Queering Frontier Identities: Archaeological Investigations at a Nineteenth-Century U.S. Army Laundresses' Quarters in Fort Davis, Texas by Katrina Christiana Loening Eichner A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Laurie A. Wilkie Professor Kent G. Lightfoot Professor Ula Y. Taylor Spring 2017 Abstract Queering Frontier Identities: Archaeological Investigations at a Nineteenth-Century U.S. Army Laundresses' Quarters in Fort Davis, Texas by Katrina Christiana Loening Eichner Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Berkeley Professor Laurie A. Wilkie, Chair This dissertation examines the historical and archaeological traces of a group of Black, Mixed- Race, and Mexican U.S. Army laundresses’ and high ranking enlisted soldiers’ families who lived in a small neighborhood of laundresses’ quarters at the late nineteenth century Fort Davis, Texas. This far West Texas frontier post is distinguished by its association with Black enlisted troops and a ethno-racially diverse population situated on both a geographic frontier and a race relations frontier. In this complex environ, the families of laundresses and high ranked enlisted soldiers were positioned in such a way that their socio-economic and military status marked them as community leaders and care-takers; as such, the inhabitants at the quarters were situated on the edge, yet at the center of military and civilian life, working-class and middle-class status, and Black-White-Mexican race relations. Thus, their daily interactions occurred across various scales — with family members inside the home, between larger groups of fellow working women and soldiers, within the larger racialized military community, and as members of the larger town community. I suggest that the laundresses’ quarters’ community’s location within a matrix of highly ambiguous social and geographic landscapes resulted in inhabitants constantly embodying and actively negotiating between multiple lived realities that were shaped by various coexisting and (sometimes) conflicting ideologies. I employ a queer theoretical framework combined with third- space theory to understand the fragmentation and fluidity of experiences that occurred throughout the resident’s daily lives and social interactions. (Re)orienting how identification processes in cultural meeting spaces shaped and altered structuring beliefs highlights contextually specific past practices and performances and how enmeshed their identities truly were. In particular, the material traces of past identity making behaviors can bring to light the dis/misorientations of social actors that do not fit the static and boxed categories so often used to describe and order stories of the past. Rather than trying to describe the complexly variable experiences of past peoples with categorizable identities, I show that it is more effective to engage the ambivalent, inconsistent, and diverse meanings in the material record. This allows for a more nuanced understanding of the past and illustrates how queer moments of unintelligibility regularly occur in lived reality, both past and present. 1 Dedication To the many women in my life who model persistence, dedication, and passion. “A word after a word after a word is power.” ― Margaret Atwood i Contents CHAPTER 1: RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND CHAPTER OVERVIEW ......................... 1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................................................................................... 1 THE FORT DAVIS ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT (FODAAP) ......................................................... 3 A FEMINIST AND QUEER THEORETICAL STANDPOINT ............................................................. 4 A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY ........................................................................................................ 5 CHAPTER DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER 2: THEORIZING FRONTIER IDENTITIES QUEERLY ................................ 9 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 9 THINKING QUEERLY ................................................................................................................... 9 Queer (Un)defined ............................................................................................................... 10 Queer Theory’s Origins Outside of Archaeology ............................................................. 11 Queer Theory and Archaeology ......................................................................................... 12 Setting-up a Queer Framework.......................................................................................... 16 QUEERING IDENTITY ................................................................................................................ 18 Identity and Identification .................................................................................................. 18 Personhood ........................................................................................................................... 19 Identities in Concert, Identities in Dissidence, Identities in Gaps................................... 21 Materializing Identity.......................................................................................................... 24 Practice ............................................................................................................................... 25 Performance ....................................................................................................................... 26 Queer Materiality ............................................................................................................... 29 THE FRONTIER AS A SPACE OF QUEERNESS ............................................................................ 31 Situating Identity in Space and Time ................................................................................ 31 Defining the Frontier ........................................................................................................... 32 Hybridity and Third Space ................................................................................................. 33 Cultural Brokering .............................................................................................................. 35 Frontier Materiality ............................................................................................................ 35 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 3: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND................................................................. 38 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 38 LOCATION, CLIMATE, AND ENVIRONS ..................................................................................... 38 CULTURAL HISTORY PRIOR TO AMERICAN OCCUPATION ..................................................... 39 AN EARLY AMERICAN PRESENCE ............................................................................................ 41 ii A DIVERSE COMMUNITY AT THE SECOND FORT DAVIS .......................................................... 46 BUILDING THE NEW POST ........................................................................................................ 51 THE DAILY LIVES OF FRONTIER SOLDIERS ............................................................................. 53 A GROUP IN BETWEEN: LAUNDRESSES IN THE FRONTIER ARMY ........................................... 56 THE END OF AN ERA ................................................................................................................. 62 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................... 62 CHAPTER 4: ARCHAEOLOGICAL TESTING AT THE LAUNDRESSES’ QUARTERS ........................................................................................................................................... 64 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 64 PRE-FODAAP ARCHAEOLOGICAL TESTING .......................................................................... 65 FODAAP 2013 SURVEY ........................................................................................................... 65 FODAAP 2015 EXCAVATIONS ................................................................................................. 67 Field and Laboratory Methodologies ................................................................................ 67 Site Areas .............................................................................................................................. 68 HB-211 ............................................................................................................................... 69 HB-211 Northern Interior and Porch Line ..................................................................... 69 HB-211 Southern Interior..............................................................................................