Paper Abstracts and Author Bios
SESSION 1: YAMASEE ORIGINS (Friday April 17)
Session Chair: John E. Worth, University of West Florida
Bio: John E. Worth is associate professor of historical archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, where he specializes in archaeology and ethnohistory focusing on the Spanish colonial era in the Southeastern U.S. A Georgia native, Dr. Worth received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Florida in 1992, and spent 15 years in public archaeology program administration in Georgia and Florida before becoming a member of the faculty at UWF in 2007. He is author of Discovering Florida: First-Contact Narratives of Spanish Expeditions along the Lower Gulf Coast (2014), The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (1998), The Struggle for the Georgia Coast (1995 & 2007), and more than one hundred-fifty other professional and lay publications and presented papers.
Amy Turner Bushnell, Brown University
“Living at Liberty”: The Ungovernable Yamasees of Spanish Florida”
Paper Abstract: Like Tom Stoppard’s three-part play, “The Norman Conquests,” the Yamasee drama played on three stages–English Carolina, the Indian Interior, and Spanish Florida–with every exit from one stage being an entrance onto another. So far, scholars have concentrated on the Yamasees of the Interior and Carolina, making little effort to follow their subjects onto the Spanish stage, although the Yamasees spent years in the company of floridanos and left easy-to-follow tracks in the Spanish records. This essay represents an attempt to sketch what the long-missing third part of the drama might have to offer. The essay poses a simple question: Why did the Yamasees--who twice came to Spanish Florida in search of a refuge, to be welcomed and given places to settle--not stay there? Did the Yamasees find membership in the Republic of Indians repressive? Did one of the parties to the colonial compact prove unable to honor its terms? Were the Yamasees responding to the pull of a stronger power with more abundant trade goods? Or did ancient enmities, reawakening violence in the Interior, push waves of refugees across the Florida border: unwanted refugees who would depart with military intelligence as soon as they dared and return as enemies? What clues are contained in the documents? An analysis of fifteen separate incidents or quotations casts light on various aspects of the Yamasee presence in Florida and leads to the conclusion that Yamasee and Spanish authority systems were essentially incompatible. The essay ends by suggesting that, while the movement of Yamasee refugees into Florida may have been premature, it opened the way for later Creek refugees, who would coalesce to form the Seminoles.
Bio: Amy Turner Bushnell, with a PhD from the University of Florida, is the author of The King's Coffer: Proprietors of the Spanish Florida Treasury, 1565-1702, Situado and Sabana: Spain's Support System for the Presidio and Mission Provinces of Florida, and dozens of essays, most of them on Spanish Florida. More recently, she has been focusing on the patterns of security and autonomy characteristic of "indomitable nations" throughout the Americas. Retired from the College of Charleston and from visiting professorships in the United States and abroad, she enjoys courtesy appointments at Brown University and the John Carter Brown Library.
Keith Ashley, The University of North Florida
“Yamasee Migrations into the Mocama and Timucua Mission Provinces of Florida (1667-1783): An Archaeological Perspective”
Paper Abstract: Less than a decade following the initial coalescence of the Yamasee confederacy, several founding communities moved into northeastern Florida under mounting attacks by Westo Indian slave raiders. Spanish officials permitted this initial wave of Yamasee into Florida (1667-1679), where the refugees settled at abandoned mission doctrina and visita locations formerly occupied by Mocama on Amelia Island and Timucua on the St. Johns River north (Enecape) and south (Myaka) of Lake George. Though the Yamasee were not missionized during this time, they were expected to provide tribute and laborers to the Spanish colony. By 1683, these towns were vacated and most of the Yamasee inhabitants fled north to Carolina. To date, limited archaeological investigations have been conducted at Yamasee sites outside the St. Augustine vicinity. In addition, several of these sites were occupied both earlier by Mocama and later by Guale immigrants—all three of which manufactured San Marcos (Altamaha) pottery—making it difficult to identify Yamasee occupational components. This paper will review the initial phase of Yamasee occupation in Florida and synthesize what is currently known about Yamasee archaeology in peninsular Florida.
Bio: Keith Ashley is coordinator of Archaeological Research and adjunct professor at the University of North Florida. He holds a PH.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida, and his current research focuses on Native American life in northeastern Florida before and after European arrival.
