge (emphasis in the original). (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 138)

While Williams and Shapiro are uncertain of the exact mechanism that led to the equal spacing of Shoulderbone with respect to Scull Shoals and Shinholser; they are

"strongly swayed.. .by the belief that its eastern Oconee Valley orientation along a trail to the Savarmah Valley relates to its interaction, either in the form of warfare or trade, with the chiefdoms located in that valley" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 138) (emphasis in the original).

The authors state that they have no clear evidence that the three Oconee Valley towns of this period (circa A.D. 1325), Scull Shoals, Shinhosler, and Shoulderbone, were integrated into a single chiefdom, but they do note that unlike the other Oconee Valley towns, Shoulderbone was palisaded, which suggests there was possible conflict. Since the other sites are not palisaded, it is probable that the potential threat came from the

Savannah River Valley one hundred miles to the east in which case Shoulderbone's

"functional relationship.. .was to provide border protection for the Oconee valley

(Williams and Shapiro 1996, 138) (emphasis in the original). 283

By A.D. 1450, there is evidence of a demographic reorientation on a regional scale. Williams and Shapiro state, "It is quite interesting that just when Shoulderbone was at its peak, the Savannah Valley populations were rapidly disappearing" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 139). David Anderson's research (1996a; 1996b) suggests that these populations may have relocated to the Savarmah headwaters, but it also possible that

"many of the people migrated east and west from the Savannah Valley" (Williams and

Shapiro 1996, 139). Williams and Shapiro go on to note that "by A.D. 1450 we begin to see the abandonment of the Shoulderbone site after the complete loss of the Savannah

Valley population...[while] the Scull Shoals site was reoccupied without the abandonment of the Dyar site" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 139). While these interpretations of archaeological data are confusing due to archaeological practices of naming and periodization, they clearly illustrate that Mississippian peoples often faced frequent demographic challenges due to environmental, political, and diplomatic events.

Williams and Shapiro's localized archaeological approach reveals at least one other interesting feature of Mississippian demographic adaptation in the Oconee Valley.

Also around A.D. 1450 a remarkable change began in the distribution of the small Mississippian sites in the Valley. For the first time, farmsteads begin to appear along the upper river channel and in the uplands away from the river in great number. This represents the beginning of a rural expansion that found extreme expression 50 to 100 years later (Rudolf and Blanton 1981). We believe this rural expansion and the development of an uninhabited buffer zone to the east may provide the best evidence for potential political integration of all the mound sites in the valley (emphasis in the original) (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 139).

Fifty years later, the Oconee Valley was still undergoing rapid and significant demographic alterations. Williams and Shapiro state that by A.D. 1500 Shinholser had 284 been reoccupied, that Shoulderbone was inhabited by only a remnant of its former population, that thousands of small sites dotted the landscape, and that a new mound center at Little River was founded. Like the Shoulderbone, Little River was placed in an

"unlikely environmental setting," but it was situated on the western rather than eastern side of the valley (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 139). The authors offer the following explanation for this spatial rearrangement.

We feel that the western orientation of the Little River site reflects two things. First, the abandonment of the Savannah Valley to the east and, second, the development of the paramount chiefdom of Coosa to the west (Anderson 1990c, 1994b; Hally, Smith, and Langford 1990; Hudson et al. 1985). The unusual placement of the Little River site on the western edge of the Oconee Valley may be related to Coosa's growing power and, therefore, reflect the same settlement process that led, 200 years earlier, to the settlement of the Shoulder- bone site on the eastern side of the valley. (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 140). 7X

Williams and Shapiro's localized and detailed account of demographic change in the Oconee Valley has introduced significant new insights about the fluidity, mobility, and adaptability of Mississippian societies, but as they note in their concussion, there are no short cuts in this sort of research. It requires developing fine chronological controls, dating the mound centers carefiilly, and most importantly, viewing "mound locations within the context of broader patterns of settlement both outside and inside the valley"

(Williams and Shapiro 1996, 148) (emphasis in the original).

Their careful and detailed approach has produced important insights into the practice of Mississippian archaeology and their suggestions could have profound ramifications for fiiture archaeological examinations of Sub-Mississippia societies and historical investigations of the early contact and colonial eras. The authors summarize their insights, 285

Most models developed to explain Mississippian settlement patterns depend on the distribution of mound centers. This is especially true about relation­ ships hypothesized between settlement patterns and social variables such as tribute, trade, competition, consolidation of power, and chiefly succession. We do not think that any of the existing models adequately explain our data because they usually focus on one or two variables-such as food resources, tribute, or warfare. Instead, we find that all these factors are important, but not always at the same time. (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 143) (emphasis in original) Many models are static and don't take the changing configurations of demography, environmental adaptation, and changing site location into account. They assume mound centers are set up with a fully developed political system in place and nothing changes except the chief and the size of the mound from beginning to end...We believe our data show that environmental adaptations and political and demographic changes often occur rapidly and that these changes have tremendous effects on the distribution of populations and of mound centers through time. (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 146)

Williams and Shapiro's insights and adaptations have led to a number of interesting and provocative conclusions concerning the Oconee Valley specifically and the nature of Mississippian societies generally: 1) Patterns of Mississippian growth and decline may be predicated upon constantly changing political and demographic realities;

2) Mound centers in close proximity to one another may be "paired," a situation that reflects "an alternation of occupation rather than co-continuous occupations" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 143); 3) The contexts of political power may change rapidly during the life of a group of chiefdoms in a single valley. 4) Mounds were built, used, abandoned, reused, and finally, left forever. 5) The spacing between mounds may provide little accurate information for the study of the growth sequence of mounds within the same geographical area. 6) Fine-scaled chronologies are essential to this kind of study. 7) "The best indicator of regional integration is not the configuration of mound-center location, nor the volume or number of mounds, but the density of and distribution of mound sites 286 that indicates a rural expansion and the formation of buffer zones," a position that makes even more sense if "we can show that many mound centers are not necessarily towns at all but simply chiefly compounds" (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 148).

Williams and Shapiro conclude their article by cautiously noting the need for future research.

We can guarantee that even after ten years of research in the Oconee Valley, and with the known locations now of more than 1,000 Mississippian sites, we are bound to be surprised by better survey data (Kowalewski 1986). There may well be more than 10,000 of these sites in our area, and it will take several more years to sample them systematically before we can verify many of the inferences on the growth and decline of the Oconee Valley chief- doms presented here. (Williams and Shapiro 1996, 148) 287

PART THREE;

INDINEOUS INFLUENCES ON TRADE AND DIPLOMACY IN PROPRIETARY CAROLINA 288

CHAPTER THREE

Charles Town as Case Study: Cycling Indigenous Partnerships in Proprietary South Carolina

Re-reading the Historically Documented Actions and Behaviors of Indigenous Southeastern Peoples

By considering the deep historical contexts of Indigenous experience, the nature of Indigenous reorganization in the Sub-Mississippia South, and the degree of sociopolitical continuity between Pre-Columbian and historic Native Peoples, I have tried to employ interpretive frameworks that enhance the utility of documentary evidence for decoding cross-cultural interaction in the colonial era. Placing documentary and historic evidence into North American contexts of cross-cultural interaction highlights Indigenous influences and makes them easier to recognize and. Having previously provided broad

Indigenous cultural and philosophical perspectives and general categories of evidence for the purpose of re-evaluating documentary evidence and eliciting greater insight into

Indigenous contexts and influences of colonial interaction, the final section of this study attempts a practical demonstration of the possible advantages such an approach has for the production of colonial histories.

Documentary evidence is one of the most important sources of evidence for social, political, and religious continuity between Late Mississippian and Indigenous peoples of the South's contact era, as well as Mississippian influences upon Indigenous responses towards newly arriving European settler populations. Continuity between moundbuilding societies and southeastern tribal confederacies is clearly illustrated through historically observed and documented actions of Native peoples as they 289 interacted with Enghsh settlers at Charles Town, and the addition of Indigenous historical contexts and philosophical perspectives helps researchers recognize Native influences in the documentary and historical records.

To demonstrate that Charles Town was established on the periphery of a

Mississippian World in the midst of Sub-Mississippia peoples, who were able to marshal the knowledge of Mississippian history and tradition to further their own immediate needs and indirectly subsidize Anglo-American imperial desire, critical scrutiny of documentary and historical records is required. Armed with an awareness of Carolina's

Mississippian contexts and the significant degree of continuity between Mississippian chiefdoms Sub-Mississippian Native societies, this inquiry into Indigenous influences on

Carolina's commercial and imperial expansion can proceed from holistic perspectives that take proper account of the role of Indigenous agency and the influences exerted by

Indigenous history. While a systematic reading of Carolina's proprietary history is beyond the scope of this dissertation, the validity of my hypothesis can be convincingly demonstrated by projecting the earliest events of Carolina's proprietary history against the Sub-Mississippia backdrop of Native Southeastern experience, which has been presented in the previous chapters of this dissertation.

Why Charles Town?

Charles Town is central to exploring possible indigenous influences on colonial trade and diplomacy for a variety of reasons. First, Carolina provides a unique opportunity to explore the relationships among Sub-Mississippia and historic Indigenous societies because the region was the site of extensive Spanish exploration during the 290 seventeenth century. Documentary evidence concerning Spanish explorations of the southeast (Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon 1520; Panfilo Narvaez 1526; Hernando de Soto

1540; Tristin de Luna 1559; Pedro Menendez de Aviles 1565; and Juan Pardo 1565) provide essential evidence for comparing Sub-Mississippia and historic Indigenous societies, supplying comparative data for determining the conditions of Mississippian life and the Sub-Mississippia reorganization that followed. Second, as a commercial center that promoted and specialized in exchanging indigenous slaves for English manufactured goods, coastal Carolina became a locus of cultural convergence, a site where the interests of Indians and Englishmen coalesced around the exchange of Native Captives. Carolina, above all other colonies, adhered to colonial policies that pitted one Indigenous nation against another and promoted the exportation of Native slaves (Wood 1974, 39). The practice quickly became an essential element of Carolina's colonial economy (Snell

1972; Grinde 1977, 38-42). Even forty-two years after the establishment of Charles

Town on the eve of the Yamassee War, colonial elites characterized their indigenous counterparts as the "bulwark of the settlement" (Journal of the Commissioners of Indian

Trade, 47), an extraordinary observation given the volatile and precarious situation created by the colony's implementation of misguided, internally divisive, and often counter-productive Indian policies. Finally, the business of Indian slavery was a central aspect of Charles Town's proprietary economy.

As a fundamental aspect of Charles Town's colonial economy, diplomacy with Indigenous peoples and the policy of purchasing native captives from Indigenous allies became a central feature of Carolina's proprietary economy. Almon Lauber (1913) 291 writes, "In the Carolinas, the custom of purchasing their prisoners from the friendly

Indians, the holding of these captives in the colony as slaves, or, possibly, their subsequent sale to the West India Islands, existed almost from the beginning of the colony" (Lauber 1913, 169). The trade in Indian slaves was conducted in spite of the proprietors' wishes because "the adventurous nature of the settlers combined with the need for laborers.. .and the attraction of good prices which the Indians brought when sold for cash, induced both planters and government officials to enter largely into the trade"

(Lauber 1913, 169).

In A Long and Terrible Shadow: White Values, Native Rights in the Americas

1492-1992 Thomas Berger reiterates Lauber's conclusions. Berger writes that the London proprietors of the colony were primarily interested in the deerskin trade. In fact, the proprietors were most interested in planting agricultural estates that provided rent income and reaffirmed their perceived aristocratic privileges. Availing themselves of the opportunity afforded by the Restoration of Charles II, the proprietors embraced the prospect of imposing their conservative social vision through colonial governmental institutions that reflected England's vertical social order. Because disenfranchised

English subjects sought to enhance their own social position and political status at the expense of Native peoples, the enslavement and exportation of Indian Slaves was conducted in violation of the direct orders of the proprietors, and so was necessarily clandestine until the Westo War (1680-1683).

The Proprietors of the colony were opposed to Indian slavery because they believed it was detrimental to the long- term welfare of the colony, but the proprietors' 292

/

Iflli2.'•» sie 2 o ^l!!i ir X o i hillpi po ig o mnl 5; 1^1 Is 30 siii r > i" 1

^ i > ifi V(M. • 9 0> L O C

Figure 26: Spanisfi Province of Chicora circa 1670. Adapted from a map in Quattlebaum (1956), The Land Called Chicora: The Carolinas under Spanish Rule with French Intrusions, 1520-1670. University of Florida Press, endpapers. 293 grasp of local situations was severely limited by the information provided by the colonists, which was most often strictly limited and provided only on a 'need to know basis.' Lauber writes: The proprietors were "anxious to cultivate the friendship of the

Indians, [and] forbade, in the temporary laws sent out to Governor Sayle in 1671, that any

Indian on any pretext whatever be made a slave, or with out his own consent be carried out of the country" (Lauber 1913, 169). Restrictions on the Indian slave trade were repeatedly imposed to no avail, a consequence of the profits to be had and the necessity of trading slaves in order to subsidize the mercantile trade (Lauber 1913; Crane, and

Gallay 2002).^^

In Carolina, the settlers who had immigrated from the English colony in Barbados where African slavery and monoculture agriculture were firmly established found the trade in Indian slaves more lucrative and more immediately gratifying than the difficult tasks of establishing plantations or the production of naval stores, activities that required significant investments of labor and capital.

Consequentially, the mercantile trade in Native peoples, rather than the feudal economies envisioned by proprietors, provided the foundation for the first sustained cross-cultural exchanges between English colonists and the indigenous inhabitants of the region. Purchasing Native captives from local Indians subsidized the growing trade among southeastern tribal nations, providing trade goods to indigenous peoples and capitalizing local construction, the establishment of plantations, and future military and commercial ventures among the natives while conveniently depopulating the coastal and piedmont regions of the colony. 294

In an attempt to control the Carolinians and impose their own vision of order and stability on the colony, the proprietors appointed William Sayle Governor in 1670

(Lesser 1995, 176). It was Sayle's duty to enforce the laws contained in the Fundamental

Constitutions, but he, like other Governors appointed by the proprietors, was "ignored by the settlers, who took the land they wanted without being concerned for the proprietors' plans. Nor were [the colonists] willing to curtail their pursuit of Indian slaves" (Berger

1992, 48). Over the next ten years, the conflict escalated with each side arming its own set of Indian allies. The result was an Indian War between the Westo, armed by proprietary agents, and the Savannah, armed by planters and other colonial elites. After three years, the Savannah Indians and the English settlers from Barbados prevailed, and the "development of a full-scale slave trade was assured" (Berger 1992, 48). Because the

Westo/Savannah (1680-83) conflict was only one in a series of inter-societal conflicts that characterized Charles Town's diplomatic relationships with indigenous peoples during the first thirteen years of the colony, Berger's observations fail to capture the scope or significance of the colonists' practice of buying and deporting Indigenous slaves, but his analysis does identify the fact that Indigenous diplomacy was a primary aspect of South Carolina's colonial strategies.

Charles Town was strategically well-positioned to participate in England's colonial Atlantic trade. More significantly, Charles Town was surrounded by native polities formerly associated with intra-continental exchange networks of Mississippian societies, the last manifestation of North America's Moundbuilding traditions. Closer observation of the geographical circumstances of the Charles Town settlement reveals a 295 layering affect that informs Carolina's approach to diplomacy with their Indigenous neighbors in significant ways.

Within the limits of Charles Town's original proprietary surveys, Settlement

Indians (Gallay 2002, 440)^" enabled and facilitated the first feeble English attempts at colonization. These native societies, which resided in the piedmont and Atlantic coastal regions in present-day North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, constituted the periphery of ancient indigenous networks of exchange (Smith 1984; Cook and Pearson

1984). The London based proprietors had arbitrarily set the outer limits of the proprietary government's jurisdiction at 200 miles, a geographical area that encompasses all of present-day South Carolina and significant portions of Georgia and North Carolina as well. Later, the proprietors extended this assumed jurisdiction over native territory and the indigenous peoples supported by it to a 400-mile radius. Both acts were seen by the South Carolina's settlers and colonial officials of the settlement as an effort to monopolize the Indian Trade, but more significantly this overly ambitious demarcation of

Indigenous territory illustrates the proprietors' desire to control trade with distant Indians by regulating the actions of their own subjects, a desire that was continually frustrated by the ambition and avarice of Charles Town's local elites.

Beyond these regions of fictive English jurisdiction, which extended from the present North Carolina border to the Savannah River and west to the Appalachian foothills beyond the fall line, were larger emerging confederacies, which constituted the heartland of North America's Mississippian exchange networks: Cherokee, Chickasaw,

Choctaw, Creek, and perhaps to a lesser extent, the Catawba of present-day North Carolina and indigenous Floridians within the Spanish sphere of influence. The

Carolinians would eventually incorporate each of these native polities into a spiraling network of indigenous alliances. Carolina opened diplomatic relations with the Creek81 very quickly. Dr. Henry Woodward, who had been left ashore by Robert Sandford in

1667 for linguistic and logistic reasons, concluded an alliance with indigenous towns on the Chattahoochee river as early as 1670 (Corkran 1970, 6). Woodward reestablished ties to these towns, which would become associated with the Creek Confederacy, after the demise of the Westo in 1685 (Corkran 1970, 7).^^

Numerous other Indigenous southeastern polities, such as the Westo, the

Savannah, and the Yamassee, moved in and out of the southern border region along the

Savannah River during the early colonial period and served as a buffer between European settlements on the coast and the larger emerging confederacies of the interior. These polities constituted the principal agents of Carolina's early slaving activities and were responsible for the reduction and enslavement of Settlement Indians in the coastal and piedmont regions. These transient and migratory native polities, especially the Yamassee who had disassociated themselves from the Spanish encomienda of La Florida, enabled the English to attack and enslave native peoples far beyond even their self-proclaimed borders (Gallay 2002, 70-103).

In addition to Settlement Indians within the English sphere of influence and the emerging confederacies inhabiting Charles Town's peripheral boundaries, a third group of native polities with Mississippian roots, which included the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and

Natchez, were located on or adjacent to in the Mississippi River itself. Native polities on 297 the Mississippi maintained their Mississippian cultural orientations well into the historic era. As the French began to establish permanent settlements in Mobile and on the lower

Mississippi at the beginning of the eighteenth century, they documented the nature of

Mississippian societies and their corresponding practices in the same way that de Soto's chroniclers had done in the Carolina piedmont one hundred fifty years before. The

Natchez maintained their Mississippian-based social structures until the French destroyed their towns with the help of the Choctaw in 1731 (Wright 1981, 141).

Carolina colonists' references to the Native peoples in the immediate vicinity of the colony as Settlement Indians regardless of their cultural affiliations illustrate an • • .... . • . 83 inability or unwillingness to distinguish differences among indigenous Americans. The anonymity of this description elides the importance of native peoples to the military and domestic security of the Carolina settlements and might be understood as a form of collective Carolinian denial of their dependence upon Indigenous peoples.

The reductive designation of Settlement Indians and its continued use by contemporary scholars is misleading and problematic because it elides the significance of the colony's relationships with native peoples in and around it. The Indigenous polities of native Carolinians constituted various kinds of bulwarks, both literal and metaphorical, for the emigrant colonists of South Carolina. While the indigenous peoples of the Low

Country, a geographical area consisting of the coastal and easternmost piedmont regions, were incorporated into the Carolinian sphere of influence by the original English surveys, native polities certainly did not interpret the act of surveying the land as an act of incorporation or annexation. 298

Rhetorical fictions such as "incorporation" into English sociological systems are plainly contemporary efforts to rationalize and justify colonial processes. Like the concept of assimilation, it is doubtful that advocates of such policies imagined that incorporated or assimilated "persons of color," in this case "Indians," would ever be fiilly welcomed into the European societies imported to America. In areas of English influence, the offer of incorporation is used throughout the colonial period to encourage indigenous participation in treaty processes. In the early American period, such policies were advocated by Thomas Jefferson and adopted to entice indigenous peoples to consider exchanging land holdings during the period of forced relocations of the Removal

Era. Like "legal fictions" such as slavery (Clemmons 1905), rhetorical fictions primarily serve to facilitate the processes of occupation, colonization and genocide.

The coastal and piedmont encompassed by the proprietary surveys and the adjacent areas immediately surrounding Charles Town were home to numerous nations of

Indians, who in many cases were loosely affiliated though language, ceremony, geography, and history. To various degrees, almost all shared the legacy of a

Mississippian history. After Charles Town was founded, Catawba peoples, formerly associated with the paramount chiefdom of Cofitachique, welcomed John Lawson, openly embracing another opportunity to engage in cross-cultural exchange and promote their interests, a similar situation was occurring in the Oconee River valley beyond

Charles Town's southern boundary and the Savarmah River. As the original

Mississippian inhabitants of this region moved east to engage with Spanish colonists,

Sub-Mississippia peoples from the Chattahoochee River moved to the confluence of the 299

Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers. Four towns from the lower Chattahoochee moved east under the direction of Brims, where they became the principle consumers of English goods and the principle supplier of Native captives. By 1690, these settlements became were known to Carolinians known as the Ochese Creek, and they remained Carolina's principle allies until the Yamassee War, when they moved back to the Chattahoochee

River.

Close scrutiny of documented interactions between Europeans and Indigenous

Americans set against the backdrop of Mississippian culture highlights a Sub-

Mississippia world of cross-cultural diplomacy and trade structured by pre-Columbian influences. The circumstances of Charles Town's settlement and the colony's subsequent practice of purchasing Native captives from Native allies provides an ideal opportunity to seek out Mississippian influences and continuity between Latte Mississippian societies and the historic tribal nations of the southeast. The remainder of this dissertation is an attempt to mine the historically documented events of Charles Town's proprietary period in search of evidence for Mississippian influences on Carolina's colonial expansion.

Cusabo Interaction with European Peoples 1526-1663

The successful establishment of the Charles Town colony was made possible by

Cusabo peoples living on the Atlantic coastline between the Savannah and Santee Rivers.

Cusabo peoples were probably Muscogee-speakers (Swanton, 1946, Table 1) or spoke mutually intelligible Muscogee dialects, a linguistic orientation that distinguished them from Siouan-speakers up the coast from Charles Town and in the Carolina piedmont, who occupied riparian environments north of the Santee River along rivers whose sources 300 were located in the North Carolina foothills. These polities were associated with the chiefdom of Cofitachique and Mississippian polities in the western piedmont of present- day North Carolina (Moore 2002). Historical records indicate that the Cusabo were cut out from upriver hunting grounds by the Iroquoian-speaking Westo (Corkran 1907, 4), another indication that the members of the Cusabo Alliance shared cultural affiliations with Hitchi-speakers in present-day eastern Georgia, especially those residing in the

Oconee/Ocmulgee watershed, or Muscogee-speakers in northern Georgia on the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers. If Cusabo towns were affiliated with the Coosa, the association would have proved advantageous for the Carolinians because it would have meant direct access to Muscogee-speaking towns and the Mississippian exchange networks of the

American interior. Such a relationship would have been less beneficial for Native peoples affiliated with the northern Siouan-speaking Indians of the Catawba Confederacy because the Carolina traders and their highly priced trade items would have been directed south and west away from the Mississippian polities of the North Carolina piedmont along the upper reaches of the Catawba and Yadkin Rivers, leaving them dependent on the Occaneechi and their alliances with Virginia traders and without direct access to

EngHsh trade goods, a problematic position for Sub-Mississippian elites who relied on the redistribution of trade goods for social status and political influence.

In A New Voyage to Carolina, John Lawson states that the Sewee, a small group of Siouan speakers living near present-day Sewee Bay in 1670, set out for England in canoes, convinced they could get better prices for fiirs and direct access to English goods. Although the Sewee desire for direct trade with England is often portrayed in 301 paternalistic and oversimplified terms, their motivation for such an adventure is almost certainly a manifestation of their active participation in Mississippian exchange networks.

According to southern historian David Corkran, the Sewee were so zealous over the prospects of trade with the English that they "determined early to have a direct trade with

Europe. To this end they outfitted a fleet of dugout canoes with mats for sails and embarked two hundred of their own men to cross the ocean. Caught in a storm, half of them drowned. Most of the survivors were picked up at sea by an English ship and sold as slaves in the West Indies (Corkran 1970, 10). The Sewee might have been a part of the "Cahokian vanguard" that historian Norene Shafer speculates were charged with conducting and facilitating the movement of trade items towards Cahokia and the

American interior, but it is more likely they simply felt socially and politically threatened because they lacked a direct source of English goods, having been cut off from Virginia traders by the Occaneechi to the north and from Charles Town traders by reorganized

Cofitachique towns to the south.

The "Cusabo Confederacy" is probably best described as an alliance of loosely affiliated coastal towns, located in the southern part of present-day South Carolina between present-day Charleston and the Savannah River at the time of initial European contact and had diplomatic ties to the Spanish, the French and the English (Swanton

1946, 128). Confederacy is perhaps not the most accurate description of interactive patterns among the Cusabo townships in the Sub-Mississippian era, but in this case the term can be used to signify a collaborative relationship among the inhabitants of autonomous towns, located along the Atlantic coast of present day South Carolina. These 302 towns, like many other Native communities throughout the region were united through history, ceremony, geography, language, and social organization, and political structure. QA Spanish colonization of the Chicora began when Lucas de Ayllon, a native of

Toledo Spain, financed the exploration of the Atlantic coast of North America.^^ Spanish colonization of Chicora was concentrated in two regions, north of present-day

Charleston, SC at Winyah Bay and south of Charleston around present-day Beaufort, SC.

The Spanish "discovered" St. Helena Sound in 1520, which was surrounded by six

Native towns: Mayon, Stalma, Audusta (Orista), Hoya, Toupa, and Usta (see Figure 30).

Port Royal/ Santa Elena c SANTA ecem HILTOH HIAO

I \ SAVANJNAH#^ Figure 27; Native Town between Present-day Savannah, GA and Edisto Island, SC circa 1670. Adapted from a map in Quattlebaum (1956), The Land Called Chicora: The Carolinas Under Spanish Rule with French Intrusions, 1520-1670. University of Florida Press, endpapers. Each town was well south of the Edisto River, the longest of three rivers that drain into St

Helena Sound (Quattlebaum 1956, 88) and the only one to reach into the southern

Appalachian Mountains. Ayllon's expedition arrived at present-day Pawley's Island,

South Carolina in 1521. Pawley's Island is north of present-day Charleston near the 303 mouth of the Great Pee Dee River, which drains present-day North Carolina's foothills and piedmont regions.^^ There were three Native towns located along the Waccamaw

River, but the Spanish failed to record their names.

Great Pee Rivei

Long Bay

Black River

cu'diB4/'£-/Sie / WACCAMAW WiVtS SAN UiCiJtL Of Ct/ALOMPC /S^6

t SAM HOudN-tSit

Figure 28: Native Towns at Winyah Bay circa 1670. Adapted from a map in Quattlebaum (1956), The Land Called Chicora: The Carolinas Under Spanish Rule with French Intrusions, 1520-1670, University of Florida Press, endpapers.

