The Cargo of the Steamboat Heroine and the Army of The
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THE CARGO OF THE STEAMBOAT HEROINE AND THE ARMY OF THE FRONTIER, 1838 A Thesis by NINA MAYON CHICK Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Chair of Committee, Kevin Crisman Committee Members, James C. Bradford Luis Filipe M Vieira De Castro Head of Department, Cynthia A. Werner May 2015 Major Subject: Anthropology Copyright 2015 Nina Mayon Chick ABSTRACT In spring of 1838, the Heroine steamed up the Red River carrying subsistence supplies for the U.S. Army garrison at Fort Towson, Choctaw Nation. Two miles from its destination, it struck a snag and sank. Rediscovered in 1999, the site was excavated between 2001 and 2008 by the Oklahoma Historical Society, The Institute of Nautical Archaeology, and Texas A&M University, with Dr. Kevin Crisman of Texas A&M as principal investigator. Though most of the cargo had been salvaged, excavators recovered remains of barrels, including three intact pork barrels, and cargo-handling tools. The purpose of this thesis is two-fold: to describe the historical context for Heroine’s last cargo and to explain hand-cooperage technology as a basis for understanding barrel remains. The 1830s saw rapid population growth and westward expansion, and rivers were the great highways for settlers and commerce. At the forefront was the Army of the Frontier, thinly spread in a line of forts reaching from the Red River to Canada. Fort Towson guarded the U.S. border with Mexico and, later, the Republic of Texas, but its first mission was protection of eastern tribes relocated to Indian Territory in the Indian Removals. This thesis traces the history of subsisting the army from 1775 to the creation of the Commissariat of Subsistence in 1818 under Colonel (later Major-General) George Gibson, and discusses the composition and use of the ration as reflections of contemporary medical knowledge and cultural expectations. The events surrounding the loss of the Heroine illustrate the system of supply under the Commissariat. This account ii is taken from correspondence between Gibson, Lieutenant Colonel Josiah H. Vose, commander of Fort Towson, and the contractors William S. Sullivant and Christopher Niswanger, of Ohio. The Catalog of Cargo-Related Artifacts includes descriptions of barrel remains, faunal remains (pig bones), and cargo-handling tools recovered in the Red River Project. iii DEDICATION This is dedicated to the one I love, David Fenton Chick, Sr. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writing of this thesis has been a long road, and many were the kind folks who helped me on the way. First and foremost, I want to thank Kevin Crisman, chair of my thesis committee, master of the nautical program’s New World Lab, and technical artist extraordinaire. Kevin hired me as a research assistant and introduced me to the exacting world of archaeological drawing, offered me the Heroine cargo for a thesis topic and tolerated my bits and pieces of barrels cluttering-up his lab for months on end. He sets a high standard to aspire to. I would like to thank committee members James C. Bradford, whose timely editorial comments were much appreciated, and Luis Filipe Vieira De Castro, who introduced me to the wonders of ancient ship construction and the documentation thereof. Many thanks also go to Cindy Hurt and Rebecca Luz in the Anthropology office, always helpful, friendly, and efficient. Rebecca Chase and Amanda Pena were undergraduate assistants who did much of the tedious work of measuring and describing the artifacts. Their invaluable help with the cooperage study is much appreciated. Special thanks go to Candace Schaefer, Nancy Vazquez and others who facilitate the thesis and dissertation writing groups in the University Writing Center for creating a community of writers and letting me be a part of it. Kathy Clark, then director of the v English Language Institute, gave me a teaching assistantship that provided not only income, but office and writing space. Her personal encouragement has been much appreciated as well. I would like to thank my friends and classmates Dana Perterman, Katherine Sinsich, and Bradley Krueger. I have seen editors acknowledged by many authors and thought, “That’s nice,” but never truly appreciated what editors contribute to a manuscript. Rhonda Brinkman has been amazingly helpful and supportive, and I could not have finished this thesis without her. Thanks go to the good folks at the Denny’s restaurants on Hwy 6 and on Texas Avenue and at Starbucks around town—where congenial study space can be rented for the price of a cup of coffee. And last but certainly not least, I thank my long-suffering family for putting up with me while I followed my archaeological dreams. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. v TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................xii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: A SHIPWRECK IN OKLAHOMA ............................. 1 An Ordinary Steamboat .......................................................................................... 1 The Red River Project ............................................................................................ 6 Organization of This Thesis ................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER II THE FRONTIER AND THE ARMY OF THE WEST IN THE 1830s .... 10 America in the 1830s ............................................................................................ 10 The State of the Nation ............................................................................. 11 The Indian Problem .................................................................................. 14 The West .............................................................................................................. 15 Cities on the Rivers .................................................................................. 16 River Transportation ................................................................................ 17 Ports and Landings ................................................................................... 20 River-Borne Trade .................................................................................... 21 Heroine’s Cargo ....................................................................................... 22 Doing Business in the 1830s .................................................................... 27 The Army of the Frontier ..................................................................................... 29 The Army and the Western Economy ...................................................... 29 Garrison Life ............................................................................................ 31 Fort Towson ............................................................................................. 32 Supplying Fort Towson ............................................................................ 36 vii Page CHAPTER III COOPERAGE .......................................................................................... 42 Some Terminology ............................................................................................... 42 A General History of Cooperage .......................................................................... 43 Origins of Staved Containers ................................................................... 43 Medieval and Early Modern Periods ........................................................ 45 Cooperage in the New World ................................................................... 46 Regulation and Standardization ............................................................... 47 Marks ...................................................................................................... 49 Some Universal Principles ....................................................................... 50 Types of Cooperage ............................................................................................. 52 White Cooperage ...................................................................................... 53 Tight/Wet Cooperage ............................................................................... 53 Slack/Dry Cooperage ............................................................................... 54 Barrel Construction .............................................................................................. 56 Barrel Parts ............................................................................................... 57 Before the Cooper .................................................................................... 59 At the Cooperage ...................................................................................... 61 Raising the Case ....................................................................................... 64