Eric C. Poplin, Brockington and Associates and John Bernard Marcoux, Salve Regina University
“Altamaha Ceramics in the 17th and 18th centuries: Comparing Yamasee Indian Occupations in Coastal Georgia and Coastal South Carolina”
Paper Abstract: Altamaha ceramics define the 17th century Indian populations of the Georgia coast, including the Yamasee who arrived there in the 1660s. The Yamasee moved to Carolina in the 1680s, and remained there until 1715 and the outbreak of the Yamasee War. Late Mississippian decorative motifs continue in Altamaha ceramics but also evolve into new motifs (like the fylfot cross and line block decorations). Researchers of contemporary Southeastern societies have noted a shift in modes of creating decorations, with a shift from complicated stamping to simple stamping. Altamaha ceramics from sites on the Altamaha River in Georgia and from Altamaha Town in Beaufort County, South Carolina, are compared to determine if similar shifts in production modes and motifs are present. These differences and changes are explored with respect to efforts by the Yamasee to create and maintain their identity among the Native American and colonizing societies of the Southern Atlantic Seaboard.
Bio: Eric Poplin (Ph.D. [Archaeology], University of Calgary; Registered Professional Archaeologist) has 36 years of experience with cultural resource management studies in the Southeast and the Bahamas. Dr. Poplin has been with Brockington and Associates for 27 years, and served in our Charleston office since it opened in 1990. He is well versed in studies of both the prehistoric and historic periods. Dr. Poplin has served as Principal Investigator, Project Manager, and Field Director/Author for a wide array of archaeological projects including surveys, evaluations, and data recovery excavations. He has completed cultural resource management projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, Norfolk, and Wilmington Districts), S.C. Department of Transportation, and many other federal, state, and local agencies in the Southeast. Dr. Poplin has also worked extensively with private development firms required to identify cultural resources during applications for state or federal permits. Recent projects include data recovery excavations at the 1710s-1920s Combahee Ferry site in Beaufort/Colleton Counties (South Carolina), the 1790s-1850s Barnett Plantation on Royal Island (The Bahamas), the 1750s-1860s Anson Barony/Baynard Plantation House and portions of the 1920s Wilson Mansion and Settlement at Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton (South Carolina), a Contact era hamlet/farmstead on Daniel Island in Charleston (South Carolina), portions of the 1690s-1715 Yamasee Indian town of Altamaha in Beaufort County (South Carolina), the excavation of 37 graves at the Gaillard Performance Hall in downtown Charleston (South Carolina), and the 2012 and 2014 investigation of the Congaree Creek Battlefield. Dr. Poplin serves as Brockington’s Laboratory Director and a company Vice President in our Charleston office.
SESSION 2: YAMASEES IN SOUTH CAROLINA (Friday April 17)
Session Chair: Charles Cobb, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
Bio: Charles Cobb is Curator and Lockwood Professor of Historical Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida. He specializes in the archaeology of the southeastern United States, and has a particular interest in Native American engagements with European colonialism. Along with Chester DePratter he has been involved in sustained research on Native American towns on the Carolina frontier. In a collaborative project with the Chickasaw Nation, Cobb is also exploring the multi-faceted interactions between the Chickasaw, English and French in the colonial era.
Chester B. DePratter, S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina
“The Yamasee on the Ashepoo and Combahee Rivers, South Carolina, 1686 to c. 1695”
Paper Abstract: In 1684 the Yamasse arrived on the lower coast of South Carolina where they settled around Port Royal Sound. Soon after their arrival, the Yamasee joined forces with the Scots who settled at nearby Stuarts Town, and they began raiding missions in Spanish Florida. In 1686, Spanish forces attacked and destroyed Stuarts Town and the Yamasee settlements. The Scots withdrew to Charles Towne, and the Yamasee relocated to the banks of the Ashepoo and Combahee Rivers. The Yamasee remained in this northern territory until the mid-1690s when they migrated back to Port Royal Sound. Archival sources and new archaeological discoveries allow a full recounting of this important decade in the history of the Yamasee.
Bio: Chester DePratter earned his doctoral, master's and bachelor's degrees in anthropology from the University of Georgia. He has worked on a variety of Native American sites, primarily in South Carolina and Georgia, and has written numerous articles on prehistoric archaeology, exploration routes of Spanish explorers and the early European presence in the southeastern United States. In addition, he is the author of the book Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Chiefdoms in the Southeastern United States. Since 1989 he has focused on the 16th century Spanish site of Santa Elena and the search for the French site of Charlesfort and on the archaeology of Yamasee sites in South Carolina.
William L. Ramsey, Lander University
“Ethnicity and the Yamasee Polity in Peace and War.”