The region in between stretched from Edisto to Sewee Bay or from the north side of St Helena Sound to the mouth of the Santee River (see Figure 32). Cofitachique was located above the confluence of the Santee and Wateree Rivers, a few days journey to the northwest. There were five Native towns reported in this region; Edisto, Escamacu, an unidentified town between Edisto and Escamacu, Cayagua, and Sewee. This is the region

English colonists from Barbados would eventually occupy one hundred fifty years in the future. From a Mississippian perspective, this region was severely circumscribed because it riparian environment drained a very small area. While the Savarmah and Edisto Rivers 304

Rivci

^georgetown^'^

s*m jmft { /* n gduf/S J* .tsit ^ •'^WmtAH BAT \ )

Sewee n

•Mdftvcr ttAveft-ieit NOftTH tOISTO mvcn

rneNCH Fo/fT-tsrr rCAtMffS U4»0W-I9»» SX HELENA »OUNO Figure 29: Native Towns between Edisto and Winyah Bay circa 1670. Adapted from a map in Quattlebaum (1956), The Land Called Chicora: The Carolinas Under Spanish Rule with French Intrusions, 1520-1670, University of Florida Press, endpapers. to the south and the Santee and Pee Dee Rivers to the north reached into the Appalachian foothills, the rivers surrounding Charles Town drained only the piedmont region immediately north of the colony and very little else. Without direct access to the mountains, the area was not especially attractive to or strategically important for occupation and exploitation by Mississippian peoples. Perhaps more importantly, the 305 region was located between competing paramount chiefdoms. Cofitachique was located in the center of the Carolina piedmont. Archaeological evidence suggests that

Cofitachique's southern border was the Savannah River, which was utilized by peoples associated with Coosa, located just beyond the headwaters in present-day northern

Georgia and Alabama, and Mississippian peoples occupying the Oconee and Ocmulgee watershed on the south side of the Savannah. Caught between the competing interesting of at least three primary Mississippian population centers, Charleston watershed constituted a sort of no person's land between Siouan speakers associated with

Cofitachique to the north and Muskogee speakers associated with Coosa and Ocmulgee to the south.

In the intervening years, Spanish and French colonists attempted to establish permanent settlements, but their imperial designs were repeatedly frustrated by the

Indigenous peoples inhabiting the region. In 1526, Ayllon sailed from Hispaniola with

"seven ships, some five hundred men, one hundred women and negroes, eighty-nine horses, and Francisco Chicora and the other interpreters" (Wright 1981, 36). They established a settlement on either the Cape Fear or the Santee River, but the enterprise was not successful. After a ship wreck and Ayllon's death, survivors relocated south and established San Miguel de Gualdape at Winyah Bay opposite present day Georgetown,

South Carolina. After a few months, the rest of the survivors returned to Hispaniola

(Wright 1981,36).

Hardly any accounts tell exactly what the Spaniards did in their relations with the aborigines. But enough documentation has survived to make it clear that each learned a great deal about the other. Mariners sent out by Ayllon and Francisco and other interpreters disclosed much about the land. 306

and Spaniards saw at first hand large circular council houses and square grounds in coastal villages. It is not known how far inland Spanish foot- soldiers or horsemen penetrated, but some of them must have seen temple mounds and the more impressive interior towns with their caches of pearls. (Wright 1981, 36-7)

Between 1557 and 1562, the French began to challenge Spanish discovery claims in Carolina, establishing two forts: one just south of Edisto in 1557 and Charles Fort on present-day Paris Island, South Carolina in 1562. Both were complete failures. In 1562, the French challenged Spanish claims when Jean Ribaut established Charlesfort on Saint

Helena Sound. The citizens of Edisto and other Native towns in the region demonstrated their discontent with the Spanish by befriending the "French freebooters who established a base at Beaufort Sound from which to harass the Spanish gold fleets" (Corkran 1970,

3). The 26 men Ribaut left behind to defend the post were saved from starvation that summer by Cusabo peoples, who gave "food so freely that their own families were forced to subsist on acoms" (Heard 1987, 88). Within four years (1566), the Spanish had returned to destroy the French settlement, thus eliminating their relationship with the

Edisto and other Cusabo peoples. Under the direction of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the

Spaniards enlisted the aid of the Cusabo once again and built Fort San Felipe in 1566

(Corkran 1970, 3) near the ruins of Charlesfort. Juan Pardo and Hernando Boyano used

San Felipe as a base of operations for further explorations of the interior (Heard 1987,

323). The Spanish had little success converting Cusabo people to Christianity (Heard

1987, 123), however, and when food shortages began to strain relationships once again,

Pardo moved inland to live off the Natives, establishing posts of short duration (Corkran

1970, 3) and attacking Cherokee settlements (Hudson, 1976, 117-8). 307

Ten years later in 1576, the Cusabo peoples living in the Santa Elena, Beaufort, and Port Royal region revolted against Spanish attempts to stamp out Native religious practices and repeated demands for Indian com (Corkran 1970, 3), driving the Spaniards out and burning their fort. Alonso Solis, the commandant of St Elena, is said to have touched off this round of Cusabo resistance by executing two Natives suspected of murdering a Christian Indian. Faced with starvation after the withdrawal of Cusabo support, Solis sent 26 soldiers to live with them. When the soldiers demanded food, all but Hernando Boyano were killed. Solis led his men into the interior seeking revenge but was annihilated and St Elena was abandoned (Heard 1987, 341).

In 1579, Menendez Marques reestablished a base at St Elena/Beaufort and marched against the Cusabo (Corkran 1970, 3). Marques exacted "revenge" on the

Cusabo by capturing the town of Cocapoy and burning 40 people in their huts (Heard

1987, 124). The next year, the Cusabo again rebelled against the invading oppressors, eventually driving Marques from the territory (Corkran 1970, 3). The Spaniards returned again in 1582 to establish Fort Catuso, which like its predecessors thrived on Indian labor and food, but four years later in 1585, the Cusabo rebelled once again, forcing the persistent Spaniards to withdraw from the Carolina coast for a fourth time (Corkran 1970,

3). Although the Spanish maintained other missions in the area until 1655, they abandoned St Helena Sound for good in 1586 when Sir Francis Drake attacked St.

Augustine (Heard 1987, 323).

J. Leitch Wright summarizes the seemingly chaotic state of colonial affairs in

Spanish Chicora, noting. 308

For most of the sixteenth century the Atlantic Coast chain of missions stretched from just below St. Augustine 200 miles north to Santa Elena. Spain established these missions at existing towns on coastal islands or Near the mouths of rivers, where she maintained easy water communica­ tions. After Spaniards arrived, coastal towns became relatively more populous and important. (Wright 1981, 46)

English Exploration and Settlement, 1663-1670

The story of English Carolina begins with the ascension of Charles I to the

English throne in the first half of the seventeenth century. Charles wanted to do something for the French Huguenots that had found refuge from Louis XIII in England, so he granted Sir Robert Heath royal charter to 100,000 acres in October of 1629. The following year a colony of French colonists was sent to Carolina, but they were diverted to Virginia and the planned colony was never established. Thirty years later in 1661,

Massachusetts colonists attempted to colonize Carolina, but they abandoned their settlement on "Old Town Creek," present-day Cape Fear River, very quickly, leaving their livestock with Native peoples (Quattlebaum 1956, 85-6).

The story of Charles Town begins in 1663 with the royal intrigue associated with the restoration of Charles II to the throne and the re-establishment of the Stuart monarchy when John Colleton was given a royal charter to colonize Carolina. Colleton and the other seven original proprietors of Carolina, some Cromwellian soldiers, and others

Royalists united by their efforts at restoring Charles II to the thrown of England were granted territory between the 3 T' and 36"" parallel, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Seas as a reward for their service to the King(Quattlebaum 1956, 87). First organized in 1663, the proprietors were some of England's most influential citizens, including Edward Hyde first Earl of Clarendon, George Monck, William Craven, first 309

Earl of Craven, Sir John Colleton and his son Peter, Ashley Cooper, later the Earl of

Shaftsbury, William Berkley (Governor of the Virginia Colony), and Sir George Carteret

(Lesser 1995, 2-8). In addition to investments in the Hudson's Bay Company and the

Royal African Company, a majority of the proprietors had financial interests in the

Bahamas and a had additional investments in Barbados as well. Obviously, they were all well acquainted with plantation economies and the profitability of colonial enterprises.

Four of the proprietors had previously financed a colony in the northern territories on present-day Colington Island, North Carolina on the Roanoke Sound (1664) in the hope that it might capitalize on the growing demand for services and supplies in the West

Indian sugar economy, but the venture was a failure (Lesser 1995, 14). The original eight proprietors imagined they could re-establish England's feudal social order, which had been disrupted by the Enghsh Civil War, in Carolina. Under the direction of Lord

Ashley, John Locke wrote Carolina's Fundamental Constitutions, which served as a governmental template for the colony (Lesser 1995, 16-7).

Albemarle was established first, and so the territory that was to eventually become North Carolina has always maintained an autonomous history distinct from that of South Carolina even though they were originally part of the same Royal land grant to the proprietors. However, Albemarle lacked a useful harbor given its position behind the outer banks and was neglected by the proprietors, who initially did not consider offering financial incentives to prospective colonists (lesser 1995, 14).

When the Albemarle settlement stalled, the proprietors approached adventurers in

Barbados in order to facilitate settlement in Carolina, but they still refiised to provide 310 adequate financial incentives to attract settlers to Carolina, but in 1663 the convinced

William Hilton, in command of the Adventure, to explore the coast of Carolina for a suitable site for the proposed colony (Quattlebaum 1956, 87). Near the end of August

1663, Hilton approached St. Helena Sound, where the Spanish and French had struggled to plant a colony for more than a century. According to Quattlebaum's account,

Indians visited the ship, some coming from Santa Elena (Saint Helena Sound) to the south and others from land to the north east, the Chief of Edisto^' being one of them...Hilton sent his 'long boat' through the in­ land passage to Port Royal (Saint Helena Sound) and he himself accepted the invitation of Chief Edisto and visited his village. (Quattlebaum 1956, 87-8)^^

Hilton describes his encounter with Cusabo people residing among the estuaries and sea- islands surrounding present-day Beaufort, South Carolina in the following manner.

Two Indians came on board us, and said they were of St. Ellens (Santa Elena or Port Royal); being very bold and familiar; speaking many Spanish words.. .they know the use of guns.. .they told us the nearest Spaniards were at St. Augustine, and several of them had been there, which they said was but ten Days journey, and that the Spaniards used to come to them at St Ellens somtimes in conoas within Land, at other times in small vessels at sea. (Hilton 2000, 19)

This passage illustrates the extent of Cusabo knowledge of and interaction with peoples of European descent. They exhibit an understanding of strategic information and the ability to relay and communicate that information. While Cusabo of Port Royal apparently mistook Hilton and his crew for Spaniards at first, they readily approached the ship, boarded it without fear, disclosed the location of the nearest Spanish garrison and its distance, and noted the avenues of approach and frequency of Spanish visits.

After moving up the coast past St. Helena Sound and the mouth of the

Coosawhatchie River the following week, Hilton's crew encountered five "Edistow 311

Indians," one of whom stated that "one Captain Francisco and four more English were in his custody on shoar" (Hilton 2000, 19). Hilton arranged their release, but was apprehensive about doing so, refusing to disembark until the Edisto sent an Englishman who explained that they were 13 survivors of a shipwreck living with the Edisto on

Edisto Island (Hilton 2000, 19-21). Quattlebaum states that these men were slaves, and he may be correct in this assumption since the castaways in question would have lacked any clan affiliation that would have served to protect them from those who did enjoy protection from violence within communities by virtue of clan relationships.

Quattlebaum writes,

Hilton found that several English seamen were being held by the Indians as slaves, their ship having been wrecked on the coast. He bargained for their release. In the meantime, a Spanish ship entered St Elena, seeking the same English prisoners. The commander of the Spanish ship and Hilton exchanged notes. The Spaniard sent his complements and a quarter of pork and a quarter of venison, and Hilton sent his reply along with a jug of brandy. (Quattlebaum 1956, 88)

Under the guidance and direction of an Indian named Shadoo from the Edisto region

(Quattlebaum 1956, 90), Hilton sailed the Adventure as far north as Cape Fear, where

Natives supplied his crew with beef and pork, which they had obtained from the

Massachusetts colonists forty years earlier. Returning to Barbados in January 1664,

Hilton made published a favorable report of the region and received a one thousand acre land grant for his efforts (Quattlebaum 1956, 89).

In 1664 and 1665, English colonists from Barbados established a colony on the

Cape Fear River, which was called Charles Town. It prospered under the direction of Sir

John Yeamans, who ruled over the colony "like a father" and "received the uninterrupted 312 good will of all the neighboring Indians" (Rivers 1856, 70-1). The settlement's population grew to almost eight hundred inhabitants, but when Charles Town on the

Ashley was settled in 1670, the inhabitants of Charles Town at Cape Fear are said to have moved down to the new settlement (Hawks 1857, 82).

The alliance between Carolina's indigenous coastal inhabitants and English colonists was formalized three years in 1666 when Capitan Robert Sandford, who had served the Cape Fear settlement as secretary and register, left the Cape Fear settlement on a voyage of discovery. After a one week voyage, Hilton entered "Harvey Haven," now known as North Edisto. Sandford was now in the territory located between the former

Spanish settlements at Winyah and Santa Helena Sound. Quattlebaum writes,

While exploring the region, [Sandford] met an Indian known as Shadoo, who Had accompanied Hilton to Barbados and who now took four of the party. Lieutenant Harvey, Lieutenant Woory, Thomas Giles, and Henry Woodward, to the Indian town for the night and gave them much entertainment. The next day the "Cassique" (cacique) of the tribe, a large man of advanced age, sat himself and his wife on the high seat in front of the great round house and formally received Sandford and Captain George Cary, placing one on his right and one on his left. The Indians expressed their friendship fir the Englishmen by stroking them on their shoulders and at the same time sucking their breath. (Quattlebaum 1956, 90-1)

Sanford's interest was raised by the reports of his men and so he decided to "goe see that Towne: And taking with me Cap't. George Cary and a file of men I marched thitherward followed by a long traine of Indians, of whom some or other always presented himselfe to carry mee on his shoulders over any the branches of Creekes or plashy comers of Marshes on our way (Sanford 1959, 90-1). These experiences are reminiscent of Iberville's encounters on the lower Mississippi, especially the ceremonial rubbing, the Native concern will controlling the breath of the visitors, and the Native 313 desire to escort Sandford carefully into the town. When Sandford enters the town, there are many other readily identifiable similarities, which seem to be characteristic of southeastern diplomacy in the Sub-Mississippia period.

Being entered the Towne wee were conducted into a large house of Circular form (their generall house of State). Right against the entrance way a high seate of sufficient breadth for half a dozen persons on which sate the Cassuque himself (vouchsafing mee that favour) with his wife on his right hand (shee who had received those whom I had sent before). Hee was an old man of a large stature and bone. Round the house from each side of the throne quite to the entrance were lower benches filled with the whole rabble of men. Women and children. In the center of this house is kept a constant fire mounted on a great heape of Ashes and surrounded with little low furrows. Caqpt. Gary and my selfe were placed on the higher seate on each side of the Cassique, and presented with skins, accompanied with their Ceremonies of Welcome and friendship (by stroking our shoulders with their palmes and sucking in their breath the whilst). The Towne is scituate on the side or rather in the skirts of a faire forrest, in which at severall distances are diverse fields of Maiz with many little houses straglingly amonst them for habitations of the poarticualar families. On the East side and part of the South it hath a large prospect over meadowes very spacious and delightfiill. Before the door of their Statehouse is a spacious walke rowed with trees on both sides, tall and full branched, not much unlike Elms, which serves for the Exercise recreation of the men, by Couple runn after a marble bowle trolled out altern­ ately by themselves, with six footestaves in their hands, which they toss after the bowle in their race and according to the laying of the staves wine or loose the beads they contend for.. .After a fewe houres stay 1 retomed to my Vessell with a great troop of Indians att my heels, the old cassique himselfe in the number, who lay aboard mee that night without the society of any of his people, some scores of which lay in booths of their own immediate ereccon on the beach. (Sanford 1959, 91-92)

Sandford's observations are similar to Iberville's recorded experiences and observations in many respects. Aside from a preliminary meeting of subordinate ambassadors the previous day and the semi-formal procession into the town, there are many examples of what appear to be wide spread ceremonies for welcoming visitors and ambassadors. The council house with its eternal flame is especially significant as are the 314 spacious accommodations, which allow for the whole town's participation in important events like Sandford's visit. Outside the council house, which is furnished with seats that

reflect status within the town, there is a plaza where, quite obviously, men play chunky.

At the conclusion of his visit Sandford is escorted back to his ship in the same way he

had been brought to the town. Finally, the cacique spends the night on Sandford's ship,

which seems to correspond to the chiefly visits Iberville received after Calumet

ceremonies formally recognizing the opening of their new diplomatic relationship.

After leaving North Edisto, Sandford maneuvered his way through barrier islands

in the vicinity of present-day Beaufort, South Carolina, making his way to Port Royal via

an inland route under the direction of Native pilots, who remembered Hilton's earlier

voyage and directed Sandford to the sound where Hilton had repatriated the English

castaways in 1663. Arriving near present-day Paris Island, Sandford found another

Native town (Audusta/Orista) with a large cross placed in front of its Council House

(Quattlebaum 1956, 91). Sandford took on wood and water, and as he was preparing to

set sail, "the cacique of Port Royal came aboard with a young man, the son of his wife,

who he proposed should go with Sandford" (Quattlebaum 1956, 91). Sandford may not

have recognized the significance of the proposal, and as a result perhaps unwittingly, entered a formal diplomatic relationship with the Cusabo cacique of Port Royal. After

the cacique proposed an exchange of emissaries, Sandford left ship surgeon Dr. Henry

Woodward ashore, a gesture of some considerable symbolic significance given what is

known about the parameters of indigenous diplomacy. Sanford recorded the

circumstances of this extremely important public ceremony in his journal. 315

In the entry dated July 7, 1666, Sandford states that a little before nightfall, the cacique of Port Royal came aboard with his nephew and made his intention of intrusting his nephew to Sandford's care known to the Captain. Sandford, who upon an earlier occasion had learned of Henry Woodward's resolution to stay with the Indians if a convenient opportunity should arise, then went ashore with Woodward and the cacique's nephew, and in the presence of the young man's relatives and all the other inhabitants of the town asked if they approved of the cacique's proposal, which they all consented to

"with one voice" (Hilton 2000, 104). Sandford continues his narrative by reporting,

After some pause I called the Cassique and another old man (his second in authority) and their wives, and in sight and hearing of the whole Towne de­ livered Woodward into their charge, telling them that when I returned I would require him att their hands. They received him with such high testimonyes of Joy and thankfullness as hughely confirmed to mee their great desire of our friendship and society. The Cassique placed Woodward by him on the Throne, and after lead him forth and shewed him a large field of maiz which hee told him should bee his, then hee brought him the Sister of the Indian that I had with mee telling him [Woodward] that shee should tend him and dresse his victuals and be carefiil of him that soe her Brother might be the better used amongst us. I stayed a while being wounderous civilly treated after their manner, and giving Woodward formall possession of the whole Country to hold as Termnant att Will of the right Honoble the Lords Proprietors, I returned aboard and immediately weighed and fell downe. (Hilton 2000, 105)

Although Sandford portrays himself as the principle agent of the exchange, it is quite clear that he is participating in an event governed by indigenous protocols. Before the inhabitants and the principle elders of the town, who could easily be seen as the beloved men and women, Sandford witnesses the ceremonial adoption of Henry

Woodward into the leader's clan, an honor he has received by agreeing to care for, clothe, and return the cacique's nephew. As the son of the cacique's sister, this young man no 316 doubt held an important political position within the town and in all likelihood was the designated successor to his uncle. The fact that Woodward metaphorically takes the nephew's place beside the cacique "on the throne" and is symbolically, betrothed to his sister reinforces this interpretation of events. Woodward's incorporation into the political structure of the town through marriage to the daughter of the cacique's wife is a symbolically significant event that is characteristic of indigenous diplomatic and commercial protocols noted in other cross-cultural circumstances. Woodward's marriage provided access to his wife's network of clan associations, which naturally translated into diplomatic and commercial benefits for the adventurous doctor.

At the end of his account, Sandford provides a brief insight into the internal intrigues of the Cusabo alliance.

An Indian that came with me from Edistowe with Intencion to goe no fiirther then Port Royal seeing this kindnes and mutuall obligation between us and the people of this place, that his Nacon or tribe might bee within the League, voluntarily offered himself to stay with me alsoe, and would not be denyed, and thinking that soe hee should be the more acceptable hee caused himselfe to be shoaren on the Crowne, after the manner of the Port Royal Indians, a fashion which I guesse they have taken from the Spanish Fryers, thereby to ingratiate themselves with that Nacon; and indeed all along I observed a kinde of Emulacon amongst the three principall Indians of this Country {vizt.) those of Kywaha,^^ Eddistowe and Port Royall concerning us and out Friend- shipp, each contending to assure it to themselves and jealous of the other though all be allyed, and this notwithstanding that they knewe wee were in actuall warre with the Natives att Claredon [Charles Town on the Cape Fear River] and had killed and sent away many of them, ffor they frequently discoursed with us concerning the warre, told us that the Natives were noughts, their land Sandy and barren, their Counrty sickly, but if we would come amongst them Wee should fmde the Contray to all their Evills, and never any occasion of discharging our Gunns but in merriment and for pastime. (Sandford 1959 105-06) 317

Sandford's testimony reveals the Sub-Mississippia context of these encounters.

He describes regional polities competing among themselves for priority in trade and diplomatic relationships, while openly acknowledging cultural and political affinities.

The Native polities Sandford encounters possess a political consciousness that extends beyond their geographic limits of their towns and beyond the collective identity of their alliances with neighboring coastal polities. They clearly exhibit diplomatic shrewdness, enticing the English with promises of productive land and peace even though they are aware Westo colonization of the middle reaches of the Savannah River Valley has recently begun to seriously disrupted subsistence, trade, and diplomacy in the immediate vicinity.

Sandford's comments also offer a brief glimpse of English colonization in the

Carolina Territory, revealing an early dependence on the exportation of Indigenous captives as well as Native awareness of this practice. The situation in Clarendon County is microcosm of English imperial practice. Once Charles Town is relocated from the

Cape Fear River to the confluence of the Cooper and Ashley Rivers among Cusabo towns, Carolina merchants enter the fringes of Sub-Mississippia networks that connect coastal Carolina to the Mississippi River, networks that would provide slaves for exportation and markets for English manufactures in the decades to come. Charles Town was too far removed from theses Sub-Mississippia elements when it was located on the

Cape Fear River. The Cape Fear settlement was too close to Virginia, hemmed in by

Sub-Mississippia peoples to the west who controlled the Occaneechi Path and access to

Cherokee markets, and it had no direct access to Muskogee speaking towns, which were 318 spread out from the Atlantic coast into the piedmont region of present-day Georgia and

Alabama. Moving the settlement south to the confluence of the Cooper and Ashley rivers on the fringe of this Sub-Mississippia World solved each of these problems and enhanced

Charles Town's commercial and political significance within the England's Atlantic

Empire.

Sandford returned to Charles Town on the Cape Fear in July of 1666, and "to better protect the English claim to the coast, Sandford records that he 'blotted out' the

Spanish name San Romana on his map and 'writt Cape Cartrett in the room'"

(Quattlebaum 1956, 92). During the exploratory activities of Hilton and Sandford, the

Lords Proprietors continued plan for the establishment of their own colony in Carolina.

To this end they outfitted three ships, the Carolina, with Henry Brayne as master, the

Port Royal with John Russell as master, and a sloop Albemarle with Edward Baxter as master, which sailed from Downs, England bound for Barbados in August, 1669. The

Albemarle was lost in route to Barbados and the Port Royal was lost on the subsequent journey from Barbados to Carolina. Blown to Bermuda by bad weather, what was left of the flotilla sailed for Carolina under the command of Governor William Sayle. Sayle and his party of colonists entered Sewee Bay in March of 1670, a site twenty-five miles north of present-day Charleston.

At Sewee, Native peoples "received the Englishmen with hospitality, 'stroking us on the shoulders with their hands saying Bony Conraro Angles, knowing us to be English by our Collours, as we supposed'" (Quattlebaum 1956, 93). While the sailors traded with the Natives, Governor Sayle was entertained in the cacique's home, and when they 319 learned that the "English intended to settle at Port Royal, they told them that the Westoes had raided that region and that it was no longer a pleasant place to live" (Quattlebaum

1956, 93). Quattlebaum relates the story in the following manner.

After staying at Sewee for some days, the party sailed down the coast taking With them the cacique of Kayawah (Cayagua), whose territory ( Charleston Harbor) was only 'one sleep' to the south, and who had come to Sewee to meet the Englishmen. It was te is same 'very ingenious Indian' who had met Sandford in 1666 and begged him to visit his country. It was he who decided the fate of Port Royal. Governor Sayle found the Indians of Port Royal in distress. They begged the English to stay and help them fight the Westoes. The governor and council, however, listening to insistence of the Cacique of Kayawah, sailed back up the coast to what is now Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. There in, in 1670, on the west bank of the Ashley River, Governor Sayle planted his settlement, Charles Town. At a later time the settlement was moved across the Ashley to its present location on what was known as Oyster Point. At a still later time the spelling was changed to Charleston. (Quattlebaum 1956 93-4)

Of particular notice here is the cacique of Kiawah's response to the arrival of

English colonists. The fact that the Cacique of Kiawah was able to learn of their presence and able to reach them even though the English were only in Sewee Bay for a few days suggests that Indigenous methods of communication between towns were relatively efficient. Colonist Nicholas Carteret reports that the Cacique was not only well-informed and "ingenious" but also a "great linguist" (Carteret 1959, 119), qualifications that would make him an excellent diplomat. His repeated diplomatic overtures to the English illustrate not only his knowledge of geopolitical circumstances but also a mastery of cross-cultural interaction. Indigenous parameters of diplomatic interaction are clearly evident as well, following Indigenous protocols of introduction, gift exchange, and negotiation in the Sub-Mississippia context of Native towns and council houses. 320

The cacique's actions make even more sense if his proposal in placed in its proper geographic contexts. The watershed drained by the Cooper and Ashley Rivers, which converge at Oyster Point, is very small and surrounded by larger rivers that originate in the Appalachian foothills of both present-day North and South Carolina. Siouan

Speakers occupied the riparian environment north of Charles Town and Muskogee speakers occupied the riparian environments south to the south. Limited to a small geographical area by its circumscribed watershed and located between competing Sub-

Mississippia piedmont polities, the Charles Town site on the Ashley River was marginally useful to the Cacique of Kiawah and his people. By encouraging the English to settle there, he achieved a number of strategic and political advantages. First the

English would serve as a buffer between Kiawah and Siouan Speaker to the north. From

Kiawah's perspective, the English would be useful allies against the Westo expansion and a deterrent to further aggression. Kiawah would also gain political prestige by having ready access to English trade goods. The Westo had been armed by Virginia traders and by accommodating the English, Kiawah could introduce a new source of goods to region, thereby enhancing his own political influence and demonstrating his spiritual power in Sub-Mississippia terms that were evident to Native peoples throughout the region.

