Pamunkey Indian Subsistence Practices and the Market Economy 1800-1900
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2017 Knowing the River, Working the Land, and Digging for Clay: Pamunkey Indian Subsistence Practices and the Market Economy 1800-1900 Ashley Spivey College of William and Mary, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Spivey, Ashley, "Knowing the River, Working the Land, and Digging for Clay: Pamunkey Indian Subsistence Practices and the Market Economy 1800-1900" (2017). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1516639670. http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/S2NQ2Z This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Knowing the River, Working the Land, and Digging for Clay: Pamunkey Indian Subsistence Practices and the Market Economy 1800 – 1900 Ashley Layne Atkins Spivey Pamunkey Indian Reservation, King William, Virginia Master of Arts, College of William & Mary, 2009 Bachelor of Arts, James Madison University, 2007 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of The College of William & Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology College of William & Mary August 2017 © Copyright by Ashley Atkins Spivey 2017 COMPLIANCE PAGE Research approved by Protection of Human Subjects Committee (PHSC) Protocol number(s): PHSC-2010-02-25-6513-mdgall PHSC-2013-05-20-8743-mdgall Date(s) of approval: March 1, 2010 August 8, 2013 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the responses and engagement of the Pamunkey Indians with an expanding capitalist economy in nineteenth century Tidewater Virginia. Framed by theoretical discourses of political economy and landscape, I investigate the Pamunkey community’s Reservation subsistence economy, and the transitional effects the infiltration of industrial capitalism had on the economic life and experiences of Pamunkey people. Evidence uncovered from archaeological investigations on the Reservation, archival resources, and oral testimony from tribal members reveal how the Pamunkey community structured their engagement with the market. Pamunkey market engagement formed a mixed economy that followed an annual seasonal round grounded in the Reservation landscape. The annual round combined traditional subsistence practices of pottery making, fishing, hunting, trapping and horticulture with migratory wage labor. It is apparent these processes and the relationships that fueled them are still at work within the contemporary Reservation community. Thus, this dissertation and the questions that inform it are also shaped by the historical consciousness of the Pamunkey people. Pamunkey economic experiences throughout the nineteenth century highlight the persistence, creative agency, and ingenuity of an Indigenous community that was socially, economically, and politically marginalized. The Pamunkey community’s ability to strategically adapt these practices structured the community’s engagement in the capitalist economy to the Tribe’s advantage, while simultaneously ensuring these practices and the knowledge required to do them survived for future generations. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii Dedication iii Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. Methodologies and Theoretical Framework 18 Chapter 3. Pamunkey Men and the Reservation Economy 75 Chapter 4. Pamunkey Women and the Reservation Economy 187 Chapter 5. Pamunkey Consumer Practices and Reservation Homestead Economy 237 Chapter 6. Wage Labor and the Pamunkey Economy 264 Chapter 7. The Pamunkey Economy in Transition 295 Chapter 8. Conclusions 325 Bibliography 352 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to my advisor, Martin Gallivan. Twelve years ago he recognized in me the potential to become a dedicated and determined anthropologist. Without his foresight I would not have had the courage to begin this journey. Martin’s guidance and support as a mentor provided me with the tools necessary to complete this journey. I am thankful for Danielle Morreti-Langholtz whose mentorship and encouragement provided the foundation I needed to become a successful scholar. Her unwavering support and confidence sustained me through this journey. Thank you to Brad Weiss whose feedback and enthusiasm inspired me to always do better. And last, but not least, I thank Andy Fisher, whose humor reminded me that while the dissertation is important, I should not to take the journey or myself too seriously. I would like to thank my mother Layne Cook for her continual support and encouragement through this journey to complete my dissertation. Thank you to my grandfather, Warren Cook, whose footsteps I have chosen to follow. Through his dedication in serving his tribal community, my grandfather provided the example and knowledge I needed to begin and complete this journey, and to use my education as an opportunity to serve my people. I thank my community, the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, for their dedication to learning more about the past of our ancestors. Their interests and enthusiasm for Pamunkey history are the foundation for this dissertation, and provided the inspiration needed to complete this journey. Thank you to my Pamunkey ancestors, whose experiences and sacrifices forged the path that made it possible for me to pursue this journey. Most importantly, and with much love, I thank my husband, Daniel Spivey. His, empathy and encouragement throughout this process gave me the strength and support I needed to earn this accomplishment. ii This Ph.D. is dedicated to: Pamunkey ancestors who came before, Pamunkey people of the here and now, Pamunkey generations yet to come iii Chapter 1: Introduction In 2008, one year following the 2007 commemoration of Jamestown’s founding in 1607, I sat down with several members of my community, the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, to reflect on this celebration of colonial history, and the centuries proceeding European colonial expansion. These conversations highlighted community members’ profound interest in the historical experiences of their ancestors over the last four centuries. They revealed various, but common threads in our perceptions about the history of the past 400 years, and the complicated landscape the Pamunkey1 community faced during this time. That complicated landscape encompassed numerous points of reference for Pamunkey individuals that extended well beyond the year 1607. They included an adamant recognition that our history spans thousands of years, not hundreds; a regard for important Indigenous historical figures; reflections on how the wider public perceives our community; and an insistence that traditional subsistence on our Reservation lands sustained Pamunkey persistence despite the past 400 years. This last element is of tremendous importance to Pamunkey people, and this dissertation in particular. Despite the political and social erosion that took place within the Virginia Indian world, the Pamunkey were able to hold onto Through out this dissertation I use the term Pamunkey to reference, 1) the community1 – a people comprised of enrolled tribal members at present, and 2) a place, the Reservation. Importantly, these references traverse the past and present. I argue for continuity in my use of “Pamunkey people” and “Pamunkey community” as they signify a connection through ancestry, place, shared experiences, and a shared past. 1 central elements of their traditional subsistence economy that have came to serve as identifying features of the Pamunkey community. During these conversations, one statement in particular epitomized Pamunkey interest in documenting the processes through which our practices in traditional subsistence became marketable, cash earning activities. Former Pamunkey chief, Kevin Brown, explained “Pottery for sale was a way of carrying tradition on, if it wasn’t for sale it would have stopped somewhere along the line,” (personal communication January 13, 2008). This statement struck me as a profound recognition that our ability to persist was bounded in the intersections between traditional subsistence practices supported by the Reservation landscape, and the rise of industrial capitalism that began in the southern United States during the nineteenth century. Moreover, it demonstrates Pamunkey priorities related to documenting and critically understanding our history lie well beyond the outsider perceptions that our historical value and significance began and ended in the seventeenth century. However, for the rest of America, the seventeenth century defines Pamunkey history. Our historical significance and recognized contributions to the history of Virginia are book ended between 1607, with the arrival of the English, and 1677 with the signing of our last treaty. Thus, in general, this dissertation attempts to open and expand the seventeenth century frame of reference that has unfortunately come to define Pamunkey history. Importantly K. Brown’s declaration brings to light the very real and complex intersections between postcolonial social changes in American Indian 2 communities and the rise of an industrial capitalist economy. Scholars in the past have, at times, treated Native participation in a market economy as detrimental to Indigenous knowledge and destructive of cultural, economic,