Paper Abstract: This essay proposes to study the process by which the various components of the Yamasee Confederation came to occupy the Carolina Coastal Plain from 1695 to 1715 and how those legacies shaped the behavior of the Yamasee Nation as a whole in times of peace and war. It is now generally accepted that the Yamasee settlements fell into two halves that sometimes acted independently of one another. The essay will explore the ethnic foundations of that divided this polity with an eye toward mapping their respective approaches to trade and diplomacy with Europeans, on the one hand, and with other Indian nations in the South on the other.
Bio: William L. Ramsey is a professor at Lander University in South Carolina and author of The Yamasee War: A Study of Culture, Economy, and Conflict in the Colonial South.
Alex Sweeney, Brockington and Associates
“The Yamasee Capitals of South Carolina: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Research at Pocotaligo and Altamaha Town”
Paper Abstract: Over a span of at least 20 years during the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries, the multiethnic amalgamation of Yamasee Indians of coastal South Carolina lived within two distinct groups, the Upper and Lower Yamasee. Each of these groups contained their own Primary Town which served as a political capital; Pocotaligo served as the Upper Yamasee capital, while Altamaha Town was the capital of the Lower Yamasee. Pocotaligo and Altamaha each retained unique cultural origins tied to distinct areas and groups in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Archaeological and archival research at Pocotaligo and Altamaha Town has provided data regarding Yamasee material culture, settlement patterning, activities, and burial customs. This project examines ethnohistorical documentation and excavation data from Pocotaligo and Altamaha Town to provide insight into Yamasee lifeways at their political capitals, as well as to explore their brief and tumultuous alliance with the British colonists in nearby Charleston.
Bio: Alex Sweeney (M.A., University of South Carolina) has over 13 years of experience in southeastern archaeology. Alex served as a co-author and field director for numerous survey, testing, and data recovery projects that were located in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and Japan. His graduate research at the University of South Carolina was conducted on the Yamasee village of Pocotaligo in the lower coastal plain of South Carolina, and examined the ethnogenesis and migration of the associated group. This research required a comparison of stylistic attributes of data collected from contemporaneous sited in the region to examine if group identity and differences can be inferred from the archaeological record. Alex currently serves as the branch manager and senior archaeologist in the Savannah office of Brockington and Associates.
SESSION 3: YAMASEES, AFRICANS, CREEKS, AND SEMINOLES (Friday April 17)
Session Chair: Alan Gallay, Texas Christian University
Bio: Alan Gallay is the Lyndon B. Johnson Chair of U.S. History at Texas Christian University. Gallay teaches and researches American and Atlantic World history with particular interest in colonialism, intercultural relations, and the history of slavery. Much of his work focuses on the evolution of the Colonial South into the Old South with studies and courses on the evolution of the region’s native peoples, frontier interactions, and the development of the plantation system. Gallay’s most recent books include Colonial and Revolutionary America (Prentice Hall), Indian Slavery in Colonial America (Univ. of Nebraska Press), and The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (Yale University Press), which was awarded the Bancroft Prize. His current book project is titled “Ralegh and the Origins of English Colonialism.”
Jane G. Landers, Vanderbilt University
“Yamasee Relations with Africans in Carolina and Florida”
Paper Abstract: Drawing on a variety of sources from colonial Carolina and Spanish Florida, this paper will examine the relations enslaved Africans formed with Yamasee Indians in Carolina prior to the Yamasee War that erupted in 1715 and their subsequent ties in Spanish Florida. Some African slaves joined in the uprising and some fought for several years before fleeing southward with the Yamasee to seek religious sanctuary in Florida. Spanish officials settled the Yamasee chiefs and their people into villages on the periphery of St. Augustine, but not all their African allies had the same outcome. Some were retained as slaves by “infidel” Yamasee until being purchased by Spanish officials. After years of enslavement Yamasee chiefs such as Jospo joined in the Africans’ legal efforts to secure a long-sought after freedom.
Bio: Jane Landers is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Landers’ award-winning monographs include Black Society in Spanish Florida and Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Her research has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the British Library Endangered Archives Programme. She directs the Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies digital archive at Vanderbilt and directs projects to digitally preserve the oldest records for Africans in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba and the present-day United States.
(http://www.vanderbilt.edu/esss/index.php)
Steve C. Hahn, St. Olaf College
“The Long Yamasee War: Reflections on Yamasee Conflict in the Eighteenth Century”
Paper Abstract: While the massacres at Pocotalico on April 15, 1715 constitute the unambiguous beginning of the Yamasee War, the conflict’s end point remains difficult to identify with similar precision. South Carolina’s restoration of peace with the Creeks in 1718, along with John Palmer’s 1728 raid against Yamasees living near St. Augustine, are commonly cited as final acts, but what of the violence between Yamasees, Britons, and Creeks that persisted for decades more? As this essay will demonstrate, the Yamasee War was divisive from the start, causing what proved to an irreparable rift between Yamasees and some Creeks, who, aided by British allies, continued to exchange sporadic blows through the War of Jenkins’ Ear and beyond. From this standpoint, then, it is plausible to suggest that Yamasee-Creek conflict was one of the war’s most durable legacies and that the war itself had no discernible ending.