In 1670, Cusabo peoples once again encountered English explorers, this time under the direction of Joseph West, in search of a place to establish their colonial outpost, and some members of the Cusabo alliance freely provided badly needed food and later that year helped repel Spanish attempts to destroy Charles Town. Cusabo peoples made 321 these decisions for at least four reasons. 1) Their interaction with Spanish explorers and missionaries had been characterized by futility and violence; 2) The recent arrival of the

Westo and their subsequent colonization of the central Savannah River adversely affected

Cusabo political influence and domestic security; 3) Charles Town colonists were potentially valuable military allies, who could provide arms and serve as a buffer against northern aggression; 4) From Sub-Mississippia sociopolitical perspective, controlling the new opportunities presented by the permanent presence of English colonists provided

Cusabo towns access political and spiritual power had had become increasingly threatened with the arrival of the Spanish and then the Westo.

Given Spanish encroachment from the Atlantic coast and the increased frequency of Westo raids from the Savannah River valley, the arrival of English colonists might have been perceived as a fortuitous event among many of the Cusabo communities.

Accordingly, welcoming and providing essential services to Charles Town's colonists was motivated primarily by the necessities of cultural preservation and sociopolitical autonomy. The experiences of the previous century illustrate the cohesion and vitality of

Cusabo social traditions and political institutions, but after the arrival of the English in

1670, Cusabo peoples faced the very real possibility having to contend with the threat of imperial violence on three separate fronts, a situation that required diplomatic rather than military solutions. Caught between three competing polities (Westo, Spanish, Sub-

Mississippia Siouan speakers from the north), who were vying for ascendancy over the same territory, an alliance with Charles Town must have been perceived as the most expedient choice for those Cusabo settlements most at risk. In many respects, the 322 foundation of Carolina's spiraling indigenous alliances was laid long before the actual arrival of Englishmen in the region, clearly illustrating the fact that the initial acts of

English colonization in the American Southeast are more precisely understood when juxtaposed to the circumstances of Indigenous history and agency.

After the permanent arrival of English settlers from Barbados in 1670, the

Carolinians depended even more heavily upon their Cusabo allies. The Cusabo affiliated people of Kiawah Island welcomed English colonists in 1670, supplying them with land to grow com and necessary provisions during the first year of settlement (Corkran 1970,

4). Later in the same year, the Kiawah aided the English in defending Charles Town from a Spanish attack. Their motivation for adopting and aiding the English was probably the result of their disastrous interaction with Spanish missionaries and a desire to secure a military alliance against the nearby Westo, who having been armed with

Virginia rifles, had cut the Cusabo off from inland alliances and resources. As a result of their superior firepower and a lack of cultural affinity with the Native societies that had occupied the region since before the decline of Mississippian influences, the Westo raided Cusabo agricultural stores, and bartered Cusabo captives to the Virginians for arms and other trade goods (Corkran 1970, 4).

The initial period of exploration and settlement, which was characterized by a spirit of cooperation and alliance, came to an abrupt end in 1671 only one year after the colony was permanently established when Charles Town entered local sociopolitical negotiations of power that local colonial officials were incapable of fully appreciating, circumstances that led to repeated conflicts and ultimately into series of altercations 323 beginning with the Kussoe War in 1671 and ending with Stono land cessions in 1682

(Gallay 2002,51-2).

As Gallay notes, "The Kussoe and Stono, like other coastal Indians, remained in the low country but lost their best lands to the planters; most then lived in relative accord with the English... until the Yamassee War of 1715, after which most joined the Creek to the south or the Catawba in the Piedmont" (Gallay 2002, 52).

As the adventures of Hilton and Sandford illustrate, Cusabo peoples and settlements exhibited many qualities that can be attributed to their Mississippian and Sub-

Mississippia experiences. The most obvious is the Native interest in exchanging representatives by imposing clan obligations and kinship duties through the institution of marriage noted by Sandford in 1666. There is also physical evidence of these associations, including Mississippian architectural elements such as plazas and council house, where public ceremonies were performed under the supervision of local leaders.

Wood ward is ritually adopted into a prominent family and instantly elevated into a prestigious, and from his perspective a commercially advantageous, position. This exchange of representatives exhibits a Mississippian appreciation for the value of cross- cultural interaction and a diplomatic mechanism for promoting the sociopolitical advantages available through cross-cultural exchange. Additionally, Cusabo towns exhibit cultural affinities and maintain political relationships even though these relationships although in many respects these relationships remained competitive, which is also a quality typical of interactions between Mississippian chiefdoms and further 324 evidence that Mississippian survivals directly influenced Sub-Mississippia sociopolitical reorganization.

Sub-Mississippia Reorganization on the Atlantic Coast: Geopolitical Re-Alignment Among Cusabo Peoples

While the coastal settlements of Cusabo peoples are portrayed as a confederacy, historical circumstances suggest that their interaction with colonists at Charles Town was not necessarily centrally coordinated (Gallay 2002, 51-2) or that Cusabo peoples were divided on the best strategy for dealing with English colonists. David Corkran hints at this possibility when he makes a distinction between the Cusabo of Kiawah and the neighboring Kussoe, who are also identified in the documentary record as members of a

Cusabo Alliance (Corkran 1970, 3-4; Gallay 378n75). Corkran writes, "English friendship with the [Kiawah] did not prevent them from quarrelling with a Cusso village thirty miles up the Ashley River...and in 1671, in the Stono War, the settlers disciplined the Cussoes" (Corkran 1970, 3-4). The assertion of cultural ties and the apparent lack of diplomatic coordination may at first seem to contradictory, but given the autonomy of mound centers in the Mississippian era, and similar political arrangements that have been documented among Sub-Mississippia and Indigenous towns of the historic era, such an assertion seems well within the realm of possibilities. Differences of opinion over diplomacy with foreign influences are to be expected even under the best of circumstances. Since Cusabo peoples possessed inherent cultural similarities and had shared common historical experiences such as Sub-Misssissipia reorganization and

Spanish exploration, differences over diplomatic strategies probably didn't constitute an immediate threat to cohesiveness among Cusabo towns throughout the region. 325

Multi-ethnic and multi-linguist communities were not uncommon in the southeast, so the alliance of Cusabo towns might have contained Siouan speakers who inhabited coastal regions north of the Santee River as well. The geographical proximity of their respective communities suggests that interaction between Siouan and Muscogee speakers of the coastal zone likely occurred with some frequency, but inherent linguistic differences likely precluded the possibility of significant political integration. At least two groups of Siouan-speakers, the Sewee who resided near present-day Bull's Bay,

South Carolina and the Winyah further north, possessed geographical and technological similarities to members of the Cusabo Alliance, and although they certainly shared a common Mississippian legacy and similar Sub-Mississippia experiences, their linguistic diversity probably accentuated inherent social distinctions that resulted from interaction with different sets of inland Mississippian societies. The estuaries the Sewee and the

Winyah occupied were fed by rivers that drain the upper piedmont region of South

Carolina (Catawba/Wateree/Santee) and western piedmont of present-day North Carolina

(Yadkin/Great Pee Dee/Little Pee Dee). As a result, their primary cultural and political affiliations probably came from the Siouan-speaking peoples residing in the Carolina

Piedmont. These underlying Mississippian affinities drew Cusabo peoples and Siouan- speakers alike into the Catawba sphere of influence during the historic era and no doubt contributed to their willingness to join this confederation of tribes following the

Yamassee War, such acts of unification occurred only after many traumatic years of warfare with Spanish, French, and English agents, enslavement at the hands of Carolina's indigenous allies, and widespread exposure to European infectious diseases. 326

While the Kussoe (Cusso, Cussoe) and Stono were almost certainly members of the "Cusabo Alliance" (Swanton Bulletin 137, Map 1; Corkran 1970, 4-6; "Act of March

16, 1696" Statues 1836, 2: 309), they opposed the English settlement unlike the other members of the alliance. Since Charles Town was established within their immediate vicinity and in close proximity to their towns, villages, and public structures, their conflicts with the Carolinians were a natural consequence of English colonization. Other members of the confederacy, especially those to the south and west who were exposed to

Westo raiding, seem to have been more accommodating of the colony's presence. It is interesting that both Sandford and Sayle were directed by the Cacique of Kiawah to the estuary of the Ashley/Stono/Cooper Rivers, where in addition to the Stono and the

Kussoe, the Wando also resided, a situation that indicates the existence of real or perceived differences among the Cusabo. Competition among towns and villages within shared physical and political environments was a viable aspect of Mississippian polities, reorganized Sub-Mississippia societies, and historic southeastern tribal confederacies.

The inherent tensions of such political arrangements were resolved through Indigenous methods of mediation, negotiation, diplomacy and fluid concepts of ethnic and political identity, all derived from the reorganization of the administrative practices of

Mississippian polities, which constantly confronting the difficulties of managing ceremonial cycles and coordinating the activities of artisans, traders, and the production of food in outlying areas that underwrote the whole Mississippian enterprise.

The political and geographical circumstances of the Cusabo suggest the possibility of an indigenous political economy predicated upon Mississippian practices 327 and Sub-Mississippia conditions. If as David Anderson argues, much of the Savannah

River Valley was abandoned during the late prehistoric period (Anderson 1996, 190), representatives from Coosa might have attempted to colonize the region by occupying the adjacent Coosawhatchie River Valley as Swanton has suggested, a situation that might have led to friction and competition with Siouan-speakers to the north.

The Cusabo's experiences with the Spanish accomplished at least two things from the perspective of Carolina's indigenous peoples. Their experiences with Spanish missions and intermittent slave raids made Native peoples suspicious of European motives and practices, but these experiences almost certainly made the advantages of opening political, commercial, and spiritual relationships with Europeans readily apparent as well. This kind of Sub-Mississippia consciousness readily explains Native peoples' willingness to accommodate not only repeated Spanish attempts at colonization but also the French and English efforts to establish colonies in the region. In each case, coastal Cusabo peoples seem to use competition among Europeans to their own advantage. When English colonists arrived, they might very well have been welcomed because Cusabo peoples needed allies against the Spanish and Westo and the political value of trade was openly recognized and embraced in Sub-Mississippia societies.

Native experiences during the Spanish period of exploration must have made

Native peoples aware of the potential dangers as well, but with the added pressure of

Westo colonization, the Cusabo situation was more desperate than it had been prior to the

Westo arrival in the middle of the seventeenth century. Perhaps the English were directed to the northern reaches of Cusabo influence because it provided a degree of 328 separation between English and Cusabo populations but did not remove them from possible trading relationships. Placing the English on the northern frontier created a buffer zone between the Cusabo and their Siouan-speaking competitors, a diplomatic maneuver that placed English colonists in a role similar to the one Englishmen imagined for the Cusabo.

Cusabo Peoples as Settlement Indians

When the Lords Proprietors of Carolina imagined the future of their colonial enterprise, they did not fail to take account of the original inhabitants of the land. The

Fundamental Constitutions, written by John Locke under the direction of Lord

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, served as a blueprint for settlement and governance (Lesser 1995, 29).^° Carolina's Fundamental Constitutions reserved twelve- thousand acre tracts of land in every county for occupation of Carolina's Settlement

Indians, but because these tracts were surveyed without regard to Indigenous concepts of sociopolitical geography or arable riparian lands, "Settlement Indians" never occupied them in the feudal manner that aristocratic English proprietors had intended. However,

Native peoples did play pivotal roles in the survival and prosperity of settler populations as they began to arrive from arrive from Barbados, England, France and Scotland (Gallay

2002; Lauber 1913).

Members of the Cusabo Alliance were the original Settlement Indians, and they provided land for English settlement, supplied wild game and native crops. In the earliest days of the colony they served as a bulwark against the Westo, an Iroquoian group who had originally migrated from Pennsylvania and had obtained European weapons through 329 their trade relationship with Virginia colonists (Corkran 1970; 4; Gallay 2002, 51; Heard

1987, 384-5), Settlement Indians also became Carolinian bulwarks of another sort. They quickly became suppliers of essential services, producers of commodities.

During a Spanish siege shortly after the establishment of the colony the Sewee,^' possibly Siouan-speaking members of the Cusabo Alliance, expressed "unexpected kindness" towards the Carolinians by providing the settlement with twenty-five days of provisions in addition to three tons of com held at Sewee while the ship Carolina was in route to Virginia. According to William Owen's contemporary account, the Cusabo better supplied the settlement during the ship's absence than it was upon its retum from

Virginia (Owen 201).

Later in the colony's history when news arrived that the colony was to be invaded by the French and Spanish, Creek, Esaw (Catawba), and Cherokee warriors were employed at public expense to "protect the southem and western flanks, while Indians from the northward would be moved to protect the northern flank (Gallay 2002, 241).

Later a refuge for the protection of European women and children during times of crisis was to be designed, built, and defended by Indigenous people. As Gallay points out, "It was indicative of the colony's trust and dependence on Indians that they employed

Indians not only to scout, warn, and defend the colony from invasions and erect a haven to defend their families, but also to place their families in Indian hands during an attack"

(Gallay 2002, 242).

After the threat of conflicts with rival imperial powers lessened. Settlement

Indians provided food to the colonists, who were more interested in exploiting the 330 environment than growing their own (Silver, 1990).^^ Native peoples provided the same service the colony's growing population of African slaves, fiirther integrating themselves into Charles Town's emerging plantation economy.

In addition to the vital service of feeding the colonists and their slaves. Settlement

Indians assumed other important roles in emerging colonial enterprises. Before there were significant numbers of African slaves in the colony, they were laborers, and as the population of African slaves steadily rose and native peoples were displaced from these roles. Settlement Indians became messengers, scouts, and perhaps most significantly, trackers of run away slaves. They were producers of Indian ware, a type of ceramic flatware that was widely utilized by settlers, slaves, and indigenous peoples alike.

Settlement Indians were also significant sources of intelligence for the English colonists, providing navigational information and reconnaissance about adjacent regions and the peoples who inhabited them, activities that served both the immediate needs and long- range goals of the Carolina colonists.^^

As cross-cultural trade increased, Native people became porters, and producers of deerskins. Over time, they became the primary suppliers of Indian slaves (Gallay, 2002;

Hudson, 1976). Almost without exception, these native communities would in their turn be enslaved themselves, victims of the cycling Carolina alliances with Native peoples and an expanding slaving enterprise that required the continuous incorporation of new sets of indigenous allies. In spite of their contributions. Settlement Indians were systematically enslaved and deported to the West Indies after the English perceived them as expendable.

In this manner, they continued to enrich Charles Town colonists more directly. 331 constituting one of Charles Town's most important export commodities until the end of the proprietary period.^"^

Charles Town's Indigenous Slave Economy: Confluence of Disparate Traditions

English commercial and imperial expansion in the American southeast was significantly facilitated by the indigenous peoples of the region in many different ways and can be understood on a variety of conceptual levels. On the individual or personal level, Native peoples provided direct support to the Colony of Charles Town, providing essential services to newly arrived settler populations. English setters ate surplus indigenous agricultural products, used locally produced Native ceramics, and relied on

Indigenous alliances and environmental knowledge for their protection and survival. On a community level. Native peoples adopted or married traders into clan relationships, integrating them into a social fabric rich with relatives and economic potential. On a societal level. Indigenous institutions structured the emerging trade relationships with the

Carolinians. Institutionalized practices among southeastern tribal polities provided an essential foundation for the expansive commercial and imperial enterprises of English speaking-immigrants.

In the years preceding English colonization, the region had been a sphere of cross- cultural interaction, where Spaniards and descendants of Moundbuilders sporadically interacted. By the time the English peoples had followed Spanish explorers and missionaries into the Sub-Mississippia Southeast, Native peoples had accumulated over one hundred and fifty years of experience in adapting ancient Indigenous exchange networks and diplomatic institutions to the particular needs and desires of recently 332 arrived European colonists. The result was the incorporation of newly established

European partnerships into time-tested, pre-existing Native exchange networks. The

Sub-Mississippia Southeast of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was structured by surviving social, religious, economic, and political institutions of Mississippian societies.

Facing unprecedented environmental change and demographic challenges. Late

Mississippian societies, particularly those in the southeast, acted to preserve their cultural traditions and perpetuate their domestic security as their ancestors had: by engaging in commercial and intellectual exchange with neighboring polities; by constructing politically fluid, adaptable societies that could marshal a wide variety of human resources; by creating social relationships that overlapped political identities; and by preserving fundamental concepts that structured and enabled particular Mississippian behaviors and practices for posterity. These Mississippian survivals, reshaped by the metamorphic circumstances and subsequent adaptations of the Sub-Mississippia period, provided an Indigenous infrastructure that nurtured English commercial and imperial desires, as Native southeastern peoples reached out to and incorporated English-speaking peoples into pre-existing systems of interaction and exchange and diplomacy.

At the confluence of the Cooper and Ashley Rivers (see Figure30), the disparate traditions of Indigenous southeastemers and Western European immigrant settlers coalesced around commercial trading relationships. Entrepreneurial activities were 333

SEWEEfl S£WE£ BAY BULL BAY

CHALESTON CAIWA

HARVEr HAVEN- IMS NORTH ED15TO RIVER

Figure 30: The Immediate Indigenous Context of Charles Town at Oyster Point. Adapted from a map In Quattlebaum (1956), The Land Called Chicora: The Carolinas Under Spanish Rule with French Intrusions, 1520-1670. University of Florida Press, endpapers. predicated, in no small degree, upon the enslavement of indigenous persons. This confluence was a function of interest convergence, the intersection of mutual desires to exchange material possessions and negotiate vast cultural differences to promote domestic stability. The realization of this desire required cultural adaptation and was the catalyst for profound societal change for everyone involved. Understanding the ramifications and eventual outcomes of the ways these events shaped the future of South

Carolina, the Native societies of the southeast, the diplomacy of the colonial era, and the history of the United States, requires explorations of the Indigenous, Sub-Mississippia

Southeast and European traditions of international diplomacy, trade, and intellectual exchange. 334

The English practice of buying Indigenous slaves from Indigenous allies and deporting them to the West Indies and the northern colonies provides an ideal context for demonstrating Mississippian origins of European commercial and imperial inroad in the

American southeast. Charles Town's physical geography, its economic necessity, the complementary nature of its commercial goals and colonial desires, and its perpetually evolving relationships with Native peoples throughout the region converge around the clandestine business of buying and deporting indigenous slaves. As a result, the events and practices of this cross-cultural enterprise provide unique opportunities to observe and identify the circumstances of interest convergence and cultural negotiation.

Carolina's expansive, commercially based policies of colonization differed radically from Spanish approaches to interaction with indigenous North Americans.

While Spanish colonization is characterized by the requerimiento, the encomienda, and the overt subjugation of non-Christian peoples and institutions, England's imperial policies were informed by commercial interests, which reshaped "New World colonization as primarily a commercial endeavor" (Williams 1990, 193). As a result,

England's commercially-oriented, North American colonial policies required alliances with Indigenous peoples and a corresponding dependence on their social organizations and political institutions rather than their conversion to peasants and serfs. Perhaps the biggest reason Charles Town is an ideal situation for searching out indigenous catalysts behind English imperialism is the colony's Native context. Charles Town was established on the periphery of Mississippian networks, which were hundreds of years old and nearly continental in scope. 335

Because Mississippian political power was in part a function of trade and intellectual exchange with other Mississippian polities from the Ohio River to the Gulf of

Mexico, and from Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean, Englishmen in Carolina who wished to establish trading relationships serendipitously found themselves in the most

Oneota

Cad« oan South)

Pfaqi eniine

Figure 31: Sub-regions of Mississippian Culture. Adapted from a map in Snow (1989). The Archaeology of North America, Chelsea House, 82. advantageous position imaginable, on the edge of a vast exchange network that was being undermined by environmental and demographic stress. Surrounded by Indigenous 336 peoples who retained significant aspects of their Mississippian legacies, English traders and English products were readily incorporated into ancient indigenous exchange networks. This Mississippian context enabled Native peoples to positively influence

Charles Town's development. It also provided the essential foundation for future acts of

Indigenous confederation and political centralization.

During the proprietary period of South Carolina's colonial history, Englishmen, Scots,

German, and a variety of other European emigrants promoted a system of commercial exchange with Indigenous Americans, in which the most valuable commodities were

Indigenous Americans themselves. Built upon trade relationships that were heavily influenced by pre-Columbian practices and institutions, slavery became the vortex of a particular type of commercial interaction among Indians and Europeans,one that ultimately proved to be far more beneficial to the English than to theirindigenous trading partners. Like the desire to trade, slavery was a shared concept even though the circumstances of indigenous slavery were, in most instances, substantially different from the conditions of chattel slavery introduced by Europeans.

As a locus of cultural interface, slavery constituted a swampy and uncertain

"middle ground" (White 1991) upon which later commercial activities were constructed.

In the southeastern atmosphere of altered Mississippian diplomatic protocols and declining Mississippian exchange networks, the English subjects of Charles Town found burgeoning markets and enthusiastic partners for European commodities when

Indigenous demands happened to correspond to English supplies. In response to the willing exchange of new, novel, and usefiil commodities, Native peoples adjusted their 337 modes of production as well as their social and political organization. In the process,

Native peoples met the demands of England's emerging global mercantilism in much the same way their ancestors had negotiated and accommodated the hegemony of

Mississippian societies. Sub-Mississippia strategies of diplomacy, trade, and intellectual exchange preceded the commercial relationships initiated with the English and constituted the necessary preconditions for Charles Town's remarkable imperial expansion and commercial growth.^^

Englishmen planted their colonies on the Atlantic coast and introduced their products at a crucial moment when Mississippian trade networks were constrained by a variety of environmental, biological, and demographic difficulties, and when indigenous peoples of the southeast had become disaffected by the colonizing practices of the

Spaniards. Charles Town ultimately became the unrivaled point of exodus for indigenous slaves headed into the booming English sugar economies of the West Indies (Lauber

1913, 134-5). This was the result of two interrelated factors: 1) Access to reorganized

Mississippian exchange networks of the American interior via the Savannah River; and 2)

Charles Town's strategic location along the Atlantic trade routes of England's emerging maritime Empire.

Mississippian legacies structured Indigenous southeastern strategies for interacting with European settler populations. Shared rituals and ceremony had facilitated diplomacy and trade among Mississippian polities and other Moundbuilding societies for thousands of years. Cross-cultural interaction in the early historic era was predicated upon immediate Mississippian contexts of trade, diplomatic exchange, and 338 shared cosmological orientations. The Mississippian origins of historic southeastern tribes provided conceptual and structural frameworks that facilitated diplomacy, trade, and intellectual exchange with culturally divergent Europeans and practical mechanisms for incorporating alien concepts and novel trade goods into pre-existing Indigenous exchange networks.

Cycling Indigenous Partnerships in Proprietary South Carolina

Referring to the practice of buying and exporting native captives as "Indian

Slavery" is problematic because it does not adequately describe the nature of the enterprise, the character of its circumstances, or its direct impact on Charles Town's economy. Charles Town's slave dealers purchased native captives from Indigenous trading partners and deported them to sugar plantations in the West Indies or to English colonies in the northeast, a practice required by colonial legislation. Labor was a persistent problem for Charles Town's colonists, but the enslavement of Native peoples was a sensitive issue because Native slaves possessed knowledge of the surrounding environment and had access to resources that facilitated successftil escapes. In 1708,

Native peoples accounted for one quarter of the South Carolina slave population (Lauber

1913 106). Because slave holders feared alliances between Native and African slaves and the proprietors feared the presence of Indian slaves in the colony would alienate

Native allies, legislation was passed requiring the deportation of Native slaves within one month of their capture or face a £200 fine (Lauber 1913, 136). The purchase and deportation of Native slaves was dependent upon continuously extending diplomatic 339 relationships with increasingly distant Native polities, a process of cycling Native alliances.

The Sub-Mississippia affects on English survival, diplomatic interaction, and commercial expansion are evident from the earliest moments of colonization. Charles

Town was founded in the midst of coastal settlements formerly controlled by the competing paramount chiefdoms of Cofitachique and Coosa. These towns and villages were under increasing pressure from Iroquoian speakers filling the political vacuum created by Sub-Mississippia reorganization in the Savannah River Valley and Spanish missionaries and colonists from St. Augustine. English diplomacy incorporated coastal

Cusabo settlements first. By the time of Queen Anne's War (1701-1708), English diplomatic ties had cycled through piedmont towns. The inhabitants of these towns, which had once been associated with the paramount chiefdom of Cofitachique, were the first victims of English slaving operations.

Negotiating consecutive partnerships with newly arriving Native groups such as the Westo, Savannah, and Yamassee in the Savannah River Valley, Charles Town capitalized the emerging opportunities these trading relationships provided for making diplomatic contact with more distant Sub-Mississippia peoples in the Oconee/Ocmulgee,

Tennessee, Chattahoochee, and Coosa River Basins. Radiating inland like a hurricane,

English diplomacy drew Sub-Mississippia polities into the vortex of European Imperial intrigue through the promise of trade conducted according to indigenous protocols.

When the Yamassee War started in 1715, Charles Town's traffic in Native prisoners had 340 long since reached beyond the Mississippi River via their diplomatic relationships with the Chickasaw and other Native peoples living near the Mississippi River.

Over the course of the proprietary period, Carolina's traders spiraled outward through Native polities whose Mississippian origins were more and more explicit.

Indigenous networks of interaction "faced inward toward the Mississippi River and most of the eastern seaboard was a hinterland, on the far side of the Appalachians" (Shaffer

1992, 6). Geographically, Carolina's territorial claims closely correspond to the parameters of the Southern Appalachian sub-region, one of seven spheres of regionalized

Mississippian Culture currently recognized by archaeologists. As a result, Carolina's diplomatic interaction with Catawba, Cherokee, and especially Creek peoples provided access to Indigenous exchange networks, Indigenous peoples well versed in the psychology of cross-cultural engagement as well as potential marketplaces and the benefits of native labor.

The response of independent Native polities to the permanent English presence at

Charles Town indicates that many native peoples in the region, including more loosely allied coastal and piedmont polities, inherited a clear understanding of the importance of trade from their Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia ancestors. Native peoples residing the Catawba River north of the colony, on the Savannah River on the southwest frontier, and on Ochese Creek in the Oconee River Valley in present-day northeastern Georgia repositioned themselves in order to participate direct with commercial opportunities presented by the arrival of English colonists. The possibilities of trade and the necessity of cross-cultural diplomacy between Indians and Carolinians led to processes of intra- 341 cultural consolidations, which pushed Indigenous and Anglo Americans towards social, political, and economic centralization and confederation.

n- A,

Missis<

IPicdmont >• Charles Town

CoastaJ Plain Atlantic 'X Occan V

Gulf of Mexico South Florida " \

Figure 32: Southeastern Environmental Zones. Adapted from a map from Scarry (1994). Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-M04, University of Georgia Press, 24.

English commercial expansion during the Carolina proprietary period, a multifaceted collection of enterprises that included plantation agriculture, the production of naval stores, the trade in deerskins and other fiirs, as well as domestic construction projects initiated in order to enhance Charles Town's natural advantages, was underwritten by profits obtained by deporting Native captives. Elite members of the colony capitalized public improvements and their own plantation enterprises by 342 purchasing and deporting Native captives. Because Hfe expectancy of slaves on

Caribbean sugar plantations was very short, Charles Town's merchants found a ready, almost insatiable, for Native captives (Lauber 1913; Crane 1928; Berger 1992; Gallay

2002).

