Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: Long Term Organizational Principles in Multi-Ethnic Contexts

该项目将进行研究，调查如何在土著背景下采用和谈判与种植园农业有关的殖民结构和进程。尽管在美国南部和加勒比地区有大量关于种植园和奴隶制度的历史和考古研究，但对美洲原住民国家中存在的众多相应制度的研究相对较少。这样的本土背景概括了19世纪美国的许多种族动态，并提供了一个独特的机会来研究种植园制度跨越国家和文化界限的可塑性。由于缺乏关于土著种植园的具体历史文献和各地奴隶的日常生活，考古学特别适合于这种研究。从广义上讲，该项目将有助于对美国社会殖民主义遗产和种族关系的流行和学术讨论。在当地，该项目将包括通过社区互动和公共场所的志愿者机会进行教育和推广，并为当代关于美洲土著自由人作为部落公民地位的辩论提供历史背景。这些当地的互动使研究团队能够与传统上被剥夺公民权的群体接触，并阐明土著环境中种族关系的历史发展。该项目以一个首要问题为指导：在本土环境下，种植园是如何组织的？与欧美的种植园有何不同？为了回答这个问题，研究小组将评估位于俄克拉何马州帕克希尔的乔治·m·穆雷尔之家（也被称为“猎人之家”）的空间组织、内部社会组织以及农业和工业生产的组织。论文学生特拉维斯·威廉姆斯（Travis Williams）将带领一个由考古学家、动物考古学家、民族植物学家和土壤化学家组成的团队，通过结合考古数据和现存主要来源的相关历史信息，阐明19世纪中叶猎人之家的组织。将这些数据与来自欧美的大量类似种植园的数据进行比较，将揭示切诺基国家内外种植园在土地使用、劳工组织、消费者行为和农业生产方面的异同。研究人员将制作一个跨学科的数据集，为目前从事非洲侨民、美洲原住民和殖民主义问题的更广泛的学术界进行比较分析。这项研究还将有助于越来越多的考古学者探索传统的殖民主义二元分类的不足之处（例如，殖民者/被殖民者，连续性/变化），因为猎人之家的居民在这种二元分类中穿梭，操纵和管理。

This project will undertake research to investigate how colonial structures and processes related to plantation agriculture were adopted and negotiated within an indigenous context. Though there exists a wide array of historical and archaeological scholarship on plantations and chattel slavery in the American South and Caribbean, there has been relatively little research on the numerous corresponding institutions that existed within Native American nations. Such indigenous contexts encapsulate many of the racial dynamics of 19th century America and provide a unique opportunity to study the malleability of the plantation system across national and cultural boundaries. Due to the dearth of historical documentation on indigenous plantations specifically and the daily lives of the enslaved everywhere, archaeology is particularly suited to such research. Broadly, the project will contribute to popular and academic discussions of the legacies of colonialism and race relations in American society. Locally, the project will include education and outreach through community interaction and volunteer opportunities at a publicly owned site and provide historical context for contemporary debates regarding Native American Freedmens status as tribal citizens. These local interactions allow the research team to engage with traditionally disenfranchised groups and shed light on the historical development of race relations in indigenous settings. The project is guided by one overarching question: How were plantations organized in Native contexts, and how was this different than that of those in Euro-America? To answer this, the research team will evaluate the spatial organization, internal social organization, and the organization of agricultural and industrial production at the George M. Murrell Home (also known as "Hunter's Home"), in Park Hill, Oklahoma, in the heart of post-Removal Cherokee country. The dissertation student, Travis Williams, will lead a team of archaeologists, zooarchaeologists, ethnobotanists, and soil chemists to illuminate the organization of Hunter's Home during the middle of the 19th century through a combination of archaeological data and relevant historical information from extant primary sources. A comparison of these data to the plethora of those from like plantations in Euro-America will reveal differences and similarities in land use, labor organization, consumer practices, and agricultural production at plantations within and outside Cherokee country. The investigators will produce an interdisciplinary dataset germane to comparative analyses for the broader academic community currently engaging with issues of the African Diaspora, Native Americans, and colonialism. The study will also contribute to a growing body of archaeological scholarship exploring the inadequacy of traditional dichotomous categories of colonialism (e.g., colonizer/colonized, continuity/change), as the residents of Hunter's Home moved through, manipulated, and managed both sides of such dichotomies.