Bio: Steve Hahn’s scholarly and teaching interests are centered in the fields of colonial American, Native American, and Atlantic world history. Hahn was born in the city of Flint, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. He earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Georgia and completed his doctoral work at Emory University, specializing in Native Americans of the colonial South. Dr. Hahn’s first book, The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763 (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), recounts the internal and external political history of the Muskogee (Creek) Indians in the era prior to the French and Indian War. Hahn’s second book, entitled The Life and Times of Mary Musgrove (University Press of Florida, 2012) unravels the story of Mary Musgrove (ca. 1700-1764), one of the colonial South’s most unique and fascinating characters. Born to a Creek Indian mother and English father, Mary’s bicultural heritage prepared her for an eventful adulthood spent in the rough and tumble world of Georgia Indian affairs – engaging in the realms of trade and diplomacy that were typically dominated by men.
Denise I. Bossy, The University of North Florida
“Invisible Indians: Yamasees and Strategic Diaspora”
Paper Abstract: From the very beginning of their ethnogenesis in the mid-seventeenth century, the Yamasee Indians developed two innovative strategies to survive the chaos wrought by European colonialism: migration and dispersal. Through deliberate migrations in and out of Indian, Spanish, and British communities, the Yamasees crafted an expansive network of kinship, trade, alliance, and communication. While tempting to read such population movements as diasporic, the Yamasees actively used dispersal to preserve their communities. Furthermore, they created a cultural identity that was not rooted to a particular locale and that could survive aggregation with other communities. Just how they accomplished this is the focus of my talk. Beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century, I examine the Tama-Yamasees who simultaneously lived in Spanish missions among the Apalachees of Florida, Lower Creek towns in Georgia, and near the British in Port Royal, South Carolina. Yet they all remained part of a broader Yamasee community and they all carried their town identities with them as they moved. Using this strategy, Yamasees have remained in the South to the present day (despite the faulty claims by many archaeologists and ethnohistorians that the Yamasees are extinct). I conclude by considering how Yamasees today continue to practice dispersal and remain connected by expansive kinship ties and sacred ceremonies.
Bio: Denise I. Bossy is an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Florida. Her research and teaching focus on Southeastern Indians, comparative slavery, and identity formation in early America. Her recent publications include "Spiritual Diplomacy, the Yamasees, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel: Reinterpreting Prince George's Eighteenth-Century Voyage to England" (Early American Studies 12(2): 366-401). In this essay Bossy reconstructs the world of a Yamasee "prince" who was born in Spanish La Florida, moved to British South Carolina, traveled to London, and then returned to the Southeast in the midst of the Yamasee War. Bossy earned her Ph.D. in American History at Yale University (2007) and her B.A. from Princeton University (1995).
SESSION 4: YAMASEES IN ST. AUGUSTINE (Saturday April 17)
Session Chair: Gifford Waters, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
Bio: Gifford Waters is the Collections Manager for Historical Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History and is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology, with a minor in History, from the University of Florida. His dissertation examined how the Spanish mission system of La Florida and its ultimate collapse impacted Native American cultures in the Southeast, in particular its effects on ethnic and tribal identity. Waters’ primary research interests are in the Spanish colonial period in the Southeast and Caribbean, with an emphasis on the Spanish mission system in the Southeast.
Susan Parker, Executive Director of the St. Augustine Historical Society
“Chief Francisco Jospo: Reconstructing a Yamasee Family through Spanish Records, 1660s to 1763”
Paper Abstract: For most of his seventy years, Chief Francisco Jospo(gue) found himself caught between the Spanish and the English in the southeast. Born c. 1660 in a Spanish coastal mission of Guales, he lived literally half way between century-old St. Augustine and newly settled Charles Town. An autobiographical petition in the Archives in of the Indies and St. Augustine's parish and property records permit tracing of Jospo's family for a century. Despite loss of his family and continual pressure from Yamasee English Indians, Jospo remained allied with the Spanish. He headed a Spanish Indian militia, oversaw an aggregated village of Yamasee and other refugees on the outskirts of St. Augustine. At his death, he resided in his own home in St. Augustine. Through Francisco Jospo and his family we can see the personal meaning of shatter zones, slave-hunting, piracy, European religious and cultural enmities, and diplomats' geopolitical decisions.