The financial benefits of trading in Indigenous slaves are clearly illustrated by the experiences of John Evans. Early in the eighteenth century the Virginian John Evans traded in the Carolina backcountry, and fragments of his barely legible account book have been preserved. Routine entries disclose the amounts of powder, shot, ball,

Vermillion, flaps or breechclouts, molasses, duffels, strouds, and petticoats exchanged for raccoon, bear, fox, and deer skins, but these accounts pale when compared to the profits available from trading Native slaves.

On February 15, 1704, Evans purchased Merrak, a ten-year-old Indian girl for 20 pounds. His most valuable skin, a buckskin, was worth two shillings. With fifty skins perpack and two packs per horse, each horseload, assuming it contained nothing but theh most expensive buckskins, was valued at £10. Evans understood that Merrak was worth more than two horseloads of peltry, which represented the annual labor of one or two warriors. (Wright 1981, 150)

Closer scrutiny of the particular nature of these processes illustrates how itinerant traders and Carolina government officials orchestrated the enslavement of Native peoples through a revolving system of indigenous partnerships, a cycling process that continued until Native Southeastern peoples completed processes of Sub-Mississippia reorganization by consolidating and integrating their external political strategies. As these acts of political consolidation preceded. Native populations were cleared from the 343 piedmont and coastal plain regions of present-day North Carolina, South Carolina,

Georgia, and Florida through warfare, slavery, and the spread of European diseases.

As the English extended their imperial horizons and western borders, they alternately incorporated increasing distant indigenous partners into their sphere of influence, thus alternating cycles of alliance and enslavement. Low overhead, advantageous rates of exchange and a readily available supply of potential captives kept the price of Native captives low in comparison to African captives. The sale and deportation of Native captives provided much needed investment capital while depopulating Native lands and opening them up to English settlement and exploitation.

These commercial benefits and the long term Imperial advantages that accrued from attacking Indigenous peoples allied with France and Spain offset the risk of investment and made the Indian slave trade irresistible to those who could afford to capitalize slaving enterprises.

One consequence of Carolina's cycling diplomacy was that Carolina's Native allies were always precariously close to being enslaved themselves, a fact that became impossible to ignore. However, Carolina traders continued to astutely manage a procession of short lived diplomatic alliances with native peoples. The spiraling nature of Native succession into English alliances and their subsequent violent destruction, enslavement coupled with relentless demographic pressures resulting from the spread of

European diseases ensured a measured progress toward English imperial goals. The scope and complexity of English colonial practices in the American southeast are more 344 readily appreciated when viewed with an appreciation of the centrality of Indigenous diplomacy to Carolina's Imperial ascendancy during the eighteenth century.

Even prior to the establishment of Charles Town at the confluence of the Cooper and Ashley Rivers, the Carolina piedmont is best described as contested territory.

Carolina's Sub-Mississippia period began in the first decades of the sixteenth century. At that time the region was the home of a number of Mississippian peoples. The paramount chiefdom of Cofitachique likely controlled much of present-day South Carolina's piedmont. The piedmont region of present-day North Carolina was also under the control of Mississippian peoples, who would later be associated with the Catawba, but their impacts on English settlement and colonization was minimal until after John Lawson's journey through the region in 1700. As Charles Town's traders tried to contain

Virginia's commercial influence and their access to Indigenous markets via the

Occaneechi Path, the importance of Carolina interactions with Catawba Towns would increase exponentially, but initially the were more immediate influences.

Aside from the proximity of Cofitachique, it is very likely that the paramount chiefdom of Coosa exercised some degree of control over the lower reaches of the

Savannah River. Access to marine resources such as salt and shells would have had been of source of significant power and influence for citizens of Coosa and the region between present-day Savannah, Georgia and Edisto, Island South Carolina is easily accessed from

Coosa territory in the Southern Appalachian Mountains via the Savannah and a series of small rivers (Ashepoo, Little Salkehatchie, Salkehatchie, Combahee, and

Coosawhatchie), which drain the most extreme southeastern comer of present-day South 345

Carolina. As Swanton has noted, many of the native towns in this region were probably

Muscogee-speakers (Swanton, 1946, Table 1) or spoke mutually intelligible Muscogee dialects, a linguistic orientation that distinguished them from Siouan-speakers up the coast from Charles Town and in the Carolina piedmont. The earliest historical documents identify the region with a series of Indigenous towns referred to as the Cusabo

Confederacy (Heard 1987, 123; Swanton 1946, 128-9). Swanton's interpretation of available geographic and linguistic evidence suggests "a possible connection with the

Coosa of Alabama" (Swanton 1946, 124), a claim that is not as improbable as it might seem at first. According to Swanton, the inland position of some of these towns and their name suggest that common cultural affinities existed between Lower Cusabo settlements on the Atlantic coast and the Coosa. According to Swanton, "There was an inland group called Coosa living on the upper courses of the Ashley and Coosawhatchie, who gave their name to that stream and the Cusabo [Confederacy] as well" (Swanton 1946, 128).^**

The geographic location of Swanton's Coosa towns indicate they could have cultural affiliations with Hitchiti-speakers in present-day eastern Georgia, especially those residing in the Oconee/Ocmulgee watershed, or Muscogee-speakers in northern Georgia on the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers. The Coosawhatchie River empties into Port Royal

Bay near present-day Beaufort, South Carolina, and if this region was controlled Coosa, it could explain why Spanish, French, and later English colonists had difficulty establishing permanent colonies in this area. Because the Coosawhatchie River is in a relatively small watershed, contains resources that would have been highly valued by Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia peoples, and is immediately adjacent to the lower Savannah River, which constituted a direct route into the chiefdom of Coosa on the western flank of the

Appalachian Mountains in present-day northwestern Georgia (Salisbury 2000, 8), the region would have held strategic geopolitical importance in the Mississippian and Sub-

Mississippia World. As a natural barrier between Coosa and Cofitachique, the Savannah

River Valley might be best understood as a contested Mississippian frontier or possibly a joint use area. Such a situation would support archaeologist David Anderson's assertion that except for areas at the headwaters and the mouth of the river, Mississippian settlement in the Savarmah River Valley had ceased in the fifteenth century.

A Precariously Balanced Settlement: The Kussoe and Stono Wars (1671-1682)

The Stono and Cusso were apparently dissenting members of the Cusabo alliance who resented and opposed the English presence. The Cusso lived beyond the headwaters of the Ashley River, near the confluence of the North and South forks of the Edisto River, a strategic location that enabled them to control the Beaufort Island watershed and access to trading places on the Savannah River near present-day Augusta.^^ Maurice Matthews, one of Charles Town's earliest and most notorious Indian slave dealers, was among the first colonists to visit these settlements (Heard 1987, 241).

The Kussoe reftised to ally with the Carolinians. Either Charles Town had infringed upon some part of their territory or The Kussoe recognized the inherent dangers of being marginalized by an alliance between the Carolinians and the Westo residing nearby on the Savannah, the Kussoe resisted the presence of English colonizers and soon came into conflict with the colonists. The colony's Grand Council, which was composed of the deputies of the Lords Proprietors and constituted the Upper House of Carolina's 347 colonial legislature, accused the Kussoe and other Indians of stealing com and complained that they "refused to comply with any fair treaties to live peaceably and quietly" {Journal of the Grand Council 1907, 8). Additionally, the Grand Council accused the Kussoe of threatening "to cut off the English in this place" and intimidating

"more friendly...Indians from trading or dealing with the colony {Journal of the Grand

Council 1907, 9), a statement that can be understood either as self-serving, colonial rhetoric or a backhanded acknowledgement of Cusso diplomacy and the existence of an

Indigenous geopolitical consciousness. In September of 1671, Governor West (Lesser

178)'°° commissioned John Godfrey and Thomas Grey to punish the Cusabo, who had begun to raid English resources in retaliation for the petty abuses of traders. According to Heard, "a considerable number of Cusabo were captured, and the tribes were forced to pay an annual tribute in deerskins" (Heard 1987, 124).

The Kussoe were, however, persistent and, from the colonists perspective, elusive. Utilizing indigenous tactics of guerilla warfare that came to characterize many future American conflicts, the Kussoe forced the Carolinians to seek them out. Three years after the Council's declaration of war, the colony's differences with the Cusso had not been reconciled, and Carolina found itself in conflict with another community of

Cusabo peoples, the Stono (Gallay 2002, 52).

The Stono lived on the Stono River in close proximity to Oyster Point when

English colonists arrived from Barbados to establish Charles Town. They were involved in a series of encounters with EngHsh colonists between 1664 and 1682 called the Stono

Wars. In July of 1674, Carolina officials accused the Stono stealing English livestock 348 and their leader of attempting to incite a conspiracy among other Cusabo tribes. The

Carolinians used this alleged conspiracy as justification for their aggression towards the

Stono and their concomitant disregard for proprietary orders forbidding the enslavement of native peoples. In retaliation for these indiscretions, the colony commissioned

Maurice Matthews to lead a militia against the Stono. Colonial leaders used the alleged conspiracy "justification for officially recognizing the institution of Indian slavery"

(Heard 1987, 344). The Kussoe and Stono conflicts continued until 1682 when Carolinas alliance with the Westo forced Cusabo peoples to cede their best land (Gallay 2002, 52).

Most of the captured Stono were sold in Charles Town's slave market and deported to the

West Indies (Heard 1987, 124). Those who managed to escape this fate were declared tributary or Settlement Indians in 1695, and each warrior was required to pay one wolf skin, one tiger skin, one bear skin, or two cat skins every year under penalty of public whipping. After this, the Stono disappeared from South Carolina's documentary record

(Heard 1987, 343-44).

The Kussoe and Stono conflicts were simply a small part of a larger, ongoing series of disputes between Cusabo peoples and European settler populations, which had begun with Spanish and French colonization efforts in the sixteenth century. The escalating violence with neighboring Native communities was probably the result of

English colonists' inability or unwillingness to accept any kind of overlapping land claim

(Gallay 2000, 51), especially those made by Indigenous peoples whose perspectives on land use and resource management diverged radically from corresponding English concepts. 349

Diplomacy with the Westo: Marginahzation of the Cusabo (1674-1680)

In addition to conflicts with members of the Cusabo alliance, Charles Town came under pressure from the Westo as well. The Westo, known to the Spanish as the

Chichimeco, had migrated to the Savannah from Virginia, where they were known as the

Richahecrian (Gallay 2002, 41). Anthropologist Marvin Smith argues that the Westo were Erie displaced by the Iroquois Wars in the middle of the seventeenth century (Smith

1987, 131-2). Documentary evidence of Westo aggression abounds (Crane 1928, Craven

1968, Corkran 1969 and 1970, Smith 1987, and Gallay 2002), and their warlike disposition is often attributed to their acquisition of guns from Virginia traders. Gallay addresses the issue by stating.

The acquisition of the gun alone is insufficient to explain why the Westo terrorized their neighbors. Instead, Westo aggression can be attributed to the two forced migrations in the fifteen years before they arrived on the Savannah and their desperate need to carve out living space. Just how many Westo migrated is unknown, though the Spanish reported that they had variously five hundred to two thousand gunmen, which implies a population of seventeen hundred to eight thousand. (Gallay 2002, 41)

The Westo immigrated to the Silver Bluff area of the Savannah River, near present-day Augusta, Georgia. Corkran characterizes them as an "Iroquoian enclave, who by Iroquoian methods had incorporated conquered southern Indians into their tribe" (Corkran 1970, 4)and had barred the Cusabo from their upcountry hunting grounds (Corkran 1970, 4), separating them from their Sub-Mississippia allies in the former territories of the Coosa chiefdom. Having migrated past Virginia, the Westo had developed a trade in firearms with the Virginians at Occaneechi Island on the

Roanoke River near present-day Danville, Virginia and were reinforced by Erie 350 refugees (Corkran 1970, 4).'°^ As early as 1661, the Westo had begun attacking

Sanish missions in Georgia and north Florida, mortally wounding the Spanish mission system in Guale and Mocama (Gallay 2002, 42) and raiding Cusabo towns for their agricultural surpluses. The year before the English arrived to establish Charles Town, the Westo had destroyed the Cusabo villages on Beaufort Sound (Corkran 1970, 5), which was one reason why at least some Cusabo towns were willing n to accommodate the English presence.

Corkran notes that by 1673, Charles Town had also begun to feel "the sting of the

Westos who had also now began to raid settlers' com and hogs. Colonists attacked the

Westo and sent Maurice Matthews to seek an anti-Westo alliance with the Issaw or

Catawba Indians 200 miles upcountry near the conjunction of the Catawba and Wateree

Rivers" (Corkran 1970, 5). Involved in escalating conflicts with neighboring Indigenous peoples, Charles Town's colonists found themselves in an increasingly untenable position.

In 1674, they entered into a trading relationship with Henry Woodward (Lord

Ashley's deputy in Carolina) and agreed to guard English borders and to supply fiirs and

Indian slaves. Gallay states that hostilities with the Westo ceased after Carolinians

"initiated an alliance by appearing at the plantation of Dr. Henry Woodward" (Gallay

2002, 54). Evidently, the Westo appeared at just the right time to defuse Cusabo resistance. Gallay notes that a after a successful diplomatic trip to Westo towns on the

Savannah, "a profitable trade in Indians slaves that lasted from 1675-1680" (Gallay 2002,

56) was opened. 351

Carolina's alliance with the Westo significantly altered Charles Town's diplomatic and military relationships with Cusabo towns. After negotiating a relationship with the Westo, Charles Town moved to increase pressure on hostile Cusabo communities, accusing a Stono chief of trying to incite a Cusabo conspiracy (Heard 1987,

343). Charles Town's declaration of war against the Stono came in July; it was followed in October by a Westo alliance negotiated by Henry Woodward in the name of Lord

Ashley, the Earl of Shaftesbury (Corkran 1970, 5). Declaring war on the Stono and concluding a trade agreement with the Westo within a few months is best understood as a diplomatic means for exerting pressure on Cusabo peoples immediately adjacent to the colony. The Cusso and the Stono and other Cusabo peoples who resisted English occupation were likely the first victims of Charles Town-Westo partnership. Un- confederated and unallied coastal and piedmont Indigenous communities were easy targets for Westo slave raids as were unprotected towns on the periphery of the Cherokee

Nation (Gallay 2002, 94).

The Westo alliances also improved Carolina's commercial opportunities.

Occupying one of regions most strategic locations on the lower Savannah River, Georgia, the Westo controlled access to the Sub-Mississippia communities in present-day

Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama and set themselves up as middlemen in the fur trade just as the Iroquois League had done in present-day New York and the Occaneechi had done in present-day Virginia. By making alliances with the most powerfiil and most advantageously situated Native group, Carolina was actively pursuing a policy of isolation against its Indigenous neighbors. After the alliance was forged. Native 352 communities residing in the territories immediately adjacent to Charles Town were politically marginalized and subsequently victimized by Westo aggression, which was financed through trade with Charles Town's slave dealers.

Already "known from Florida to Carolina as the most important Englishman in

Carolina's diplomacy with Amerindians" (Gallay 2002, 54),"^^Woodward visited Westo settlements from October 10- November 6, 1674, establishing permanent commercial and relations. Upon his safe return to Charles Town, Woodward wrote Lord Ashley, Earl of

Shaftesbury, giving him an account of his trip. Woodward's account of his experiences suggests that this emerging relationship, like his introduction into Cusabo society, seems to have been formalized according to Indigenous protocols. The Westo were an

Iroquoian-speaking people, who brought their own moundbuilding traditions and concepts of diplomacy to the Savannah River Valley. Woodward's account of his experiences is worthy of closer scrutiny primarily because it clearly illustrates the sociopolitical value Indigenous peoples east of the Mississippi River placed on trade and the degree to which trade, and corresponding mechanisms of diplomacy were institutionalized throughout the eastern woodlands, not only in the Mississippian southeast. Woodward's observations leave little doubt that the Westo were Iroquois and that trade and diplomacy were central aspects of Native life throughout the eastern woodlands.

Woodward's letter, dated December 31, 1674, describes his experiences during his first to Hickahauga, the Westo town at Silver Bluff (Hahn 2004, 28). The letter was found in the British Public Records Office, where W. Noel Sainsbury transcribed it for 353 the City Council of Charleston around 1882. The following excerpts were taken from

Sainsbury's nineteenth century transcription, which is published in the fifth volume of the

Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society. Woodward's letter provides insight into Westo sociopolitical organization, gives a description of diplomatic protocols that resemble Iberville's experiences on the Mississippi, illustrates the fundamental importance of trade to Indigenous peoples, and demonstrates the cross-cultural character of Native diplomacy. Woodward's letter lacks the detail of Iberville's journals but does provide a sense of how the negotiations were conducted. On his approach via the

Savannah River, Woodward signals his arrival with gunfire. His signal is answered with a verbal greeting and volley of small arms. The Westo are waiting Woodward's arrival, indicating a system of communication existed that was precise enough to accurately estimate Woodward's arrival. The occasion is obviously a formal one because the Westo greet Woodward "in their anticke fighting garbe" (Woodward 1897, 456). Besides the public reception, the importance of Woodward's visit is also revealed by the public audience with the local leader and the formal oratory of leading individuals. Woodward describes his welcoming ceremony in the following manner.

Having paddled about a league upp [the Savannah*] wee came in sight of ye Westoe towns, alias ye Hickauhaugau which stands upon a point of ye river upon ye westeme side soe yt ye river encompasseth two-thirds thereof When we came within [sight*] of the towne I fired my fowling piece & pistol which was answered with a hollow & and immediately thereupon they gave mee a vollew of fifty or sixty small arms. Here was a concourse of some hundred Indians drest up in their anticke fighting garbe. (Woodward 1897, 456)

Woodward's description of the Westo town leaves little doubt that they are culturally affiliated with Iroquoian peoples. The Westo town lacks the order of Sub- 354

Mississippia urban arrangements. The town is built in a confused manner, "consisting of many long houses whose sides and tops are both artifitially done with bark" (Woodward

1897, 457). This method of construction is typical of Haudenosaunee, or People of the

Longhouse, and Woodward's observation supports the assertion that the Westo were late comers to the region and culturally distinct from its original inhabitants. As a result,

Woodward's experiences lack famihar Mississippian elements associated with his adoption into Cusabo society. There is no or plaza, where public business is conducted nor a council house large enough to accommodate the entire population. However, the importance of establishing trade relationships and the existence of prescribed methods of diplomacy are still quite evident. Not only is Woodward ceremoniously greeted and publicly conducted to the local leaders residence, he is formerly introduced, housed, and feasted. Woodward writes that he was conducted through the midst of the town's population,

to their chieftans house ye which not being capable to containe ye crowd yt came to see me, ye small fry got up & uncouvered the top of ye house to satisfy their curiosity. Ye chief of ye Indians made long speeches intimateing their own strength (& as I judged their desire of friendship with us). This night having first oyled my eyes and joints with bears oyl, they present mee with divers deare skins setting before me sufficient of their food to satisfy at least a half a dozen of their own appetites. Here takeing my first nights repose. (Woodward 1897, 457-58)

Woodward began his indoctrination into North America's Indigenous cultures and methods of cross-cultural exchange culture in 1666, only eight years before his experiences with the Westo, but he is already accustomed to his work as cultural liaison, and diplomatic ambassador. He observations reveal a keen interest in, pertanent military 355 details, the availability of natural resources, and the town's location relative to other

Native populations.

Ye inland side of ye towne being double pallisadoed & yt part which fronts Ye river having only a single one, under whose steep banks seldomly less than one hundred fair canoes ready upon all occasions. They are well pro­ vided with arms, ammunition, tradeing cloath &other trade from ye north­ ward for which at set times of ye year they truck drest deare skinn furrs & and young Indian Slaves. In ten daies time yt I tarried here I viewed ye adjacent part of ye country, they are seated upon a most beautiflill soyl. Ye earth is intermingled with a sparking substance like Antimony, finding severall flakes of Isingglass in ye paths. Ye soales of my Indian shooes in which I traveled glistened like sylver. Ye clay of which their pots & pipes are made is intermingled with ye Ike substance ye wood land is abounding with various sorts of very large straite timber. (Woodward 1897, 459-60)

The silver substance Woodward noticed on the paths and in the local pottery is interesting because it illustrates way the region may have been important to Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia peoples. Galena was a highly valued commodity in Mississippian exchange networks because it was used ceremoniously as body paint. It's abundance along Woodward's route suggests that the region around Silver Bluff was once an important source for this mineral, and therefore a central part of the region's

Mississippian exchange networks. Given the fact that the Westo choose to occupy the site and that Charles Town's Indian traders established a trading factory (Savanno Town) close by, it is likely the place was recognized by Sub-Missisippia peoples as spiritually and politically significant. As such, occupation of the site and control of its resources, especially ceremonial important, might have been interpreted as demonstrating the spiritual power and political influence of its resident population.

Woodward's letter clearly illustrates that diplomacy with the Westo was conducted with an awareness of fixture diplomatic, imperial, and commercial possibilities 356 and that Woodward was well aware of the long term benefits of trade with distant Native peoples. If Woodward didn't realize the strategic importance of the Savannah River before his visit, he certainly did by the time he departed. His comments clearly reflect an awareness of the Indigenous geopolitical landscape of southern Appalachia.

Eight dais journey from ye towne ye River hath it first falls West. N. West were it divides it selfe into three branches, amongst which dividing branches inhabit ye Cowatoe (Coweta?) and Chorakae Indians with whom they are continual warrs. Forty miles distant from the towne northward they say lye ye head of Edistaw River being a great meer or lake. (Woodward 1897, 460)

Woodward's comments indicate that the occupation Silver Bluff gave its inhabitants command of the headwaters of the Edisto River and strategic advantages for controlling its resources. This political geography tends to support Swanton's assertions that the paramount chiefdom of Coosa used the Savannah and Edisto watersheds to enhance their prestige and political influence among Mississippian societies. Given the importance of marine resources such as salt and shells in Mississippian exchange networks, the possibility that paramount chiefdoms such as Coosa and Cofitachique contended for control of region after AD 1450 is high.

One of the most interesting aspects of Woodward's letter is the arrival of

Shawnee ambassadors during his visit. The people known to Woodward as the Savannah were culturally associated with the Shawnee, who "moved about the eastern woodlands so frequently that it is difficult to designate them northern or southern natives" (Heard

1987, 335). Widely dispersed from Illinois to the Savannah River when first encountered by Europeans, most of the Shawnee migrated to present-day Pennsylvania near the end of the seventeenth century, but a large contingent remained in the South, loosely affiliated 357 with Muskogee-speakers and associated Creek talwas (Heard 1987, 336).'"'^ Woodward's comments illustrate that the Savannah were not only well informed about diplomatic processes in the Savannah River Valley, but actively involved in trade and diplomacy throughout the region. Woodward reports.

Two days before my departure arrived two Savana Indians living as they said twenty days journey West Southwardly from them. There was none here yt understood them but by signes they intreated friendship of ye Westoes showing yt ye Cussetaws, Chaesaws & Chiskers were intended to come downe and fight ye Westoes. At which news they expeditiously re­ paired their pallisadoes, keeping watch all night. In the time of my abode here they gave me a young Indian boy taken from ye falls of ye river. The Savana Indians brought Spanish beeds & other trade as presents making signes yt they had commerce with white people like unto mee, whom were not good. These they civilly treated & dismissed before my departure ten of them prepared to accompany mee in my journey home. (Woodward 1897, 461).

One obvious question raised by Woodward's report is whether the arrival of the

Savannah was a coincidence. Given the fact that the Westo did not oppose or prevent a meeting with Woodward and the fact that the savarmah came with a business proposal which was respectfully declined, it seems more likely that they were aware of

Woodward's impending visit and came for the specific purpose of negotiating with

Woodward and generating political capital with the Westo themselves. More importantly, the Savannah representative exhibit practical tools of diplomacy, including sign language and some unknown diplomatic mechanism for approaching and entering the Westo town. This seemingly minor accomplishment is magnified by the fact that the

Westo were reputed to be the best armed and most violent Native group in the region.

Without knowledge of mutually acceptable means of initiating negotiations, such actions would have been dangerous if not foolish. Finally, the Savannah demonstrate an astute 358 appreciation of the art of diplomacy. Even though they are affiliated with Creek, who are are constantly at odds with the Westo, the Savannah representatives are able to turn a delicate situation to their advantage by providing, or at least pretending to provide, pertinent military information. In this way they repay the hospitality of their hosts and create a little political capital, which will undoubtedly enhance the productivity of ftiture negotiations.

Woodward's alliance with the Westo, which was made possible by a proprietary monopoly over the trade with native peoples that Woodward managed in

Lord Ashley's name, angered many colonists, especially when the Westo began to seize friendly Indians, who served vital roles in the local economy, as slaves (Heard

1986, 385). The Westo Alliance was not popular with all of Charles Town's inhabitants. Many of the colonists did not receive direct benefits from trade with distant Indians. All of the colonists were placed at risk by colonial policies permitting the conduct of the Indian slave trade. Because the Westo were reputed to be violent, warlike cannibals, most colonists were opposed to providing with arms by means the slave trade, especially since these policies favored only a few of the colony's elite residents while potentially placing the rest in harm's way. But while it wasn't popular with everyone in the colony. Woodward's Westo alliance gave

Charles Town's traders indirect access to Native markets beyond the southern

Appalachian Mountains and provided a solid foundation for expanding its political influence. The Westo continued to be the primary suppliers of Indian slaves until the end of the Westo Wars in 1683, when colonial officials who were opposed to the 359 proprietary monopoly and the ban on trading in Indian slaves armed the Savannah, who defeated and enslaved the Westo. In less than two years, the Savannah had also been driven out, and Scots settlers at Stuart town had recruited the Yamassee, who had abandoned the Spanish encomienda system in present-day eastern Georgia and

Florida, to serve as laborers and as a buffer against attacks.

Westo Trade and the Escalation of Indian Slavery

The long term implications of Carolina's alliance with the Westo are evident in their behavior following the defeat of the Stono. According to Heard, "After most of the

Stono were sold in the West Indies, the traders began seizing friendly [Cusabo] Indians for slaves" (Heard 1987, 124), actions that would have been extremely detrimental to the well being of the colony if Charles Town's Indian frontier had not already been extended to Westo territory on the Savannah River by Woodward's alliance.

Concluding a trade agreement with the Westo marginalized the Cusabo and opened the second act of Carolina's spiraling indigenous diplomacy. Over the next ten years, Charles Town's relationship with the best armed, most feared indigenous group in the immediate vicinity (Corkran 1970, 5) allowed the English to extend their indigenous bulwark in the south to the Savannah River. As a further consequence of this trade alliance, the coastal peoples of the Cusabo confederacy were marginalized. After trade opened between the Westo and the Carolinians, they constituted a buffer zone between

Charles Town and the Westo, so Cusabo settlements were vulnerable to Westo slave raids, and their domestic security became a function of Carolina's foreign pohcy. Cusabo communities "in amity with the colony" could expect the English to intervene with the 360

Westo on their behalf. Those Indigenous communities that refused English diplomatic overtures could not. The Charles Town-Westo alliance made Cusabo peoples increasingly dependent on Charles Town's diplomatic good will, less able to counter the imperial demands of the English, and more vulnerable to the depredations of the Westo.

Their slide into tributary status was precipitated by a revolving Indigenous diplomacy that readily incorporated new diplomatic partners at the expense of former allies, and until the Westo Wars (1680-83), the partnership between the Westo and the English proved to be lucrative and mutually beneficially.

From 1675-1680, the Westo would remain Charles Town's primary trading partners and the primary suppliers of Indian slaves. As David Corkran points out in The

Carolina Indian Frontier,

As the best armed of the southern Indians the Westos had intimidated all of the Indians of the southeast warring effectively on the Cusabos, Yamasees, Creeks, Cherokees and Catawbas from which they took numerous prisoners whom they sold to the Charleston slave trade. The colony regarded Woodward's alliance as having raised up an effective counter to Spanish efforts among the southeastern Indians...The traders sensing a big market for slaves both in the colony and abroad, subsidized the Westos in wars which became primarily slave raids.. .Many a Cusabo bought from the Westos was sold by colonial slave traders in New York, New England, and the West Indies. (Corkran 1970, 5).

During the three-year alliance, the Westo "preyed on Spanish-allied Indians in Quale and

Mocama. They also continued to attack other groups, including the Settlement Indians.

The Westo also continued their wars with the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Chisaca, Coweta, and Cuseeta" (Gallay 2002, 56). The Westo financed their wars and raids through the sale of Native captives to Charles Town's slave dealers. The alliance enriched some of 361 the colony's residents but factionalized the settler population and limited Charles Town diplomatic opportunities with Indigenous peoples outside of the colony.

After Woodward opened diplomacy with Muskogee-speaking peoples, the

Carolinians began to marginalize the Westo as they had the Cusabo. Charles Town's traders began to see the Westo as too powerful and as an obstruction to trade with

Muskogee-speakers in present-day Georgia and Alabama. Increasingly marginalized by

Charles Town's expanding sphere of trade relationships, the Westo they were displaced, and themselves enslaved by the Savannah, who had been armed and encouraged and financed by colonial officials and local elites (Berger 1991, 48).

Carolina's diplomacy with coastal Cusabo towns and later with the Westo residing at the mid-point of the Savannah River exemplifies Carolina's approach to colonization. By opening direct relations with the Westo, Carolina placed Natives towns in the piedmont in an untenable position. By opening direct relations with

Muskogee-speaking peoples across the Savannah River, Carolina was able to marginalize the Westo, who in 1670 were among the greatest threats to native and non-natives southeastern residents alike. When Charles Town's traders realized that the Westo occupation of the Savannah was blocking access to lucrative Indigenous markets, local slave dealers orchestrated their destruction and enslavement, using the profits to finance fiirther commercial expansion and imperial wars against Spanish missions in present-day Florida. Westo War

In 1680, the Westo War broke out. The proprietors allied with the Westo and the planters and other colonists allied with the Savannah (Crane 1928; Berger 1992; Gallay

2002). According to Heard, the proprietors accused the colonists of slaying Westo chiefs during treaty negotiations, inaugurating "an orgy of slave dealing" (Heard 1986, 385).

The primary catalyst for the Westo War (1680-1683) was the inherent tension between proprietary Indian policy and the colonial practice of trading and enslaving native peoples, activities that were closely associated with one another in South Carolina prior to the eighteenth century. In accordance with proprietary law, "colonists could only trade with local Indians, which they did for foodstuffs, pelts, and slaves. But the proprietors reserved for their agents the potentially profitable trade with the large tribes outside the colony, which local elites eyed greedily" (Gallay 2002, 50). While the administration of was a source of constant conflict between the proprietors their representative within the colony, the Westo War was the first of many overt clashes between these parties. The

London proprietors of the colony were primarily interested in the deerskin trade, but the settlers in the colony, immigrants from the English colony in Barbados where African slavery and monoculture agriculture were firmly established, found the trade in Indian slaves more lucrative (Gallay 2002, 48). As the Westo conflict escalated, each side armed its own set of Indian allies. After three years, the Savannah Indians and the English settlers from Barbados prevailed, and the "development of a full-scale slave trade was assured" (Gallay 2002, 48). 363

The defeat of the Westo gave Charles Town access to more lucrative markets among Muscogee speaking towns along the Chattahoochee River, settlements Henry

Woodward had visited ten years earlier (Hahn 2004 33). Besides the economic consequences, the defeat of the Westo had serious political ramifications as well. The circumstances of the conflict clearly illustrated the London based proprietors' inability to control their administrative officials or shape the exercise of delegated royal authority within the colony.

Gallay concisely summarizes the situation in the following manner:

With almost total disdain for proprietary rules and imperial law, the colony became a haven for pirates who traded with elites, probably for items they would have little difficulty trading elsewhere-pelts and Indian slaves. Abuse of office led the proprietors frequently to remove governors, periodically heightening the intense competition for office and the inevitable vying for the ear of the new governors. Neither Crown nor proprietors could force the Carolina elite to accept the rule of law, though English discontent over the colony's active participation with pirates ultimately led to an imperial crack­ down. (Gallay 2002, 50)

In the years following the Westo War, the English enjoyed a short, uneasy alliance with the Savannah, who the Indian Traders had armed and encouraged during the

Westo War. Charles Town's alliance with the Savannah was short-lived and served principally as a means of enslaving the inhabitants of Winyah and dislodging the Westo from their strategic position on the Savannah River. Although the alliance short, it was nevertheless vital to the survival and security of the colony. The rise of the Savannah alliance had resulted in the defeat and enslavement of the Westo, which enhanced the power of elite citizens within the colony at the expense of the proprietors and their representatives, practically demonstrating the limited extent of proprietary control and Royal supervision. With the help of the Savannah, the Carolinians enslaved most of the remaining members of the Cusabo confederacy before initiating alliances with the

Catawba and confronting the next unintended consequence of their ad hoc Indian Policy, the potential threat they had created by arming the Savannah.

After enabling Charles Town's destruction of the Westo and the Winyah, the

Savannah were probably destined to meet a fate similar, but they managed to avoid the destiny that befell their predecessors. Pressured by Catawba groups who had been armed by one of Charles Town's competing factions and perhaps suspicious of English motives and checkered relationships with native peoples of the region, most of the Savannah deserted their towns along the Savannah River in June 1707 (Gallay 2002, 210). The

Savannah relocated most of their towns to Maryland and Pennsylvania, where they reported to Pennsylvania Governor John Evans that they had been forced to leave the

Savannah River after having been besieged by Catawba peoples under the direction

Carolinian James Moore (Gallay 2002, 210).

Charles Town's brief alliance with the Savannah and the successful completion of hostilities against the Westo was followed by two other significant events: the emigration of Scots settlers to Port Royal under the direction of Lord Cardross and William Dunlop and the migration of the Yamassee under the leadership of Altamaha from Spanish territories in the south to vacant lands along the coast and in the Savannah River Valley.

Muscogee and Hitchi Speakers: Yamassee Alliances with the Scots at Port Royal

Less than two years after the defeat of the Westo, the Scottish inhabitants of

Stuart Town, in present-day Beaufort County, welcomed the arrival of the Yamassee 365 from Spanish Florida (1685).'°^ The arrival of the Yamassee on the Savannah River dramatically changed the dynamics of the Indian slave trade. After their arrival in the mid 1680s, they helped re-direct the focus of English slaving activities towards Indian nations of the Florida peninsula, who had accommodated the presence of the Spanish and endured the encomienda. Bolstered by the destruction of the Westo and their new alliance with the Yamassee, the Carolinians continued to cycle through indigenous partnerships.

Henry Erskine (Lord Cardross), leader of the Scots who had come to America to establish a Covenanter's refuge, persuaded the chief Altamaha to settle his followers on

St. Helena and Hilton Head Islands to serve as a buffer against the Spanish and their

Indian allies. Cardross armed Altamaha and his warriors and incited them to raid the

Spanish mission of Timucua, west of St. Augustine. The raiders burned several Timucua towns destroying the churches, killing 50 Indians, and bringing back 22 warriors as slaves. Upon their return Lord Cardross met them at the Savannah River and purchased the slaves and plunder (Heard 1987, 12).

The Yamassee were a large tribe of Muskogee-speakers, living on the Altamaha

River in the Spanish province of Quale (present-day eastern Georgia) and northern

Florida when they encountered de Soto's expedition. They were staunch allies of the

Spanish for almost one hundred years, occupying mission settlements along the Atlantic coast (Heard 1987, 400). Alienated from the Spanish mission system by attempts to send

Yamassee people to the West Indies as laborers, the Yamassee migrated into Carolina's 366 sphere of influence in 1685 under the direction of Altamaha (Heard 1987, 12), where they established twelve towns (Heard 1987, 400).

The arrival of the Yamassee on the Savannah River dramatically changed the dynamics of Indian diplomacy and trade. After their arrival in the mid 1680s, they helped re-direct the focus of English slaving activities towards Indian nations in Florida, who continued to accommodate the presence of the Spanish and to endure the encomienda. They also became liaisons between Carolina and Muskogee-speakers living on the Chattahoochee River.

Henry Erskine (Lord Cardross), leader of the Scots who had come to America to establish a Covenanter's refuge, persuaded the chief Altamaha to settle his followers on

St. Helena and Hilton Head Islands to serve as a buffer against the Spanish and their

Indian allies. Cardross armed Altamaha and his warriors and incited them to raid the

Spanish mission of Timucua, west of St. Augustine. The raiders burned several Timucua towns, destroying the churches, killing 50 Indians, and bringing back 22 warriors as slaves. Upon their return Lord Cardross met them at the Savannah River and purchased the slaves and plunder (Heard 1987, 12).

The arrival of the Yamassee signaled the end of Charles Town's initial twenty- five period of exploration and settlement and the initialization of more sustained, but equally volatile, relations with native peoples of the surrounding vicinity. Yamassee migration into the Savannah River valley had been made possible by the destruction of the Westo, who had fallen victim to the similar military tactics and diplomatic policies that had destroyed the Cusabo and other coastal tribes and forced the Savannah, the 367 principle agents of the Carolina's desire to rid themselves of the troublesome Westo alliance, into a hasty northern retreat.

The Yamassee would remain one of Carolina's most important indigenous allies until the outbreak of the Yamassee War (1715). From the time of their arrival in the

Savannah River valley until their orchestration of region-wide, native retaliation against

Charles Town's corrupt Indian traders, the Yamassee spearheaded slave raids into eastern, central, and southern Florida. They also led numerous assaults against fortified

Spanish positions throughout la Florida, especially during the War of Spanish Accession

(1702-1708). The Yamassee were also an important part of Charles Town's offensive against native settlements in North Carolina during the Tuscarora War (1711-12), actions which continued to capitalize Charles Town's expansion, depopulate resource rich environments, and entrench Carolina's commercial importance to the region.

Carolina's Expanding Indian Frontier: A Second Layer of Sub-Mississippia Polities

Charles Town's alliance with the Yamassee did not preclude the Carolinians from courting the friendship of more distance Muscogee speakers. While the Yamassee relocated their towns to Savannah River and opened diplomatic relations with the Scots,

Henry Woodward ventured into the Spanish sphere of influence seeking to cement alliances with Muscogee speakers on the Chattahoochee River (Hahn 2004, 40). Shortly after his trip to Hickahuaga in 1674, Woodward traveled Cussita, where he "forged a multilateral peace agreement between the Carolinians, the Westoes, and the 'Cussetoes'"

(Hahn 2004, 33). It was Carolina's first diplomatic interaction with Indigenous towns on the Chattahoochee River, and this alliance ultimately formed the basis of Carolina most 368 productive and advantageous Indigenous partnership. In the summer of 1685, Woodward and a group of English traders returned to the Chattahoochee River to renew the relationships they had opened a decade earher, "implementing an accelerated phase of the imperial struggle between England and Spain" (Hahn 2004, 40).

Woodward's return to the Chattahoochee was motivated by three things other than Charles Town's traders' desire to expand their growing Indigenous commercial networks. A Native diplomatic overture from the Chattahoochee towns of Cussita and

Coweta was the most significant factor influencing Woodward's decision to return to the

Chattahoochee River. The second factor was the existence of preexisting relationships between the Yamassee and the Chattahoochee towns of Cussita and Coweta.The third factor was competition from Scots traders at Stuart's Town, whose alliance with the

Yamassee threatened Woodward's own commercial interests as well as the interests of the proprietors he represented.

In the spring of 1685, Coweta and the Cussita used a preexisting Indigenous communication network to inform Cardross and Dunlop of their desire to trade. Dunlop reported to patrons in Scotland that the two towns had made contact by word of mouth, expressing both a desire to trade with the Carolina settlements and dissatisfaction with the Spanish. WTiile Cardross and Dunlop were devising a method for interaction and trade with Cussita and Coweta, their plans came to light, and Woodward moved to preempt the Scots plan, hastily departing Charles Town with his own goods in April

(Hahn 2004, 41-2). Woodward was also lucky. As Hahn reports.

After being briefly detained by the Scot's at Stuart's Town, Woodward made The acquaintance of a Yamassee headman named Niquisaya, who had 369

connections to the interior and may have even hved in the vicinity of Coweta and Cussita between 1683 and 1685. Making Niquisaya's acquaintance proved beneficial, for the headman volunteered to guide Woodward to the Chattahoochee and offered his own people as burdeners. Soon after. Woodward and Niquisaya in addition to seven or eight other traders and approximately fifty Yamassee burdeners, departed Stuart's Town and made their way to the Chattahoochee. (Hahn 2004 42)

Coweta's role in opening trade between Chattahoochee towns and Charles Town was the basis of Coweta's political influence in matter relating to the Carolinians.

Because they had opened the path, Coweta reserved a privileged position with Carolina vis-a-vis other Chattahoochee towns. Following the Indigenous practice of deferring to particular towns or clans that had prior claim to European trade, Other Chattahoochee towns allowed Coweta to lead negotiations over prices, treaties, and other pressing matters (Hahn 2004, 42). Even in the late eighteenth century. Creek leaders continued to recognize Coweta's priority in diplomatic and commercial relations with Carolina because they had been primarily responsible for opening the path. These actions clearly reflect Mississippian influences in that Coweta's diplomatic success lead directly to political and commercial influence. The longevity of Coweta's claims to priority in dealing with Carolina demonstrates that Native peoples continued to order their political and commercial relationships according to Indigenous protocols and concepts of power constructed upon the control and redistribution of trade goods. By 1690, Coweta and

Cussita had orchestrated an Indigenous relocation to Ocmulgee River Valley, where they became known as the Ochese Creek Indians and conducted a twenty-year war against the missions and presidios of Florida, an ongoing conflict that may seen as an act of revenge against Spain's Christian allies for abandoning the duties and obligations sociopolitical 370 alliance among Chattahoochee talwas (Hahn 2004, 48). The importance of the Ochese

Creek peoples to Charles Town's expanding commercial networks and their imperial struggle with Spain cannot be overstated. As Hahn notes,

The Ocheses and their allies became the most powerful and militaristic Indians of the Southeast. Gradually, particularly in the years following the collapse of the Spanish mission in 1705, the slaving wars against Christian Indians evolved into an imperial war, when Carolina traders began encouraging the Ocheses to escalate their attacks on those living in the remaining Spanish and French possessions. (Hahn 2004, 49)

Diplomacy with the Ochese Creek Indians

The relocation of Chattahoochee towns and other southeastern Native peoples to the Ocmulgee River Valley was complete by 1691 (Hahn 2004, 48). Two largest of the largest factors for the relocation were dissatisfaction with Spanish colonialism and a desire to trade with English colonists at Charles Town. The Native exodus from Spanish influence was lead by Coweta, Cussita, and Apalachicola, towns on the Lower

Chattahoochee River in the Apalachicola province of Spanish Florida, but other Native peoples from throughout the region joined the relocation, and the Ochese Creek settlements became a "diverse group of like-minded Indian peoples" (Hahn 2004, 48), who were divided by language and ethnicity but shared the common goal of enjoying the benefits of the Carolina trade alliance" (Hahn 2004, 52) and figured to profit handsomely by selling their war captives (Hahn 2004, 53).

Although this demographic readjustment began with the wholesale relocation of the Apalachicola towns on the Ocmulgee and Oconee Rivers, it is impor­ tant to emphasize that people from a variety of locations made a similar exodus to Ochese. Ochese Creek, then, was not simply the new home of the Cowetas, Cussitas, and the Apalachicolas but was a locus of settlement that attracted a variety of Indian groups fleeing Spanish aggression and participa­ ting in Carolina's burgeoning trade in deerskins and Indian slaves. Bearing 371

in mind these incentives, the flight to Ochese Creek should be seen as a patently political act made in a self-conscious attempt to achieve that particular end. (Hahn 2004, 51)

If these political acts of self interest are viewed from Native perspectives that include an awareness of Native Mississippian pasts, relocation to Ochese Creek can also be understood as part of Sub-Mississippia processes of sociopolitical reorganization as the descendants of Mississippian moundbuilding tried to come to terms with changing circumstances by adhering to Indigenous principles and concepts. In the absence of major Mississippian polities and the decentralization of their exchange networks. Native populations might have recognized the spiritual, and well as the economic, value in associating with recently established European colonies. Native towns on the

Chattahoochee relocated to Spanish missions, alienating social conservatives, who viewed the abandonment of Indigenous forms of sociopolitical organization as a kind of sacrilege that from Native southeastern perspectives placed whole communities, and even the order of the universe, at risk. As towns and clans ceased participating in collective ceremonies designed to restore order to the natural world and harmony to sociopolitical relationships, the world became increasingly chaotic. Since political influence in the

Indigenous southeast had traditionally been a function of the control of exotic trade goods and English settlers were increasingly willing to engage in exchange and reciprocal social arrangements. Native peoples may have relocated to Ochese Creek for political reasons that were Mississippian in origin, opening relations with Charles Towns traders to further enhance their own sociopolitical influence and moving closer to Charles town to facilitate a Mississippian structured coup. 372

Native southeastemers had witnessed Mississippian power wax and wane among various localities for centuries. This kind of cycling was characteristic of Indigenous politics, and as the most recent additions to the southeast's sociopolitical matrix,

European colonies may have appeared in time to occupy the vacuums created by Sub-

Mississipia reorganization. By moving to Ochese Creek, Native peoples were strategically placing themselves equal distances from Charles Town and Apalachicola.

Occupying territory between two competing polities gave Ochese Creek communities the opportunity to benefit from interacting with each while reducing the social and political threats they presented, a lesson that could have come from the negotiation of

Mississippian hegemony of separate Mississippian chiefdoms. Certainly trade and the desire to possess guns was a part of the motivation for the Indigenous exodus to

Ocmulgee, but motivation is distinct from the ordering principle that guide decision making processes. Ochese Creek peoples wanted to trade and they wanted to increase their political influence but they were incapable of accomplishing these goals by adhering to European methods. Indigenous histories and experienced structured the relocation to

Ochese Creek even though the primary object of that relocation might have been to

"profit handsomely by selling war captives" (Hahn 2004, 53).

Coweta, Cussita, and Apalachicola were joined on Ochese Creek by a number of other southeastern groups, including the Sabacolas, who lived in a mission town at the confluence of the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. A significant number of people from towns on the Tallapoosa River also relocated to Ochese Creek, including at least ssome portion of three separate towns, Tuckebatchee, Atasi, and Tallassee (Hahn 2004, 51). 373

Additionally, remnant bands of Cherokee, a northern branch of the Westo, and

Yamassee-speaking Chehaws and Tamas, who fled Spanish missions in Apalachee (Hahn

2004, 52) relocated to Ochese, each apparently making their own political statement by attempting to control some aspect of Charles Town's expanding networks of exchange.

By relocating their communities from the lower Chattahoochee to the confluence of the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers, the peoples of Ochese Creek placed themselves on the southern flank of relocated Yamassee towns, immediately adjacent to Savannah

River. In this position, the Ochese Creek peoples benefited from the Yamassee barrier as much as the Carolinians at Charles Town. Removed from Spanish spheres of influence and insulated from coastal raids, the Ochese peoples had mitigated the potential of direct European action against their settlements, and they were able to enjoy the benefits of direct trade with the Carolinians. From this centralized location, they were also able to monitor and regulate trade between Carolina and other Muscogee speakers in the west. Additionally, the peoples of Ochese Creek were able to manage their diplomatic relationships with the English, French and Spanish more effectively.

Coordinating their international diplomacy from a centralized, militarily advantageous location, the Ochese Creek towns began to exact revenge from their former neighbors along the lower Apalachicola River in western Florida. For the next twenty years, the

Ochese Creek towns would intermittingly raid western "Florida's Christianized Indians, whom the Ocheses apparently blamed for harboring the Spanish" (Hahn 2004, 52). In the process, the Ochese Creek settlements proved to be one of Charles Town's most important commercial partners and one of England's most important colonial allies. 374 weakening the Spanish encomienda in west Florida, disrupting French and Spanish attempts to coordinate anti-English policies during the War of Spanish Accession, depopulating productive agricultural areas, and enriching Charles Town's slave and fur merchants.

Apalachicola province was undergoing processes of sociopolitical reorganization during the last half of the sixteenth century. The permanent presence of the Spanish had introduced disease, missions, and encomienda servitude to the region. These factors dramatically altered the balance of power among Native towns in the area because there was disagreement on how to deal with the disruptive presence of the Spanish and reordered social, economic, and political circumstances. The dynamic is a familiar colonial situation. Some towns accommodated the Spanish, taking what few benefits were offered by submission to Spanish political authority and adoption of Christianity.

Other resisted Spanish attempts to disrupt and usurp Indigenous social and political institutions. They resisted by militarily opposing the Spanish when circumstances dictated. Towns also resisted by adhering to Indigenous forms of sociopolitical organization and Native religious principles and philosophical concepts. In 1686, the

Spanish marched on Apalachicola province and reduced four of its towns to ashes in retaliation for having welcoming and opening diplomatic relations with the Carolinians

(Hahn 2004, 40-4). An uneasy peace was restored, but the circumstances of Spanish occupation led Indigenous leaders to seek out alternate means of resisting, and apparently the relocation to Ochese Creek was one option. According to Hahn, the situation reached a critical turning point in the fall of 1679 when the chief of Coweta used the threat of 375 force to drive Franciscan missionaries out of the town of Apalachicola (Hahn 2004, 34), which was located on the lower Chattahoochee and therefore more directly affected by

Spanish colonialism. As the Spanish and Chattahoochee towns negotiated issues of

Christianization and international diplomacy, the leaders of Coweta, Cussita, and

Apalachicola made arrangements to relocate ftirther from the Spanish and closer to the

English. Perhaps this decision was motivated by a desire for trade, but it is readily apparent that social and political considerations and an awareness of geopolitical circumstances also influenced their choices. The practical choices, the ongoing multilateral interactions with European colonists and the relationships among Native towns indicate the towns of the lower Chattahoochee were practiced in the art of negotiating fluctuations in political influence and military power. The actions and statements of Coweta and Apalachicola leaders suggest Mississippian influences. As

Hahn notes,

The remarks of both the Coweta chief and Apalachicola chief suggest that the Mississippian collapse was incomplete, and that the Apalachicola pro­ vince bore the form, if not the substance, of a multicommunity "chiefdom." It is evident, for example, that late-seventeenth century chiefs believed that individual towns, though independent to a great extent, were ranked according to their perceived antiquity or influence. Perhaps due to its antiquity, the Apalachicola chief claimed authority over five towns, including his own. But even he appears to have deferred to the chief of Coweta when it came time to issue a final word to Marquez concerning the offer of peace and priests. The chief of Coweta's own "dominion" further suggests a "chiefdom" level of political concentration since it consisted of nine to eleven towns all located on the same river. Thus it appears that even in the wake of catastrophic population losses and a denuded cult of the chief, political traditions of the past still habituated the late-seventeenth-century inhabitants of the Chattahoochee River and caused them to look upon their riverine populations as part of a broader political community. (Hahn 2004, 38-9) 376

Coweta, Cussita, and Apalachicola leaders orchestrated their departure to Ochese

Creek without Spanish colonial officials discovering the plan. While town leaders concealed their plans, new towns and agricultural fields were prepared at Ochese Creek in the year leading up to the relocation, (Hahn 2004, 50), and in 1691 less than a year after relocation, the Ochese Creek peoples "commenced a protracted war against Spanish

Florida that occupied both for the better part of twenty years" (Hahn 2004, 52). During these extended conflicts, Ochese Creek raiders "specifically targeted Christian Indians" and "symbols of Christianity" including churches, convents, and accouterments of the faith (Hahn 2004, 54-5), which according to Hahn "conforms to ancient warfare practices found in the Southeast. Mississippian era warriors, for example, specifically targeted ceremonial platform mounds and looted the chiefs house of the sacred ritual paraphernalia so important to chiefly power as it is understood by archaeologists. The

Ochese War against Spanish Florida coincided with an imperial struggle between Spain and England, but according to Hahn, the "Ocheses were not fighting Queen Anne's War.

Instead, their struggle was a war of retribution against the Hispanic and Christian menace, the fruits of which they intended to expropriate for themselves" (Hahn 2004,

62).

The de facto military alliance between the Ochese Creek peoples and Charles

Town was formalized in 1705 at Coweta, where the first Anglo-Creek treaty, known as

"The Humble Submission of Several Kings, Princes, Generals to the Crown of England," was negotiated and ratified on August 15 (Hahn 2004, 65). Among those who signed the treaty, the "tangible result of a ritual event conducted in the Coweta council house" 377

(Hahn 2004, 66), was the leader of Coweta, Brims. Brims became "one of the most important Creek leaders in the first half of the eighteenth century" (Hahn 2004, 66) implementing a policy of diplomatic neutrality Hahn describes as the Coweta Resolution.

The Coweta resolution was a foreign policy strategy that allowed towns associated with the Ochese Creek peoples throughout present-day Georgia and Alabama to pit vying

European interests against one another in order to promote their own interests. The delicate diplomatic process of playing competing European interests of one another is the one of the most striking examples of how Mississippian influences structured the actions of Native peoples in the colonial era.

While an extensive treatment of this subject is beyond the scope of this dissertation, a few examples should illustrate the validity of asserting that the policy of

Creek neutrality that Brim orchestrated in the eighteen century was a product of his

Mississippian influences that continued to structure Indigenous strategies for dealing with

European settler populations. Brim's policies were rooted in kinship. Because the culture of Creek diplomacy placed greater emphasis on reciprocal relationships between particular people and was inherently parochial rather than state oriented, Brims did not forge a unified Creek foreign policy as much as he allowed the constituent parts of the collective Creek sociopolitical entity to cultivate their own personal political networks, which he monitored and controlled through kin and clan relationships. For example

Brims' maternal niece, Coosaponakeesa or Mary Bosomworth, played a central role in restoring peace between Coweta and Carolina after the Yamassee War. Her betrothal to

John Musgrove effectively bound the groups together according to the rules of kinship 378 reciprocity (Hahn 2004 105), a diplomatic process that was completed as Spanish representatives made their way to the Chattahoochee for negotiations with Brims. Brims also took advantage of close alliances with Chislacaliche, Adrian the Apalachee chief, and his younger kinsmen Chipacasi to court the Spanish and French. Brims used his influence to encourage his people to renew their friendships with the English, French and

Spanish simultaneously (Hahn 2004 94), an act that could have been inspired by his knowledge of diplomacy between competing but interdependent Mississippian polities.

Brims continued the practice of controlling and redistributing exotic goods and symbols of power to ensure the implementation of Coweta-centered foreign policy.

When Brims sent a delegation to St Augustine, the four leading members of the delegation, all close associates of Brims, assumed the trappings of Spanish gentility by dressing in Spanish clothes, wearing sombreros, and carrying silver-tipped canes.

According to Hahn, Southeastern leaders did little to distinguish themselves from their inferiors but often assumed symbolic trappings of authority in ritual contexts (Hahn 2004

97). Apparently, the four chiefs sought to make their own people recognize their important station by behaving in this maimer. In this way Brims and his associates were appropriating and utilizing Indigenous protocols to mark their authority just as

Mississippian leaders had done for centuries, using exotic goods to symbolically reinforce their authority and to demonstrate a connection to the world beyond the town

(Hahn 2004 98). 379

Brims and his associates also drew upon customary ritual to enhance and perpetuate their political influence. When Chipacasi's delegation to St Augustine arrived, they entered the fort in a formation that emphasized their own traditions.

At the head of this procession were two warriors with reputations for being strong and valiant. Both came into the fort yelling and dancing, striking re­ hearsed poses that appeared "antick" to the Spaniards on hand to watch. Though the Spaniards appeared somewhat puzzled by the strange dance, it is evident that the Indians' performance was intended to instill a sense of awe in the Spanish and to cultivate their respect as equals by trumpeting their peoples' past military achievements. Behind the two warrior-dancers came several others playing flutes, rattles, and drums, which together produced the cadence by which the rest of the delegation marched in military fashion. (Hahn 2004, 97)

While the procession Hahn describes has martial elements, it also bear a resemblance to

Iberville's descriptions of the entering Native under the protection of the Calumet. AS

Hahn notes, "though many of the ceremonies and speeches clearly drew on conventional

Indian practices, rituals conducted between Europeans and Indians often required innovation (Hahn 2004, 98), which seems to be the case on this occasion. In this case, the participants shared drinks, an act that simulated the use of the black drink, an emetic used for ritual acts of purification that preceded important ceremonies, council house debates, and other public events in the Southeast. No doubt the intoxicating affects of the alcohol reinforced this association. After sharing drinks, "two Indian warriors danced around the room and sat at Ayala's feet, while another placed a crown of feathers on the governor's head" (Hahn 2004, 99). Hahn reports, "The crown, according to the Indian man in charge of its care, was of ancient origin and a symbol of a chiefs authority.

Ayala optimistically interpreted this act as a sign of submission and obedience to the king, which they pledged would endure "until the end of the world" (Hahn 2004, 99). 380

When talks resumed two days later, Chipacasi employed the ritualistic oratory characteristic of Native diplomacy to reiterate the importance of the relationship between

St. Augustine and Coweta by "using the language of kinship to emphasize that their was a relationship between friends and brothers. Chipacasi's choice of words, moreover, was no accident, for by establishing themselves as brothers he sought to impose Creek rules of kinship on the governor, which demanded reciprocity not submission" (Hahn 2004

99). Chipacasi was not merely imposing Creek rules of kinship; he was utilizing diplomatic methods widely recognized throughout the southeast. The complexity of the protocols and their wide distribution among southeastern peoples suggests that they were practices with a long regional history that likely survived from the Mississippian era of cycling chiefdoms and the diplomacy of moundbuilders. These examples of suggest that

Brim's concept of neutrality and core principles of the Coweta Resolution were themselves Mississippian survivals, which continued to shape and order cross-cultural interaction in the historic era. 381

CONCLUSIONS

Bartering Native Captives and English Manufactures: The Priorities of Indian Policy in Proprietary Carolina

We are fully satisfied with your Capacity and Diligence and doubt not an Account will be given to the Advantage of this Colony and likewise the Indians whom you neither want Art nor Adress to manage. You know they are the Bulwark of this Settlement and pursuant to your Instructions, suffer not the Traders to cheat and use them with Insolence inconsistent with the Amity we profess and unbecoming of the Dignity of the Government.'"^

This passage, quoted from a letter dictated by the Commissioners of the South

Carolina Board of Indian Trade and sent to Indian Agent Thomas Naime in 1713, provided a number of important insights into the history of cross-cultural relationships between Europeans and Indigenous Americans in southeast North America during the colonial era. Initially, it affords a brief glimpse of the inherently unstable administrative apparatus created by the English to regulate trade with indigenous peoples. Self-assured officials, potentially tyrannical agents, tenacious traders, and Indians as essentialized

Others, are all circumscribed within a single paragraph of this long forgotten letter.

The commissioners' acknowledgement of the importance of Indians in this passage is all the more poignant because the sentence structure recreates the paradoxical colonial circumstances within proprietary South Carolina, a tension between the practical reality of indigenous knowledge and agency in the diplomatic milieu of Carolina power relations and the colonial desire to minimize the presence of indigenous actors as evidenced through the use of indeterminate personal pronouns: ''They are the bulwark of the settlement," and "Suffer not the traders to cheat and use them with insolence"

(emphasis added). 382

Written on the eve of the Yamassee War only forty-three years after the arrival of the first English settlers from Barbados, the passage illustrates the centrality of Indian policy and its importance to the well being of the colony. The existence of such an oversight committee is remarkable testimony to weight given to Indian diplomacy by the proprietary leaders in London, who authorized its creation, and the citizens of Charles

Town. The fact that its chairman is the Governor, the leading Royal official in the colony, is another indication of the prominence openly afforded Indian diplomacy. The implications are obvious: The security and prosperity of Charles Town were dependent upon harmonious relations with Native peoples, relationships that, at least from an

English perspective, required the strict regulation of interaction between the colonists and their indigenous counterparts.

The reasons for this policy position are varied. The past experiences of colonizing English men at Roanoke (1587), James Town (1607), and Plymouth

Plantation (1621), had demonstrated the necessity of maintaining centralized control over interactions with indigenous peoples. Carolina's contest over power to administer Indian policy and control commercial interaction with native peoples in colonial Carolina underscores a tension that characterizes Indigenous diplomacy throughout the colonial era and the early treaty period of United States Indian policy (1776-1830): a tension between the economic demands fostered by capitalistic expansion and the public benefits of a centralized and orderly diplomacy with Indigenous Peoples. Carolina's early colonial struggles over control of trade with native peoples highlight the underlying issues of later conflicts between the colonies and the English Crown prior to the 383

American Revolution and subsequent territorial conflicts between southern States and the federal authority in Washington.'®^

Critical readers will notice the tone of the commissioners' letter, which imparts a sense of English urgency and vulnerability, a situation that English colonial officials found necessary to conceal from their own constituencies as well as from the indigenous peoples surrounding them. These rhetorical qualities readily illustrate the cross-cultural interdependence characteristic of the southeastern colonial frontier while the rhetoric itself attempts to portray Charles Town's position in the most favorable light possible.

These qualities certainly indicate that the Commissioners were aware of the growing dissatisfaction among their indigenous trading partners.

Even more distant indigenous peoples had become acquainted with the English traders and the new opportunities these encounters presented. Yamassee peoples, formerly associated with Mississippian societies in the Oconee Valley and the rest of present-day eastern Georgia, entered diplomatic relations with Scots colonists at Port

Royal in 1684, facilitating interaction with Native towns on the Chattahoochee River and escalating the trade in Indian slaves by raiding Spanish missions throughout the Florida peninsula. In 1690, Muscogee-speakers living along the Lower Chattahoochee moved east, occupying the Oconee and Ocmulgee River Basins, which been home to

Mississippian moundbuilding societies until the middle of the seventeenth century. The relocation of Chattahoochee towns attracted numerous Native groups in the Oconee

Valley who, like Muskogee-speakers, sought trade relationships that would enhance their sociopolitical influence. Siouan-speakers north of Charles Town began to consolidate 384

and relocate their towns to more commercially advantageous positions between the

Virginia and Carolina prior to John Lawson's arrival in 1700. During the first thirty

years of proprietary rule, individuals such as Henry Woodward, Theophilus Hastings, and

John Lawson edged their way into the American interior, establishing relationships with

more distant indigenous peoples residing on both sides of the Appalachian Mountains. In

1674, Woodward visited Hickahaugua, a Westo town on the Savannah River and initiated

contacts between Muscogee speaking talwas on the lower Chattahoochee less than two

years later. Hastings managed Charles Town's trade with the four major Cherokee

settlements from Tugalo, a former Mississippian site on the headwaters of the Savannah

that had been continuously occupied since the Late Mississippian period. When the

colony felt threatened by the Westo, the proprietors directed their representative Maurice

Matthews to go to Cofitachique to conclude an alliance against the Westo in 1680. In

1700, the proprietors commissioned John Lawson's expedition up the Santee and

Wateree rivers through the Cofitachique province. Lawson's journey took as far north as

the Old Haw Fields in present-day Alamance County, North Carolina, territory that had

also been subject to the hegemony of Mississippian polities.

Although the exact nature of the relationship between Mississippian societies and

the Indians encountered by Anglo adventures is still being revealed through documentary

based historical investigations and archaeological analysis, surviving accounts of these experiences portray southeastern North America as a region in a state of transition, where

Native peoples were forced to deal with increasingly adverse environmental factors, splintering Mississippian networks, demographic challenges, and increasing pressure 385 from European settler populations. However, the concept of cross-cultural trade was not a new concept to the Indigenous peoples of the southeast. In fact, intellectual and commercial exchange across ethnic and linguistic boundaries constituted a conceptual bridge between native inhabitants and foreign settler populations. Although Indigenous

American and European traditions of cross-cultural exchange were conceptualized in different ways and served divergent sociopolitical goals, both Europeans and Indigenous

Americans had long traditions of cross-cultural exchange, which provided a mutually assessable middle ground where cultural difference could be negotiated.

As the commissioners' letter to Naime illustrates, Carolina officials insinuated a measure of influence and control they did not possess; the primary influences guiding and structuring cross-cultural trade and diplomacy during Carolina's proprietary period were

Indigenous in origin, Mississippian in character, and beyond their direct control. While

Mississippian societies and exchange networks had been reorganized as a result of environment, demographic, and political circumstances, the organizing principles and institutional parameters of cross-cultural exchange in the southeast remained essentially

Mississippian.

Native towns continued to incorporate Mississippian elements into their design.

Council houses, once symbols of priestly power, were removed from platform summits and relocated onto squaregrounds. Site plans from Late Mississippian town centers reveal that public houses were commonly located along the edges of Mississippian plazas, and given southeastern peoples interest in natural anomalies (Hudson 1976, 139-

47) such as amphibians, birds, and opossums, they hkely served as carefully controlled 386 transitional gateways, where political influence was demonstrated by the control and administration of sacred spaces. While Mississippian plazas and mounds were readily assessable in a physical sense, assess to the power and influence they represented was more closely guarded. Clearly, Mississippian plazas served as prototypes for historic

Squaregrounds, which continued to be the center of Indigenous culture and governance even after Removal.

Platform mounds in the Mississippian period were often multi-level structures.

These monuments were visual representations of southeastern concepts of universal order and political power. Because the care and maintenance of Mississippian centers was labor intensive, it is likely that responsibihties were delegated throughout the community from the priestly class who occupied platform summits to the common laborers who constructed them. Mississippian civic architecture recreated this sociopolitical hierarchy and the control of sacred and secular spaces have been a marker for political influence and social position within the community. Viewed from this perspective, the architectural elements of Mississippian towns suggest that the administration of

Mississippian centers incorporated multiple levels of administrative responsibility and power. From the early colonial period until the end of the eighteenth century. Native governments maintained multi-level administrations, which balanced power among clans and moieties, continued to characterize the political and commercial landscapes of the

Indigenous southeast. The organizing principle of dualism dominated Southeastern philosophy as it had done in the Mississippian era. These Mississippian artifacts were 387 preserved, modified and adapted the particular circumstances required by interaction with

English colonists.

As native polities adjusted to altered Indigenous circumstances of North America,

Englishmen arrived and began to occupy vacant lands. Like the Mississippians who had entered the region a thousand years earlier, the English came prepared to trade and engage in commerce. In light of North American traditions of exchange and interaction, it is not surprising Native peoples readily recognized the value and utility of European products. While the English were eager to expand the parameters of trade, the logistics of long distance trade were products of Indigenous knowledge, ingenuity, technology.

While the colonial officials of Carolina were quick to capitalize on similar Native desires in order to further England's colonial objectives. The desire to trade with Native peoples was a calculated English imperial maneuver designed to entice Native peoples from the

Spanish sphere of influence, and strengthen England's growing manufacturing economy.

Given their long experience with the competition and intrigue characteristic of interaction among Mississippian polities. Native southeastemers understood the politics of competing political polities. They likely recognized the inherent potential of an alliance with English colonists and appreciated the strategic significance of Charles Town as a counterweight to Spanish influence.

As their historically documented actions clearly demonstrate, Cusabo, Catawba,

Yamassee, Westo, Savaimah, Cherokee, and Ochese Creek peoples were intellectually, philosophically, and materially prepared to make good use of the opportunities presented by English trade. While English manufactured goods might have been highly desired in 388

Native southeastern communities, but they were desire for culturally specific reasons that may not have been readily apparent to early observers. As Theda Perdue (2004) has indicated, these goods were valued as markers of spiritual power and consequentially as symbols political influence just as they had been in Mississippian and Sub-Mississippia societies prior to the permanent arrival of European colonists. This is not to say that they were not also valued for their utihty as well; however, the rapid dissemination and wide­ spread distribution of these goods, as well as the ability to deliver manufactured goods such as dressed furs, chattel property such as slaves as well as services in exchange, cannot be attributed to European agency alone. Moreover, Indigenous responses such as these would be practically impossible in the wake of an apocalyptic protohistoric period in which Mississippian societies, their sociopolitical institutions, and their cultural practices were completely forgotten. Moundbuilding societies were adaptable and long- lived; there is little reason to believe that the traditions and practices associated with moundbuilding societies had vanished or disappeared when English colonization in

Carolina began.

English commercial expansion and imperial ascendancy in proprietary Carolina were informed by a variety of social, historical, and philosophical perspectives, which originated in disparate Indigenous and European traditions. Sub-Mississippia peoples combined their knowledge of Mississippian societies and experience from over one hundred fifty years of interaction with colonizing Spaniards, a confluence of commerce, diplomacy, and ideology that produced an ideal environment for the introduction and dissemination of English trade goods and imperial influence. As novel goods were 389 incorporated into pre-existing Indigenous exchange networks and ancient protocols governing cross-cultural trading relationships were adapted to meet the demands of Euro-

American partnerships, the divergent beliefs and practices of Sub-Mississippia

Indigenous peoples and British settler populations began to merge, structured by the unique circumstances of the American context of their cultural negotiations.

Indigenous influences included the historical context of North American mounding building and an underlying social, political and religious continuity between

Sub-Mississippia southeastern peoples and the Indigenous southeastern confederacies observed by the English explorers and traders such as Woodward, Lawson, Wright, and

Naime. The legacy of Mississippian trade provided the political and diplomatic structure necessary for promoting English commercial and imperial interests in the southeast. The indigenous political and commercial infrastructure that governed inter-tribal and cross- cultural interaction during successive epochs of Moundbuilding provided an adaptive model and an essential Indigenous, inter-regional consciousness for structuring emerging trade relationships with European settler populations. The incorporation of English traders into Indigenous systems of cross-cultural interaction and exchange was facilitated by means of shared Indigenous sociopolitical contexts, which were predominately

Mississippian in origin. These sociopolitical contexts included shared religious and ceremonial iconography, similar methods of community organization, a network of clan affiliations that often crossed linguistic and ethnic boundaries, nearly universal patterns of urban planning, methods of construction, and multi-level regulation of civic affairs that cut across social divisions. Mississippian influences become more readily apparent when 390

English colonial affairs are examined from the perspective of these Indigenous contexts, suggesting that Anglo-American colonial enterprises are best understood as the most recent additions to ancient Indigenous networks of trade and diplomacy. The rapid expansion of Carolina's commercial interests suggests that the dissemination of innovative and novel English commercial products was augmented by Indigenous historical knowledge, pre-existing commercial institutions, and an organic desire to promote commercial and diplomatic interaction among culturally diverse peoples and polities. Carolina colonists unwittingly tapped into this multi-faceted, Mississippian infrastructure by means of the colony's spiraling diplomacy with Indigenous societies throughout the region. 391

NOTES

Chapter 1. The North American Historical Backdrop of Moundbuilding Societies

' Archaeologist John Scary provides a working definition of the term Mississippian: "The definition of the term Mississippian has changed over the years (see for example Griffinl967, 1985; Knight 1986, 1990; Peebles and Kus 1977; Smith 1985). Originally, the term referred to a geographic region that encompassed the distribution of the Middle Mississippi pottery family (Holmes 1886, 1903). It subsequently came to be used to refer to those prehistoric groups that shared a limited set of material traits, including shell- tempered pottery, rectangular wall-trench houses, and flat-topped pyramidal mounds (Deuel 1937). More recent definitions have moved beyond material traits to incorporate aspects of economy, political organization, and ideology. Recent studies of Mississippian societies reflect this shift of focus. Today when we discuss the late prehistoric peoples of the Southeast, we talk of hereditary chiefs, ascribed social inequity, and differential access to resources. We discuss diet and the role of agricultural production in the evolution and maintenance of the Mississippian societies. We look for evidence of exchange between groups and at production within societies.. .for our purposes here, we can restrict the term Mississippian to those peoples of the late prehistoric southeast who practiced cleared-field agriculture with maize as the dominant crop, who had hierarchical political organizations with evidence of a scriptive status differentiation, and who shared a set of religious cult institutions and iconographic complexes. This definition excludes the Timucuan chiefdoms and other societies of peninsular Florida, the Fort Ancient and other non-ranked agricultural societies of the Midwest and Northeast, and the agricultural Siouan and Algonquian societies of the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain" (Scarry 1996, 13). ' The process of naming is difficult in a practical sense and theoretically problematic. I have chosen the term Sub-Mississippia to characterize the sociopolitical circumstances of protohistoric Indigenous Peoples because this Latin construction (sub + accusative) literally translates as "following immediately upon" (Traupman 1966, 340). The use of this signifier avoids the anthropological connotations associated with "Post," a term that traditionally characterizes societies that have degenerated, and are largely segregated, from their greatest social and technological achievements. More importantly, the term Sub-Mississippia describes an era of Indigenous transition, a period of metamorphosis during which Indigenous political institutions and social traditions were modified to accommodate changing circumstances, to incorporate different trading partners and new commodities for example, without eliding the Indigenous contexts from which they arose. ^ The Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek nations are also descendants of North American Moundbuilding societies, but it is likely that their Mississippian influences came from the Lower Mississippi via land and riparian routes, circumstances that might 392

help explain later rivalries between Indigenous Southeastern Confederacies even though there were widespread governmental, philosophical, and ceremonial similarities The Cherokee were organized into four principle divisions during the colonial period: the Lower, Middle, Upper, and OverHill Settlements. According to David Corkran, The Lower Cherokee comprised some twenty villages on the headwaters of the Savannah and Chattahoochee. The eastern limit of the Lower Settlements was the Keowee River in present-day Oconee County, Georgia, which was named after the principle town of Keowee. Other Lower settlement towns were located on the Toogaloo and Chatuga rivers, rivers that also took the contemporary names from Cherokee towns. Further west on the headwaters of Chattahoochee, Nacoochee was another important Lower town (Corkran 1970, 13). The Middle Settlements were established on the upper reaches of the Little Tennessee River in Macon, Haywood, and Swain counties of present-day North Carolina. The principle towns of the Middle Settlements included Tassiche, Nequassee, Cowee, and Joree (Corkran 1970, 13). Beyond were the Middle Towns were the Upper Cherokees, who fell into two divisions, the Valley Towns of Hiwasssee, Euphase, and Quanasee on Little Tennessee and Hiawassee Rivers in North Carolina. The other division of the Upper Cherokee, the "Over the Hills," lived beyond the Appalachian Mountains in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. Their principle towns were Tanase-Chota and Settico (Corkran 1970, 13-14). According to colonial historian Alan Gallay, the Cherokee played little role in colonial affairs and only a secondary role in relations among southern Amerindian peoples until the second decade of the eighteenth century. According to Gallay, "Their trade with South Carolina in Indian Slaves and deerskins was insignificant in comparison to the more southerly Indians. Virginians controlled much of the Cherokee trade, though the French had a portion as well. As the Cherokee desire for European goods increased they more actively hunted deerskins and established stronger ties with the Carolinians. Their participation in the invasion against the Tuscarora led by James Moore brought them into closer contact with English colonial society" (Gallay 2002, 322). ^ Ayun'ini or "Swimmer," was credited by Mooney as the most important Cherokee collaborator for Myths of the Cherokee. According to Mooney, "the collection could not have been made without his help" (Mooney 1990, 236). Bom in 1835, Swimmer "grew up under the instruction of masters to be a priest, doctor, and keeper of tradition, so that he was recognized as an authority throughout the band...He was prominent in the local affairs of the band and no Green-com dance, ballplay, or other tribal function was ever considered complete without his presence and active assistance" (Mooney 1900, 236). ^ I am referring to a Foucaultian type of archaeology here, a philosophical archaeology that aspires to understand core human concepts by considering their conceptual components and tracing their development through time. Foucault applied this methodology to many aspects of western-European society, and his approach lends itself to the analysis of Indian Slavery in colonial South Carolina. Some examples from Foucault's corpus of scholarship include: Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason', The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception: 393

The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences', and The Archaeology of Knowledge (and the Discourse on Language). 'As early as AD 1520, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon had commissioned Francisco Gordillo to explore "Northern Florida," a region that extended up the Atlantic coast from St. Elena (present-day Beaufort, South Carolina) to the Chesapeake Bay. Later Ayllon and Gordillo landed near present-day Pawley's Island, South Carolina near the mouth of the Great Pee Dee River and named the area Chicora, the northerly province of la Florida (Wright 1981, 35). In 1523, Ayllon was granted a royal concession to colonize this region. For the next thirty years, Ayllon explored the Atlantic coast more thoroughly impressing natives from Chicora, Xapiracta, Auricatuye, Cayo, Xoxi, Nuaq, Ouxa, Anoxa, and other coastal provinces of la Florida (Wright 1981, 36). In 1526, the mission San Miguel de Gualdape was established under the supervision of Ayllon on the eastern side of present-day Bull's Bay, South Carolina opposite a collection of Sewee towns. This was the first Spanish colony within the present limits of the United States (Heard 1987, 321-2). As Wright notes, there was fairly extensive interaction between indigenous peoples of the mid-Atlantic region and the Spanish, and although "it is not known how far inland Spanish foot soldiers or horsemen penetrated,...some of them must have seen the temple mounds and the more impressive interior towns with their catches of pearls" (Wrightl981,37). ^ A readily accessible exploration of this phenomenon among contemporary indigenous people is Keith Basso's text Wisdom Sits in Places, which examines the ways in which stories about specific events in particular places structures, orders, and maintains social cohesion among the Western band of the Apache. The knowledge that geographical landscapes can function to enhance social cohesion and promote domestic tranquility is also evident in the following description provided by an unnamed Taos man; "We have lived upon this land from days beyond history's records, far past living memory, deep into the time of legend. The story of my people and the story of place are one single story. No man can think of us without thinking of this place. We are always joined together." (Nies 1996, 398). Also see: Senses of Place (1996). Steven Feld and Keith Basso Eds. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. ^ For constructive insights into indigenous perspectives regarding the environments of their homelands see Vine Deloria Jr.'s articles "If you think about it, you will see that it is True" and "Moral Universe" in Spirit and Reason: A Vine Deloria Reader and also Red Earth, White Lies: Native American and the Myth of Scientific Fact. It is imperative to remember that this "reciprocal relationship" did not preclude indigenous peoples from manipulating their environments to better serve their needs and desires. For insights into the ways in which native peoples managed their environments see Timothy Silver's text A New face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in the South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. The Cherokee maintain that their society originated from a central mound site Keetoowah, which some believe to have been located by means of a recent aerial survey. Oral traditionalist Davy Arch (Cherokee) makes it a point to inform his non-native audiences of the importance of mounds to Cherokee History and cultural continuity in 394

Living Stories of the Cherokee. The Coosa chiefdom on the Coosa River in northeastern Georgia was culturally affiliated with the Creek Indians of the historic era (Heard 1987, 111) as were the chiefdoms in the Ocmulgee and Oconee watershed in central Georgia and the Mississippian complexes on the Chattahoochee River that forms the western border of Georgia and the chiefdoms on the Tallapoosa River in northeastern Alabama. Coweta and Cussita were Creek towns that had "prehistoric" origins (Heard 1987, 115-6 and 124). Additionally, David G. Moore argues that the Catawba Nation has Mississippian origins as well; see Catawba Valley Mississippian: Ceramics, Chronology, and Catawba Indians. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002. The Choctaw Native nation traces it origins to Nunih Waiyha, an earthen mound in present-day Mississippi (Cushman 1999, 231).

'' The Archaic Period is usually dated from the end of the last Ice Age (BC 8000) until the first century before the current era. As the Ice age ended, global warming altered the Earth's weather patterns. Plant and animal life, as well as the shape of the land and rivers, of Eastern North America was transformed, "and people throughout the region adapted to these changes, took advantage of the opportunities they offered, and thereby embarked upon the path that ultimately led to the creation of moundbuilding centers such as the one at Poverty Point, which emerged in northwest Louisiana around 1500 BC" (Shaffer 1992, 16). The Nation Park Service provides the following definition of the term "Archaic;" "William A. Ritchie (1932) first used the term 'Archaic' in American archeological literature to describe the cultural material, primarily chipped stone tools, from the Lamoka Lake Site in New York. During the Works Progress Administration (WPA) excavations of the 1930s and 1940s, southeastern sites that were recognized as producing lithic materials similar to Lamoka Lake were also classified as Archaic. Today, archeologists use the term to describe a temporal and cultural period, differentiated from the earlier Paleoindian period and more recent periods on the basis of stylistic differences in stone point types, the appearance of other artifacts, and changes in economic orientation (http://www.crfnps.gov/seac/outline/03-archaic).

12 Shaffer explains the atlatl in this way: "This new weapon had three parts: a relatively lightweight spear, a throwing stick with a notch on one end, and a banner stone. The banner stone had a hole drilled through it so that it could be slipped over the throwing stick. The spear was placed on the stick with its back against the notch. The hunter then used the throwing stick to hurl the spear. Apparently, the weight of the banner stone on the throwing stick gave a hunter more leverage and increased the force with which the spear was propelled. The lighter spear of the atlatl was appropriate for hunting the medium and small size animals that were the prey of the archaic period, and it could be thrown much further and faster than the thrusting spear. People also developed a wide variety of specialized devices for fishing and hunting, including bone fishing hooks, traps, nets, and decoys." (Shaffer 1992, 17-8) Shaffer states that "the oldest pottery ever found anywhere in North America (including Mexico) is from a site on Stallings Island, South Carolina, in the Savannah 395

River, not far from Savannah, Georgia" (Shaffer 1992, 23). It has been dated to 2515 BC. '"^In synthesizing the available archaeological data on Poverty point, Shaffer, a founding member of the World History Association and professor at Tufts University, compiles an extensive list of domesticated plants that complements the one provided by Scarry. Shaffer's list of plants includes: giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifidia), maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana), pigweed (Amaranthus sp.), smartweed or knotweed (Polygonum erectum), lambs quarter (Chenopodium sp.), canary grass (Pharlaris canariensis), and little barley (Hordeum pusillum). The sources for this information include: Asch and Asch 1985, 153-95; Hudson 1976, 182-3, 294; Streuver and Holton 1979, 123-6, 232; and Bruce Smith 1986, 30-31; 1987, 8, 14, 28, 37. From a strictly rhetorical perspective, it is worth noting that most of these plants are commonly known as "weeds," while the scientific classifications are capitalized. These dates are necessarily approximations and subject to intense debate, but they will suffice to delineate the parameters of this particular discussion. The three epochs of earthen Mound construction begin with Poverty Point in the late Archaic Period (1500BC) and end with the destruction of the of Natchez society by the French (AD 1731). Other Late Archaic sites include: Adena in Ohio, Indian Knoll on the Green River in Kentucky, Pinson in Tennessee, Deep Bayou in southern Arkansas, Jaketown in northern Mississippi, Marksville in Louisiana, Kolomoki in southern Georgia, Buck Mound, Crystal River, Fort Center, and McKeithen in Florida. 1 7 Shaffer turns to the following scholars for this information: Ford, James Alfred, and Clarence Webb (1956). Poverty Point: A Late Archaic Site. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History; Gibson, Jon L (1974). "Poverty Point: The First Native American Chiefdom." Archaeology 27(2). 96- 105; Penny, David W. "The Late Archaic Period." Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians. David Brose, James A. Brown, and David W. Penny Eds. (1985). New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc. 27-28. Shaffer defines "effigy mound" in the following manner: "An effigy mound is an earthwork [built in] the shape of an animal, such as a bird or a snake, or a part of an animal, such as a bear's claw. Most are so large that the whole of the image can be seen only from the air. From the top of observation towers, where they are available, or in aerial photographs, they look like figures sculpted in high relief (Shaffer 1992, 29). Flint, including chert was imported for the manufacture of cutting tools and spear points. Steatite or soapstone was used to construct bowls, pipes, and grinding stones. Hematite and magnetite were used for weights and plummets and used attached to fishing nets and bolas (Shaffer 1992, 36). 20 This debate is the primary subject of The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and Analysis, The Cottonlandia Conference (1989) Patricia Galloway Ed. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Shaffer's dates for platform mounds in Georgia come from Hudson, 1976: 73; dates for mounds in Florida come from Milanich and Fairbanks, 1980: 187. The dates for 396

Platform mounds along the Mississippi come from Morgan, 1980; 120. Shaffer notes that even though radiocarbon dating suggests that pottery and com appeared in these southern locations first, many archaeologists question the early dates for platform mounds in Georgia and Florida and do not classify them as Mississippian sites. For earlier definitions of cycling by Anderson see; "Pohtical Evolution in Chiefdom Societies; Cycling in the Late Pre-Historic Southeastern United States" (1990). Ph.D. Diss., University of Michigan, 24-6, and Savannah River Chiefdoms: Political Change in the Late Pre-Historic Southeast (1994). Tuscaloosa; University of Alabama Press. Cycling behavior is "considered by many researchers to be the most common manifestation of Chiefdom instability" (Hally 1996, 124-5). Rally, David J (1996). "Platform-Mound Construction and Instabilities of Chiefdoms." Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric Southeastern United States. John F. Scarry Ed. Gainesville; University of Florida Press. Also refer to Welch, Paul D (1996). "Control over Goods and the Political Stability of the Moundville Chiefdom" in Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric United States, 69-91. There is still some ongoing debate among scholars over the exact location of Cofitachiqui; however, the present consensus is that Cofitachique was located in the upper South Carolina piedmont region. In The Southeastern Indians (1976), Charles Hudson writes that its location was near Silver Bluff on the side of the Savanna River near present day Augusta, Georgia or else on the headwaters of the Santee River (Hudson 1976,110), which would place it in north-central South Carolina, perhaps near present day Columbia. The latter seems the most likely location. David Hally and David Anderson argue that, except for the headwaters, the Savarmah River basin was "devoid of significant human occupation after A.D. 1400" (Halley, 1996, 123, and Anderson 1996a), making it unlikely that Silver Bluff was the principal site of this "Paramount Chiefdom." In his more recent studies of the problem, Hudson (1993) settles on Camden, South Carolina as the center of Cofitachique, and Halley and Anderson agree, proposing that Cofitachiqui was located in the Wateree drainage. The Catawba River becomes known as the Wateree below the fall line in the South Carolina peidmont. When it is joined by the Congaree, (made up of the Saluda and Broad Rivers), it becomes known as the Santee, which enters the Atlantic Ocean just south of Winyah Bay. Archaeologist David Moore, whose recent research concerning the Mississippian origins of the contemporary Catawba people, cites Camden as the center of Cofitachique (Moore 2002, 21, 27). J. Norman Heard summarizes what is known of Chicora's experiences in the following way; "Francisco Chicora, perhaps the only survivor among seventy Indians seized by Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon on the Carolina coast in 1521, was converted to Christianity and became Ayllon's interpreter. He accompanied Ayllon to Spain in 1523 to seek a royal grant to colonize the region called Chicora. Francisco, in order to gain an opportunity to return to his homeland, related amazing stories about giant Indians with tails and described great riches to be found in his native land. Immediately upon arrival, he deserted his master and fled into the wilderness to rejoin his own people" (Heard 1987, 98). 397

Wright's source for this information is Lewis H. Larson Jr.'s article "Historic Guale Indians of the Georgia Coast and the Impact of the Spanish Mission Effort" (1978). Tacachale: Essays on the Indians of Florida and Southeastern Georgia during the Historic Period. Jerald Milanich and Samuel Procter Eds. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. 127-33. A comparison of major Mississippian sites and William Meyer's data published in "Indian Trails of the Southeast" offers convincing testimony of the accuracy of Shaffer's assertion. 28 Shaffer observations are based on the linguistic work of James Mooney. See "The Siouan Tribes of the East" (1894). Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin V (22): 1-101. 29 Using Fredrick R. Eggan's article "The Ethnological Cultures and Their Archaeological Backgrounds" as her source, Shaffer writes, "Although it is by no means certain, oral traditions and fragments of historical evidence suggest that the rulers of Cahokia during the Mississippian Period belonged to the Dhegihan Sioux, a group that includes the Kansa, the Omaha, the Osage, the Ponca, and the Quapaw, "who are also known as the Arkansa" (Shaffer 1992, 52). Shaffer's claim is based on the following scholarship: Dobyns, Henry (1987). Their Number Became thinned: Native Population Dynamics in Eastern North America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. 42; Thornton, Russell (1987). American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 32; Ramenovsky, Ann (1987). Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. For a comparison of the above perspectives see: Fagan, Brian M (1991). Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. London and New York: Thames and Hudson. To this list the historical accounts of Elvas, Rangle, Biedma, and Garcilasco in The De Soto Chronicles Lawrence A Clayton, Vemon Knight, and Edward Moore Eds., as well as the archaeological texts of Anderson 1996, Galloway 1989, Pauketat 1997, and Scarry 1994 should be added. James A. Brown (1976). "The Southern Cult Reconsidered" MidcontinentalJournal of Anthropology I: 115-35, and "Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma, Part I. Peabody Museum Papers. Cambridge: Peabody Museum Press, 1978.

Chapter 2. Indigenous Preconditions: The Roots of Carolinian Ascendancy

For more on Indigenous trails of the southeast see: William E. Meyer (1971). Indian Trails of the Southeast. Nashville, TN: Blue and Grey Press, or his report to Bureau of American Ethnology of the same title, "Indian Trails of the Southeast." Forty- second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington DC: U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, 1928. Axtell has quoted L. P. Hartley and his text The Go-Between, published in London by Hamish Hamilton in 1956. The quote is from page one. 398

I have chosen not to incorporate an extensive examination of Unguistic data at this time because of the inherent constraints of the dissertation format and because it seems to fit more naturally with the second phase of my research, which will document Indigenous contributions more explicitly and directly. The abundance of Indigenous place names makes Axtell's suggestion an especially intriguing aspect of southeastern Indigenous Studies, but one that is beyond the scope of this dissertation. I have included in my analysis a discussion of the MobiUan Trade Jargon, a Muskogee language pidgin, which is apparently pre-Columbian in origin and was utilized in cross-cultural encounters throughout the southeast. Cosmologies can be defined as coherent theories of existence, organized around categories and principles in a strictly ordered fashion, systems of value and belief about the world that require certain practices (Hudson 1976, 120-21). Variously identified as philosophy, religion, and/or science, these systems function as intellectual frameworks that guide people as they observe their surroundings, explain what they see and who they are, organize knowledge of the past, predict the future, and cope with contemporary circumstances. 36 A partial list of scholarship that supports advocates a Southeastern cultural collapse the view that would include the following authors: Axtell 1981; Cotterill 1954; Crane 1928; Dobyns 1983, 1991; Fairbanks 1952, 1958; C. Martin 1978; M. T. Smith 1987; White 1983. As Wesson notes, "Although the notion of that southeastern societies demonstrated reduced socio- political complexity after the mid-sixteenth century is widely accepted, there are compelling reasons to reexamine the evidence supporting this idea. First, although some have argued that depopulation terminated social complexity in the Southeast, John Blitz (1993) has demonstrated that the conceptualization of complexity employed in much of this research is biased toward the largest, most complex, southeastern polities. In reality, many historic southeastern societies possessed the classic characteristics of institutional hierarchy as defined by Service (1962, 1975) and others (Camerio 1981; Clastres 1987; Earle 1987a, 1997; Flanagan 1989; Flannery 1972; Fried 1967; Peebles and Kus 1977). Second, as Blanton et al. (1996), Feinman (1995; 2000), and others (G.A. Johnson 1982; Renfrew 1974) demonstrate, the manifestations of social inequality vary with the particular style of leadership employed by local elites. A given society may lack the material signatures of hierarchy as traditionally defined by archaeologists (Peebles and Kus 1977), but it may, in fact, be, quite sociopolitically complex (Brumfiel 1995; Clastres 1987; Crumley 1987, 1995; Gledhill 1994). 37 The Mobilian trade jargon should not be confused with Mobilian, the language of the Mobile Indians, which linguists know "next to nothing about" (Drechsel 2001, 175). However, linguists "confidently assert that Mobilian jargon was very different from vernacular Mobilian on the grounds of its particular socioHnguistic nature" (Drechsel 2001, 175). 38 According to Hudson, the Cherokee "regarded the river as a deity, calling him the Long Man.. .a giant with his head in the foothills of the mountains and his foot far down in the lowland, pressing always, resistless and without stop, to a certain goal, and 399

speaking in murmurs which only the priest may interpret" (Hudson 1976, 128). Tom Hatley, Sequyah Scholar of Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University relates that a river was actually considered a person rather than a deity (personal communication). The river was associated with the Moon, and on every new moon, including those in winter, the Cherokees used to go to the banks of the river where a priest officiated and everybody plunged in (Hudson 1976, 172-3). Known as the "Great Terrestrial Hunter," the river sent its smaller streams and rivulets out "hunting" in the forest and Cherokee hunters offered prayers and songs to the principle deities of the hunt, the River and Sacred Fires, before setting out (Hudson 1976, 272-73). For a Cherokee perspective on this subject see; McLachen, Carrie. Cherokee Cosmology. MA Thesis Western Carolina University. These instructions are noteworthy not only because they refer explicitly to Cofitachique but also because Cofitachique is clearly distinguished from the Esaw, a term used to describe the Catawba (Heard 1987, 149). The distinction suggests an awareness of Cofitachique as an identifiable polity in the late seventeenth century and that Catawba identity was independently recognized by outsider observers. The Doctrine of Discovery, which was adopted into US federal case law by John Marshal's decision in Johnson v. Mcintosh (1823), was a Eurocentric poUcy designed to limit conflict over which European Nation had the right to colonize a particular regions of North America. Since its adoption into US case law, it has served as the basis for the United States' land claims in North America and remains the ultimate origin of legal title to real property. As such, it clearly defines aboriginal land rights vis-a-vis European colonizers, reserving ultimate title to the supreme sovereign (or discovering European) and only a right of occupancy to Native peoples. Marshal's incorporation of the Doctrine of Discovery into United States case law can be understood as part of an attempt to centralize authority over Indian affairs, a policy based adopted from English colonial models and the logic of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Native scholars David E. Wilkins and K. Tsianina Lomawaima provide a fiill explanation of the Doctrine of Discovery and its contemporary ramification for federal Indian policy in Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law (2001). The Agreement of 1802 was a federal incentive used to prompt individual States, especially Southern States with extensive western territorial claims, to ratify the Constitution and accept, among other limitations to their sovereignty, federal pre-emption in the administration of Indian Affairs and the exclusive right to extinguish Native peoples' "right of occupancy;" thereby, controling the legal disposition of Native Territories. In exchange for ceding political power to the federal government and discovery rights to western territories obtained through royal charters. States received a federal guarantee to remove all Native peoples from within the limits of their borders at some unspecified time in the future. According to Robert A. Williams, "North Caroliina and Georgia did not cede their western land claims to the United States until 1790 and 1802 respectively. Georgia, in particular, extracted significant concessions from the federal government in the process-concessions that lead to what Charles Warren has 400

described as the most serious crisis in the history of the United States Supreme Court, the Cherokee Nation cases of the early 1830s" (Williams 1990, 306). an emerging academic discipline. Indigenous Studies is plagued with a multiplicity of referential terms and institutional abodes. Known variously in the United States and Canada as Indigenous Studies, Native Studies, and American Indian Studies, Indigenous Studies Programs are flourishing in a variety of academic departments and environments: American Studies (University of Virginia and University of Minnesota), Ethnic Studies (UC San Diego, UC Berkley, and University of Colorado at Boulder), and Native Studies (First Nations University of Canada). The University of Arizona, University of California at Davis, and University of Saskatchewan are among the first academic institutions in North America to create free-standing American Indian Studies Programs and Native Studies Departments. The interpretation of archaeological data is limited by a number of factors. Besides open acknowledgements of the incomplete nature of archaeological records especially in the American southeast, there are debates over the appropriateness of archaeological theory as it is applied to Indigenous peoples as well as the reliability of archaeological methods, especially those relating to periodization and carbon 14 dating. Other archaeologists and ethnohistorians whose work questions traditional portrayals of Native American and European trade include (Braund 1993; Lightfoot 1995; Lightfoot et al. 1998: Rogers 1990; Rogers and Wilson 1993; Tumbaugh 1993; Wood, Waselkov, and Hatley 1989). The following list includes archaeologists and historians who argue that European trade good were "irresistible" and quickly resulted in Native dependency Coterill 1954; Crane 1981 [1928]; Fairbanks 1952, 1958; Calvin Martin 1978; Mason 1963; Morris 1993; R. White 1983. For example, archaeologists acknowledge that mound building societies, societies that had concentrated populations, artisan communities, and elaborate networks of exchange and trade, developed in the absence of surplus agriculture, as it is understood is western terms (Shaffer 1992, 23-27). It is entirely possible that the Atlantic region from present-day Savannah, Georgia north to the location of the Charles Town settlement was the site of a Mississippian power struggle between the chiefdom of Coosa, located just beyond the headwaters of the Savannah, and Cofitachique. Based on linguistic evidence, Swanton associates the Cusso (Kussoe), Native peoples living along the Coosawhatchie and Edisto Rivers, as being associated with the paramount chiefdom of Coosa, while Spanish documents relate that Native peoples of the coastal region owed tribute to Cofitachique. If this region was contested Mississippian territory, it could explain why English colonists were directed to the Charleston area by Native informants. From an Indigenous perspective, English settlers living on the Ashley and Cooper Rivers could be seen as a buffer or bulwark against Cofitachique aggression or expansion. For a more complete treatment of the archaeological and historical scholarship linking Cherokee people to their moundbuilding pasts see: King, Duane (1979). The Cherokee Indian Nation: A Troubled History. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. 401

Muskogee-speaking towns included major centers such as Coweta, Cussita, Eufaula, Hillabi, Abihiki, and Tukabatchi (Heard 1986, 258). Other Muskogean- speaking communities included: Apalachee, a powerfiil tribe that lived between the Aucilla and Apalachicola Rivers in northern Florida when they encountered Narvaez in 1526 (Heard 1986, 15-6); Pascagoula, a community/tribe that first encountered Europeans in 1699 when Bienville sailed ten leagues up the Pascagoula River to their village. They were friends and allies of the French as long as that nation remained in North America (Heardl986, 285); Tawasa, a community that was located near present Montgomery, Alabama that encountered the de Soto expedition in 1540 (Heard 1986, 353); Tohome, which was established on the Tombigee River, where Iberville negotiated a peace between them and the Alabama. Under heavy pressure from Carolina slave- catchers, they had migrated to Mobile and were eventually absorbed into the Choctaw Confederacy by 1730 (Heard 1986, 362). Upper Creek towns included: Abihika (AKA Abeika) was one of the founding tribes of the Creek confederacy, and constituted one of the major divisions of the Upper Creek, frequently holding the primary chieftainship. When visited by de Soto, the foremost town was Coosa, located 30 miles east of present day Birmingham (Heard 1986, 3); Alachua was a band of Creek Indians from Oconee, Georgia, who moved southward in 1740. Under the leadership of Cowkeeper, this band became the nucleus of the evolving Seminole nation (Heard 1986, 10); Apalachicola, a tribe of Hitchiti-speakers living on the lower Chattahoochee River in Alabama at the time of early Spanish contact. (Heard 1986, 16); Chiaha (AKA Chiaha) was described by de Soto's chroniclers as an Indian province located on an island (Bums Island) in the Tennessee River. They hosted the Spanish adventurer Boyano in 1567, who built a fort among them, which was soon destroyed by the Indians. By 1713, they had confederated with the Creek on the Ocmulgee River in Georgia (Heard 1986, 93); Hitchiti (AKA Ocute) was the legendary birthplace, which was located on the Ocmulgee River in present-day Georgia when de Soto passed through in 1540 (Heard 1986, 183); Koasati (AKA Coushatta, Acoste, Coste) encountered Europeans as early as June 1540, when de Soto approached their village on the Tennessee River in northeast Alabama. Before 1686, they moved to the region of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers, where they associated closely with the Alabama (Heard 1986, 208); Sawokli was composed of Hitchiti-speakers, who lived in two principle towns, one below the falls on the Chattahoochee and the other near present Tallahassee. They also occupied several small villages in Alabama and Mississippi. Driven from their homes English slave raids in 1706-7, most moved to the Lower Creek villages (Heard 1986, 326-7); Tallapoosa was located on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama when English traders traveled among them near the end of the seventeenth century. Active in diplomacy with all three European imperial powers, they were an important ally of the English, refused to join the Redsticks in 1812 and took refuge with the pro-American Lower Creek (Heard 1986, 349-50); Tuskegee encountered Spaniards in northern Alabama no later than 1567. A century later, when French and English traders entered the area, they were living on island in the Tennessee River at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers (Heard 1986, 369). Lower Creek towns included: Coosa was one the wealthiest and most powerful 402

Muskogee tribes in the Creek confederacy, whose chiefs exercised authority over a large area of northern Alabama when first visited by the de Soto expedition in April 1540. English traders reached Coosa at its original site in the seventeenth century. Sometime before 1761, the town was moved 40 miles south and relocated on the Tallapoosa River (Heard 1986, 111); Coweta was a prominent Lower Creek Red town located on the Chattahoochee River when first encountered by Europeans, it was moved for a few years to the Ocmulgee River to facilitate trade with Charles Town. After the Yamassee War it was moved back to the Chattahoochee. Carolina traders visited Coweta as early as 1681 (Heard 1986, 115-6); Hillabi (AKA Hillabi, Hillabee, Hillaubee) was sub-tribe of the Creek Confederacy, who inhabited four villages on the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers in Alabama (Heard 1986, 182); Ocmulgee (AKA Okmulgee) was a community of Hitchiti- speakers, who lived along the Ocmulgee River in present Pulaski County, Georgia. According to tribal tradition, the site of the Ocmulgee "Old Fields" was the first permanent Creek settlement after migration from west of the Mississippi. Ocmulgee was a white town that maintained a separate identity until after the Creek removal to Indian Territory (Heard 1986, 273); Oconee consisted of northern and southern divisions. The northern and southern divisions are believed to have been reunited in Florida by 1832 when they merged into the Seminole Nation. (Heard 1986, 273); Tamathli encountered de Soto along the Flint river in Georgia in 1540. By 1680, they were located on the Chattahoochee River when the mission Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria de la Tama was established among them. In the eighteenth century they migrated to the Apalachicola River in Florida, where they formed an element of the Mikasuki Seminoles (Heard 1986, 351); Yamacraw were probably a band of Yamassee, living on the Savannah River at the time of European contact. After gathering briefly at Spanish mission in Florida in 1675, they returned to the Savannah in 1685 at the behest of Scottish traders associated with Carolina. They mediated James Oglethorpe's purchase of Creek land in Georgia and rejoined the Lower Creek after 1740 (Heard 1986, 399). Chaudhuri notes, "other excavated sites such as the Incinerator Site in Ohio and the Crystal River site in Florida also appear to confirm the symmetries of Creek beliefs and practices. Even the serpent mounds of Ohio and elsewhere may be ritually linked with Creek science and Creek values. The Creek oral tradition history repeatedly mentions that the Creeks traditionally went north to special mounds for pilgrimages in spring and autumn. Creeks regarded the mountains, rivers, and valleys as having been created by giant serpents or snakes and accompanied by the trembling of the earth. The earth trembles in many Creek stories dealing with the cycles of creation and destruction. The work of snakes realigns the fiindamental elements of Creek physics-water, earth, fire, and air" (Chaudhuri 2001 8). The five representatives were stationed throughout Cherokee territory, one at Terraqua among the Upper Town settlements, one at Quanesee among the Middle towns, one at Choty [Echota] between Quanesee and Tugalo, one with himself at Tugalo, and finally one north of Tugalo at Watogoa (McDowell 1955, 123). Hastings can also be credited with helping to opening trading relationships with the Chickasaw. Hastings was granted permission to trade with the Chickasaw by the Commissioners of the Indian 403

"when they come to renew their friendship with us" (McDowell 1955, 129), meetings that likely occurred on the Tugalo River, tributary of the Savannah River, at present-day Chickasaw Point, South Carolina . Drechsel states, "We can confidently assume that Mobilian Jargon was very different from vernacular Mobilian on the grounds of its particular sociolinguistic nature, whence it is inappropriate to draw any inferenece from one about the other" (Drechsel 2001, 175). For more information on multilingual communities among the Creek see Karen M. Booker, Charles Hudson, and Robert Rankin. "Place Name Identification and MultilinguaUsm in the 16"'-Century Southeast." Ethnohistory 39{l992y 399-451. 1992. For more information on Mobilian Jargon as a contact medium and the possibility of an eastern variety of the pidgin see Emanual J. Drechsel. "The Question of the Lingua Franca Creek." Mid-America Linguistics Conference Papers. Frances Ingemann Ed. Lawrence; Department of Linguistics, University of Kansas, 494-304. 1983. As Indigenous Studies scholars Tom Holm (Cherokee), Diane Pearson, and Ben Chavis (Lumbee) have previously noted, "Over the years, anthropologists, political philosophers, and Western academicians in general have developed a hierarchal set of definitions of the ways in which human beings organize themselves socially and politically. The lowest, and to use Western terminology, the most 'primitive' form of human organization is the band. This sociopolitical form is defined as a small group- perhaps twenty to fifty people-of hunters or foragers led by an informally acknowledged headman who primarily handles domestic disputes and leads the group in various economic and religious activities. The next step up is the tribe, which incorporates a few thousand people into a single social, but not necessarily political organization. The tribe is considered an association of kin groups that link themselves to a hypothetical or mythical ancestor. There is no central political organization other than an informal council of elders or other acknowledged leaders who lead by example rather that coercion. An offshoot of the tribe-rather than an evolutionary step-is the chiefdom. A chiefdom can incorporate thousands of people and has a strictly formal, full-time public leader. Essentially, the chiefdom is a tribe with a highly centralized political authority, according to anthropological orthodoxy. Finally, Western scholars have defined the highest and most 'modem' form of sociopolitical organization as the state" (Holm, Pearson, and Chavis 2003, 15-6). The Native people known to Carolinians as the Savannah were closely associated with the Shawnee of the Ohio country. According to Gallay, the "Savarmah were the first large Indian group to move to the Savannah River area in the 1680s" (Gallay 2002, 73). Gallay even makes a case that Shawnee was a southeastern lingua franca (Gallay 2002, 55-6; 235-6), a situation which might help explain Tecumseh's ability to move freely throughout the American southeast during the early nineteenth century, arguing for a united Indigenous front against Anglo-American westward expansion. For an Indigenous perspective on the Shawnee propensity for moving about the southeast see Barbara Mann (2003) Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the Mounds, Chapter 3. "We Can Make a Waukauhoowaa," 105-69. 404

Swanton's examples come from the following sources: Charlevoix, Pierre- FrariQOis-Xavier. History and General Description of New France I-VI. John Gilmary Shea Ed. New York, 1872. Also available from Historical Collections of Louisiana, 1851. 169-70; Le Petit. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents LXXIII. Rueben Gold Thwaites Ed. Cleveland, 1897-1901. 156-63; Dumont, de Montigny. Memoires Historiques sur La Louisiane, I-II. Le Mascrier Ed. Paris, 1753. 182-187;. du Pratz, Le Page. Historic de La Louisiane, 1. New Orleans, 1831. 106-114 and 182-187. Swanton's discussion of the origins and reliability of these sources appears in his introduction to the text (Swanton 1911, 1-7). The translator and editor of the journal manuscript notes that the "the Bayogoula and the Mugulasha were domiciled in the same village on the west bank of the Mississippi River sixty-four leagues above the mouth. The chief of the Mugulasha seems to have been the chief of the Quinipissas. There were some hundred cabins and 400 to 500 souls in this village" (McWilliams 1981, 45). McWilliams notes that the Oumas or Houma, Huma is the name of a Choctaw tribe living seven leagues above the mouth of the Red River and on the east bank of the Mississippi. Huma means "red." Their emblem was the red crawfish (McWilhams 1981, 47). Other obvious examples include: the cross in circle motif, representations of the Falcon Impersonator, allegedly a symbol of a southeastern "warrior cult" that archaeologists believe exercised a great deal of power in hierarchal Mississippian societies, platform mounds, temples, plazas, and palisaded towns Hudson notes for example that the Natchez went to live with the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee after being driven from the Lower Mississippi Valley by the French. The underlying cultural affinities that facilitated Natchez incorporation into other southeastern Native societies probably contributed to Native Peoples willingness to enter into tribal Confederacies during the post contact era. Corkran's analysis is based upon "two eighteenth century manuscripts which record observations among the Overhills at least forty years apart" (Corkran 1953, 21). The two texts are: Long, Alexander. "A Small Postscript of the ways and manners of the nashon of Indians called Cherikees." Papers for the Propagation of the Gospell. Manuscript of Division of the Library of Congress. William Richardson, "A Report in Diary form to Reverend Samuel Davies of Newcasde, Hanover County , Virginia, Sewcretary of the Society for Managing the Mission and Schools among the Indians, October 2, 1758 through March 17, 1759" William R. Davie Papers, II, 1758-1852. Southern Historical Collections, University of North Carolina. Corkran's analysis and observations were published in a series of articles in Southeastern Indian Studies from 1953 to 1956. The articles are: "The Sacred Fire of the Cherokees" (1953), "Cherokee Sun and Fire Observances" (1955), and "The Nature of the Cherokee Supreme Being" (1956). Corkran's argument is undoubtedly based in part on an awareness of French reports concerning the nature of Natchez political structure. Charles Hudson writes, "The 405

Natchez beheved that the first Suns (a French translation of the Natchez term used to designate paramount leaders) were a man and a woman from the Upper World who had come down to govern men and teach them how to live better. The man was known as the younger brother of the Sun. He commanded men to build a temple and he brought down pure fire from the Sun.and placed in the temple where burned perpetually. It was fed by three hickory logs of pure wood, from which the bark had been removed, tended by eight fire tenders who watched in turn" (Hudson 1976, 208).

Also referred to as a Busk ceremony, the Poskito, or renewal ceremony, was the most important of several southeastern ceremonies to be held in the square ground during the year. Known to Europeans as the "Busk," because it was derived from the Muskogee word for "a fast," the ceremony was referred to as the "green com ceremony" because com played an important part in the ritual performed. The eight day celebration was held after the gathering of the first new com crop, to mark the beginning the new year.

As Swanton points out, the process could also work in reverse. If a chiefdom became too small to be viable, it could fuse itself with a larger one. After being removed to Oklahoma territory, the Creek chiefdoms of Okchai, Lulogula, and Ai lanabi fused into a single chiefdom called Okchias, but in time, as disputes arose, one group split off, assuming the name Asi lanabi. Later another group split off as well and assumed the name Lulagulga, even though neither group maintained clear ties to the group they appropriated their respective names from (quoted from Hudson 1976, 233). The political priorities that prompted this process produced an institutional format for unification and secession is likely the basis of later acts of confederation during the early historic era and would, for example, help explain the political, linguistic, and cultural complexity of Indigenous southeastern confederacies such as the Creek and Cherokee. This significant historical circumstance deserves closer scmtiny because it exemplifies the processes of southeastem cultural confluence. By attempting to constmct a National Cherokee polity capable of dealing effectively with European counterparts, they consciously brought the ancient settings, symbols and contexts of their Mississippian past to bear on the necessity of political centralization. Political centraHzation was problematic because the difficulty of maintaining harmony and balance increases as the body politic increases in size. These attempts at National council should be understood not only from political perspectives but also from the cosmological perspectives that require maintenance of a variety of natural and supernatural relationships. In the southeast, social order was not solely a function of political organization. The order of the universe was also dependent on a number of different categories of relationships besides the political. Each category required active maintenance. With so aspects of community life to parts to regulate, on the human, natural, supernatural levels, centralizing political power in Cherokee society faced substantial institutional obstacles simply because altering political organization rippled through Cherokee societies, affecting nearly every other aspect of day to day existence. 406

According to Lynda Norene Sliaffer, "Chunky stones first appear in sites from the Mississippian Period. These stones were shaped something Uke a pancake with hollowed out concave sides and were polished to a high sheen. They are found throughout the moundbuilding region and were used to play a game called chunky. In this game someone rolled one of the stones across a large field, and while it was still rolling the players threw spears at the point where they thought it would stop. The wirmer was the person whose spear landed closest to the point where the rolling stone fell" (Shaffer 992, 58). The authors cite the following scholarship as the basis of their assertion that Mississippian plazas and adjacent rivers were spatially related: Reed, Nelson A. (1977). "Monks and Other Mississippian Mounds." Explorations into Cahokia Archaeology. M. L. Fowler Ed. Bulletin 7, Illinois Archaeological Survey. Urbana: University of Illinois. 31 -42; Wahls, Richard (1986). An Examination of Shared Patterns of Plaza Definitions in Mississippian Mound and Plaza Centers. Unpublished Senior Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana; and Payne, Claudine (1994). Mississippian Capitals: An Archeological Investigation of Precolumbiam Political Structure. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Florida. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Archaeological evidence from David Anderson (1996) suggests that moundbuilding ceased in the regions adjacent to Savannah River Valley around the turn of the seventeenth century, only seventy-five to one hundred years, or approximately three generations, prior to the establishment of Charles Town. Moreover, I believe it is a mistake to equate the demise of Mississippian culture with the end of moundbuilding activities since this was only one aspect of Mississippian experience even if it was the most visable and dramatic expression of Mississippian cultural orientations. Discussing "political power" in Indigenous communities is difficult because of fundamental differences in its conception and implementation. In most Indigenous American societies, "sacred and pohtical power were inseparable" (Taylor 1999, 108; Perdue 2004, 704) According to Hudson, "The river was associated with the moon and on every new moon. Including those in winter, the Cherokees used to go to the bank of a river where a priest officiated and everybody plunged in. This was to ensure long life, implying that the snake, which annually sheds its skin, is associated with longevity. Usually, this ritual took place at a bend of the river where they could face upstream toward the rising sun. Just as fire could be offended, so could the river" (Hudson 1976, 172-3). Hudson goes on to note, "One of the principle means of overcoming pollution in the Southeast was by bathing in creeks and rivers. The rule was that early in the morning, before eating any food, everybody was supposed to go to the river to swim and bathe. In some places they were supposed to plunge into the water four times. This rule included men and women, young and old." (Hudson 1976, 324). 70 Once again, Charles Hudson offers insight into the cosmologies of southeastern Native peoples: "They had rules stipulating that beings belonging to radically opposed categories had to be kept apart, physically and otherwise, so that, for example, in certain situations male had to be kept apart from female, birds from fourOfooted animals, fire 407

from water, and so on. When men [and women] failed to keep such opposing forces apart, dire consequences could be expected to result. Related to this tradition was the Southeastern Indians' concern with maintaining purity and avoiding pollution, a concern, in fact, that was so extreme that is strikes us as having been almost obsessive" (Hudson 1976,317). Moore summarizes different perspectives of Catawba origins in the conclusion of his text, noting the work of Baker 1974, 1976; Hudson 1965, 1970, 1990; Merrell 1989; and Moore 2002. He acknowledges that his study rehes heavily on Charles Hudson's "compelling model of Catawba origins," which directly links "sixteenth-century Siouan- speaking chiefs with the Esaw and Catawba tribes encountered by John Lawson in 1701" (Moore 2002, 186). Lawson's journey took him up the Santee River to its confluence with the Conagree River where it becomes known as the Wateree River. Continuing up the river, Lawson entered the lower Catawba River valley near present day Charlotte, North Carolina, where he turned northeast on the Virginia trading path towards Saponi Town. Traveling northeast as far as the upper reaches of the Cape Fear and Nuese Rivers, Lawson turned east, passed through the coastal plain of North Carolina and returned to an English settlement on the Pamlico River (Moore 2002, 17). 73 Archaeologists now identify the Mulbery site in Camden as the location of Cofitachiqui (Moore 21). Moore sites the following sources for the existence of a trading relationship between the Catawba and the Virginians prior to the founding of Charles Town in 1670: (Brown 1966; 48-53; Alvord and Bidgood 1912, 46-50; and WiUiam Byrd II (1928), who claimed Virginia traders established a trade relationship with the Cherokee in 1652 and the trading route had necessarily passed through Catawba Territory. Vemer Crane (1928) and Alan Gallay (2002) could also be included in the list since the both maintain that the Westo, who resided in the Savannah River valley at the time Charles Town was established, had obtained firearms from Virginia traders and were as a destabilizing force in throughout the region. According to Moore, the term Lamar is derived from the Lamar site in Macon, Georgia (165). David J. Halley provides a comprehensive overview of Lamar culture and studies in "An Overview of Lamar Culture." Ocmulgee Arhaeology 1936-1986. *University of Georgia Press, 1994. 144-74. According to Halley, Lamar Complicated Stamped, with its distinctive thickened and pinched/punctuated rim, appears in the archaeological record during the latter half of the 14"^ century. Lamar incised does not appear for another 100 years, but with relatively few exceptions the two types co-occur throughout the area.. .into the seventeenth century. Plain surfaced pottery is also common.. .and along with Lamar Complicated Stamped and Lamar Incised, is one of the three basic types constituting the Lamar pottery complex (145). Lesser writes, "After commanding the very difficult voyage to South Carolina, West became both store keeper for the settlement and manager of the three proprietors' [Sir George Carteret, Sir Peter Colleton, and Lord Anthony Cooper] private plantation" 408

(Lesser 1995, 23). From 1670-1685, West served as three terms as Governor of the settlement as well (Lesser 1995, 176-7). In their characterizations of Oconee River Valley settlements as chiefdoms, WiUiams and Shapiro cite the following sources: Marvin T. Smith and Stephan A. Kowalewski. "Tentative Identification of a Pre-historic 'Province' in Piedmont Georgia." Early Georgia 8: 1981, 1-13, and the work of Williams himself: "Growth and Decline of the Oconee Province." The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704. Charles Hudson and Carmen Tesser Eds. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. 179-96. Williams and Shapiro base these claims on their own observations and the scholarship of David G. Anderson "The Mississippian Occupation of the Savannah River VdWcy." Florida Anthropologist AT)-. 1990, 13-35; The Savannah River Chiefdoms: Political Change in the Late Prehistoric Southeast. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994; David J. Hally, Marvin T. Smith, and James B. Langford Jr. "The Archeological Reality of de Soto's Coosa." In Columbian Consequences II: Archeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East. David H. Thomas Ed. Washing DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. 121-38; Charles M. Hudson, Marvin T. Smith, David Hally, Richard Polhemus, and Chester DePratter. "Coosa: A Chiefdom in the Sixteenth-century Southeastern United States." American Antiquities 50: 1985, 723-37. The hypocrisy of their position was clearly evident to the Carolina's settler population when proprietors Shaftesbury and Colleton imposed a monopoly over the Indian Trade, via the Westo, through their agent Henry Woodward. After opening relations with Indigenous peoples on the Chattahoochee River (between present-day Georgia and Alabama) in the late 1670s, an astute and experienced Indian diplomat like Woodward must have surely recognized that the potential markets for English trade goods in the heart of the southeast made the coastal and piedmont peoples, including the 'warlike' Westo, expendable from the English perspective, ensuring that they would become objects of Anglo-American slaving activities. Settlement Indian is a loosely defined category, a term that could be applied to any individual or group of native peoples living within the self-proclaimed limits of the colony during the last three decades of the seventeenth century. From an English perspective, Settlement Indians were native peoples who were in "amity with" or "under the protection of the proprietary government, characterizations that are clearly ambiguous and subject in nature. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshal was among the first American legal scholars to directly address the problematic and controversial issue of "protection" in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1832), and even at this relative late date, Marshal openly recognized the distinct nature of Cherokee society and the governmental autonomy of the Cherokee Nation. As an imposed colonial designation, the descriptive value the label of Settlement Indian is limited. Alan Gallay makes frequent use of the term to describe native peoples in and around Charles Town, but the term is not explicitly defined in his text. In the table that purports to be "a demography of settlement Indians" (440), Gallay includes a diverse collection of native nations as 409

though proprietary fiat was sufficient to radically alter the political and legal status of Indigenous communities. Besides an incomplete list of coastal and piedmont townships, Gallay includes the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, and the Creek (206); the inclusion of these larger Native confederacies seems to elide the political, military, and logistical circumstances, which Marshal attempted, with great difficulty, to reconcile one hundred fifty years later. The origin of the term lies within the Proprietary record itself and Gallay's use of the term is problematic because it portrays Native peoples as passive agents subject proprietary authority. Gallay adopts the term for the sake of narrative convenience, and as a result glosses over the importance of cross-cultural dynamics in the Carolina piedmont prior to the eighteenth century. According to Corkran "the Creek numbered between seven and eight thousand people established in sixty villages on the Chattahoochee, Tallapoosa, and Coosa Rivers in what is now western Georgia and eastern Alabama. These villages generally consisted of several score single-family clay houses grouped on streets about a central square, which held council arbors and a temple. Nearby on the flats stretched the cornfields. Some towns, such as Coweta on the Chattahoochee and Tuckabatchee on the Tallapoosa, held eight or nine hundred people" (Corkran 1969, 8). According to Gallay, substantial trade with the Upper Creek, Lower Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw began under the supervision of Governor James Colleton in 1701 just as the French began to settle the lower Mississippi (Gallay 2002, 92). Gallay credits George Smith and John Stewart early residents of Stewart Town, an ill-fated settlement of Presbyterian Scots established near Charles Town in 1684 (Gallay 2002, 74), with opening Carolina's trade with the Lower Creek (northern and western Georgia), the Upper Creek (north-central Alabama), and the Chickasaw (northern Mississippi) (Gallay 2002, 89). Traders from the Jamestown colony opened diplomatic relations with the Cherokee, but their relations with Carolinians did begin in earnest until 1681 when representatives joined English sponsored slave raid against Spanish missions in Guale. In the early 1690s, a Cherokee delegation visited the Governor in Charles Town to seek rehef from the Westo slave raids (Heard 1987, 91-2).

Chapter 3. Charles Town as Case Study: Cycling Indigenous Partnerships in Proprietary South Carolina

Q-5 This fact is clearly demonstrated by the adaptation and continued use of the reductive term Indian in face of tremendous cultural and linguistic diversity. It is also clearly illustrated by the documentary record. For example during the Spanish siege of Charles Town (1670), the English inability to distinguish between nations of Indians almost had disastrous consequences. In a letter to the proprietors, William Owen writes that the Carolina, upon its return from Virginia with supplies and reinforcements for the besieged settlement, sent her launch ashore, approaching besieging Indians allied with the Spanish if they were friendly Cusabo. Owen states that "thinking they had been our owne Indians might have been injured but aye Indian which the ship carried to Virginia gave notice [that] they were Spanish Indians" (Shaftsbury Papers 199)(my emphasis). 410

Rd. Heard reports that "Chicora was the Indian name of the Carolina region between the Cape Fear and Savannah Rivers" (Heard 1986, 97). The name of the region was provided by a captive Indian, enslaved by Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon in 1521. According to Heard, Francisco Chicora was "perhaps the only survivor among 70 Indians seized along the Carolina coast' (Heard 1986, 97). He was converted to Christianity, became Ayllon's interpreter, and retained to Spain with Ayllon in 1523. In order to obtain an opportunity to return to his homeland, Chicora "related amazing stories about Indians with tails and described great riches to be found in his native land. The King granted Ayllon's petition, and in 1526, Francisco sialed with th expedition to establish the colony. Immediately upon arrival, he deserted his master and fled into the wilderness to rejoin his ownQC people" (Heard 1986, 98). Ayllon was a lawyer as was his father before him. He was a member of the Royal Council of Hispaniola, and so enjoyed considerable power and authority. Ayllon was a Knight of the Order of Santiago, but he was not a professional soldier. Ayllon grew rich by enslaving Native peoples, exploiting the mineral resources of Hispaniola, and investing in the Caribbean's rapidly growing sugar industry (Quattlebaum 1956, 5-6). The Pee Dee River is known as the Yadkin River in North Carolina. Its headwaters are north of present-day Lenoir, North Carolina near Blowing Rock. The Mississippian site known as Town Creek is located on the lower Pee Dee River near the North Carolina/South Carolina State border (Anderson 1996a, 172). 87 Heard writes the Edisto lived on the lower Savannah River when they first encountered Europeans. He believes that the Edisto were the people who welcomed Jean Ribaut in 1562 and the Spanish at St. Elena in 1566. However, it seems more likely that the Edisto lived up the coast from the Savannah River and constituted a separate community of Cusabo people distinct from those inhabiting Santa Elena. William Hilton responded to a hospitable Edisto reception by seizing captives and carrying them to Barbados as slaves. After Charles Town was estabUshed, the Edisto were compelled to sell most of their best land. By 1695 the English considered them to be tributary or Settlement Indians. In later conflicts with the Westo and Savannah Indians, captives taken from their settlements were sold to the Carolinians as slaves, greatly reducing their numbers, and they were extinct by the early eighteenth century (Heard 1987, 144). This particular area of the Carolina coast was the site of substantial colonial activity, and as a result it has variety of culturally specific designations. The estuaries and sea islands between present-day Port Royal Sound and St Helena Sound were sites of numerous, short-lived European settlements. The Spanish established a number of missions in the region, which is often subsequently referred to as St. Helena by English explorers; the French designated the region Port Royal and made at least two attempts to establish permanent settlements; apparently the English explorers and settlers used both terms to refer to the region in question, further complicating matters. However, they placed chose sites further up the coast for their permanent settlements; Scottish colonization of the area came after the establishment of Charles Town in 1670 and included a temporary settlement Stuart Town, which was destroyed by the Spanish and more permanent settlements adjacent to Port Royal. 411

89 Kywaha, or Kiawah, is the English articulation of Spanish Cayagua. Cayagua was the Indian town adjacent to Oyster Point, which ultimately was the final site of the Charles Town colony and the heart of present-day Charleston, South Carolina. Cooper was no stranger to colonial enterprises. Prior to his oversight of the Carolina colony, Cooper had served as Governor of Summers Islands Company, which ruled the Bahamas, and he owned shares of the Royal Africa Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (Lesser 1995, 29). The Sewee were a small group of Siouan-speakers inhabiting present-day Bulls Bay, South Carolina when Charles Town was established (Heard 1987, 334). Anne King Gregorie asserts the Sewee were members of the Cusabo Confederacy (Gregorie 1926, 8), but given their linguistic categorization, this claim remains open to speculation. According to David Corkran, the Sewee were so over zealous over the prospect of trade with the English that they "determined to have a direct trade with European. To this end they outfitted a fleet of dugout canoes with mats for sails and embarked two hundred of their men to cross the ocean. Caught in a storm, half of them drowned. Most of the survivors were picked up at sea by an English ship and sold as slaves in the West Indies (Corkran 1970, 10). Their urgent desire to open direct trade with Europe seems to support Norene Shaffer's hypothesis that the Siouan-speakers of the Carolina piedmont might have constituted a "Cahokian vanguard" that was charged with opening new trade relationships, coordinating the exchange of trade goods between Mississippian polities, and facilitating the integration of these far-flung exchange networks. Alan Gallay makes this same point in The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717. Gallay writes, "The first English settlers largely hailed from other colonies, particularly Barbados. Although subsistence necessarily preoccupied their early efforts, they had not come to Carolina for that alone. With life in the West Indies as their model, and these same islands as their market, they moved to Carolina in search of rich land and commercial opportunities, using their slave labor to produce lumber, shingles, and staves, as well as beef and com for export. Borrowing Peter H. Wood's description, Gallay writes that Carolina became a 'colony of a colony,' providing sugar-rich Barbados with a nearby producer of food and other necessities" (43). 93 For insights into indigenous geographical knowledge see Warhus, Mark. Another America: Native American Maps and the History of Our Land. New York: St Martin's Press, 1997. De Soto's practice of seizing native peoples as guides, navigators, and interpreters was inherited from Columbus and is a well documented by The Journals of Columbus and the four surviving accounts of the de Soto expedition. The De Soto Chronicles, Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James knight Jr., and Edward C. Moore Eds. Archaeologist David Anderson defines 'cycling' as "organizational...fluctuations between simple and complex/paramount chiefdoms ("Fluctuations between Simple and Complex Chiefdoms: Cycling in Late Prehistoric Southeast." Political Structure and Change in the Prehistoric United States. 234. Also see: "PoHtical Evolution in Chiefdom Societies: Cycling in the Late Prehistoric Southeastern United States." Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan, 1990.24-6. 412

Anderson uses the term to describe the rise and fall of interactive chiefdom societies in the southeast, but it could just as easily be applied to the English treatment of their indigenous allies. Until the end of the Yamassee War (1716) a patterned evolutionary treatment of native peoples emerged in the South Carolina sphere of influence as native peoples cycled through diplomatic relationships with the English. First perceived as threats, they were soon incorporated into English trading networks, where they often become procurers of slaves and military allies. When participation in these roles increased tribal diplomatic and military influence to the point that the English began to perceive them as threats and their actions as agents of English interests had alienated them from other native peoples in the region, these tribal nations invariably became targets of slaving activities themselves after those they had alienated had been, in turn, armed by the English. This pattern of behavior is evident in the English diplomatic relationships with the members of the Cusabo confederacy, (Cusso, Stono, Winyah), with the Westo, the Savannah, the Yamassee, and eventually the even with members of the Creek Confederacy and the Cherokee Nation. This pattern of interaction is also evident in Thomas Jefferson and George Washington's discussions of Indian policy following the American Revolution ("The Savage as the Wolf reprinted in Getches, 1998, 83). Indigenous Studies is an academic discipline fraught with linguistic difficulties. Among the most readily apparent problems is the inappropriate and uncritical application of terms. Generalized signifiers such as "Indian" and "European" are reductive, essentialist, and practically useless descriptions. Given its racist and stereotypical connotations, Indian is hardly seems an appropriate signifier for academic discourse. However, writing about the histories of Indigenous peoples without incorporating them in some way is often difficult due to inherent structural and organizational limitations of westem European methods of scholarship. Because over-determined concepts are too often uncritically applied, culturally negotiated concepts, such as "power" and "warfare," also have the potential to distort Indigenous cultural and historical perspectives. I invite the audience to purposeftilly consider these problematic terms by italicizing them when they are first presented in the text. I will not burden my readers by continuing to emphasize their usage throughout the text. Many scholars (Lauber 1913, Crane 1928, Gallay 2002) have noted the remarkable success of the English traders in the Carolinas, noting that Englishmen went as far west as the Mississippi River courting indigenous trading partnerships less than a decade after the colony was established. Lauber states that inl673 Marquette found knives, beads, and hatchets among the Arkansas Indians, commodities that were probably obtained indirectly through indigenous intermediaries (Lauber 1913, 27). While Lauber and Crane speculate that these goods were obtained from Virginia traders, it is just as likely that these goods were obtained via Charles Town traders since Henry Woodward had established contact with indigenous peoples on the Chattahoochee River three years earlier (Corkran 1970, 6). It is also possible that the English trade goods observed by Marquette were conveyed through indigenous trading networks and had been disseminated far from their source just as other commercial goods had been transported throughout the region for thousands of years. Whether the goods or the traders 413

themselves were conducted through indigenous exchange networks is a moot point. The rapid transportation of commodities was made possible by the Mississippian contexts of indigenous southeastern peoples. Queen Anne's War was the North American portion of the War of the Spanish Succession, a struggle between Europe's three primary Imperial powers England, France, and Spain. The Spanish King Charles II had willed his Kingdom to Phillip V, a grandson of the French King Louis XIV. A coalition thus fought the war in order to prevent a merging of Spain and France. The war was concluded by the treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastatt (1714). Towns affiliated with the Cusabo Confederacy are thought to have stretched up the Atlantic coast between present-day Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, but there is debate over the exactly which Native towns were a part of the Cusabo Confederacy (Swanton 1946, 128). The area in question contains three rivers in addition to the Edisto, the Salkehatchie, the Little Salkehatchie, and the Coosawhatchie. The rivers feed South Carolina's coast from the mouth of the Edisto River to the mouth of the Savannah. Joseph West served three separate terms as Governor of Proprietary South Carolina. The first was from March 17671- April 1672; the second was from August 1674- September 1682, and the third was from September 1684-July 1685 (Lesser 1995, 176). English concepts of land ownership and land management are inextricably bound up with the closure of the English Commons, the colonizing legal theory of the Norman Yoke, and the philosophical musings John Locke. John Locke played a prominent role in redefining English patterns of land use. His seventeenth century discourse on property and natural law provide the philosophical foundations of arguments in favor of closing the English Commons. By declaring that "in the beginning, all the world was America (Of Property), Locke simultaneously advocated a radical departure in English land management practices and justified the colonization of North America. For a more complete discussion of Locke's philosophy and English colonizing legal theory see Williams (1990) The American Indian in Western Legal Thought (227-54). The central role of Locke's theories in justifying English colonization casts his role as Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury's personal secretary in a critical light. Locke spent two years in Shaftesbury's household attending to the aristocrat's business interests and writing Charles Town's Fundamental Constitutions. 102According * to Heard, the Occaneechi were Siouan-speakers.... living on an island I the Roanoke River near present-day Clarkville, Virginia when John Lederer came to their settlements in 1670. "They controlled the Indian trade of the area as middle men, compelling mountain Indians to deliver furs to their village and insisting white men obtain permission before proceeding through their gateway to the Piedmont" (Heard 1987, 272). In 1676 they were attacked by Virginians during Bacon's Rebellion and fled to the Eno River in present-day North Carolina. According to Gallay, "Woodward had arrived in Carolina in 1666 under proprietary sponsorship to learn Indian languages and pave the way for English 414

settlement. Two years later, he was captured by the Spanish and imprisoned in St. Augustine. He escaped, served as surgeon on a privateer, and returned to Carolina in 1670. Woodward's linguistic and personal skills placed him in a key position as negotiator of trade and political relations with neighboring Indians" (Gallay 2002, 54). For a brief account of Shawnee origin stories and their moundbuilding traditions see Barbara Mann (2003) Native Americans, Archaeologists, and the Mounds, especially pags 124-127. The Yamassee were a large tribe of Muskogee-speakers, living on the Altamaha River in 1540 when they encountered de Soto's expedition. They were staunch allies of the Spanish for almost one hundred years with mission settlements along the Atlantic coast in present day Georgia and Florida (Heard 400). Hahn reports pirates attacked Yamassee villages on the coast of present-day Georgia in 1683, which caused many of the inhabitants to seek refuge in Coweta and Cussita. According to Hahn, "The Yamassee appear to have lived in the vicinity of Coweta and Cussita for nearly two years before returning once again to the coast to settle in the vicinity of Stuart's Town" (Hahn 2004, 41). Woodward had recently returned from England with a proprietary commission to explore the "undiscovered western frontier" (Hahn 2004, 42). The commission guaranteed Woodward one fifth of the profits derived from the trade with western Indians (Hahn 2004, 42). 108 Letter from the South Carolina Board of Commissioners of the Indian Trade to Thomas Naime, agent among the Yamassee, July 17, 1713. Journals of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade 1710-1718. William L. McDowell Ed. Columbia: South Carolina Archives Department, 1955. 47. Georgia was the last State to ratify the United States Constitution. Georgia agreed to cede western land claims obtained in its Royal Charter and ratify the Constitution in 1802, but only after the federal authorities promised to extinguish Indian title to lands within the state (Agreement of 1802), which was theoretically impossible given the inherent limitations imposed on the United States by federally negotiated treaties (Getches 1998, 96). 415

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