Bio: Susan Richbourg Parker holds a Ph.D. and M.A.in history from the University of Florida. She is the executive director of the Saint Augustine Historical Society and specializes in the Spanish presence in the southeast. She served as a historian and as a historic preservation consultant with the Florida Department of State and taught at University of Florida, University of South Florida and University of North Florida. In 2013 three books were released with her work: The History of Florida (University of Florida Press), From La Florida to La California (Academy of American Franciscan History Press), and Signposts: New Directions in Southern Legal History (University of Georgia Press). She is currently working on a book for Oxford University Press about the residents of Spanish St. Augustine and Spanish Florida.
Amanda Hall, University of North Florida
“Pocotalaca: Recreating an 18th Century Yamasee Refugee Mission Village in St. Augustine, Florida, 1717-1752”
Paper Abstract: Following the Yamasee War of 1715, many of the Yamasees that occupied Yamasee towns in South Carolina fled to La Florida to escape British forces and settled in refugee mission villages in St. Augustine. One of these villages, significant to this study, is San Antonio de Pocotalaca, also referred to as Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion de Pocotalaca (1717 to ca 1752), that is believed to be the relocation of the primary upper town of Pocotaligo in South Carolina. Much of the Yamasees’ history that addresses their cultural identities and mission villages in Spanish Florida following the war (1715 to 1763) has not been analyzed. That said, this study of Pocotalaca, that uses a combination of archaeology data collected from Pocotalaca and other Yamasee sites, as well as Spanish and English documents, focuses on uncovering the identities of the mission’s Yamasee inhabitants, tracing their connections to Pocotaligo, and recreating what life may have been like for Pocotalaca’s Yamasee occupants in St. Augustine socio-politically and culturally.
Bio: Amanda Hall is a graduate student in the History Program at the University of North Florida and is a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the History Department. Her research emphasis is on Southeastern Indians in colonial America. Hall’s current thesis research focuses on Yamasee Indian relations with other Indian groups and the Spanish in La Florida (1717 to 1763). Hall received her undergraduate degree in Anthropology with a concentration in Archaeology from U.N.F in 2012.
Andrea Paige White, University of New Orleans
“Archaeological Manifestations of Community Stress and Resiliency at la Punta, a Post-War site in St. Augustine”
Paper Abstract: This talk will provide the post-war account of the Yamasee at la Punta highlighting the community’s struggle to maintain their traditional lifeways in uncertain times. Seeking refuge following the Yamasee War, many Yamasee settled in peripheral mission communities around Spanish St. Augustine. One of the Yamasee-occupied missions was Nuestra Señora del Rosario de la Punta. By the time the Yamasee people established la Punta, they had experienced the stress of settlement migration, population decline, and war. In their new life on the outskirts of St. Augustine, the Yamasee had to negotiate a multiethnic space that included the Spanish and other refugee indigenous groups. Archaeological investigations at la Punta by the City of St. Augustine’s Archaeology Program chronicled the community’s struggle to maintain their traditional lifeways in a post-war setting. The archaeological record provided evidence of continued community stress and upheaval. While life at la Punta was challenging, the archaeology suggested the Yamasee continued to preserve some aspects of their traditional culture and maintain group identity. Thus, the archaeology of la Punta illustrated the resiliency of the Yamasee people during tumultuous times.
Bio: Andrea P. White is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University and Principal Investigator at Coastal Environments, Inc., in New Orleans, Louisiana. Additionally, Ms. White is a courtesy faculty member of the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans where she previously served as the Greater New Orleans Regional Archaeologist. Prior to moving to New Orleans, she worked in St. Augustine and examined the archaeology of the Yamasee people as part of her Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary.
Carl D. Halbirt, Archaeologist for the City of St. Augustine
“Back Under the Spanish Fold: 18th Century Yamasee Mission Sites in St. Augustine, Florida”
Paper Abstract: This essay will provide an overview of Yamasee presence in and around St. Augustine after the Yamasee War.
Bio: Carl Halbirt is the city archaeologist for St. Augustine. He has a BA in anthropology from the University of Arizona (1974), a MA in anthropology from Northern Arizona University (1985), and a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from University of North Florida (2004). Since arriving in St. Augustine in 1990, Halbirt has conducted over 700 archaeological projects within the City limits. All of the projects were in response to planned ground-penetrating construction activities, as mandated by the City of St. Augustine’s Archaeological Preservation Ordinance. While most of his work deals with the historic era, Halbirt has examined prehistoric sites some dating back 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. The 25 years spent in St. Augustine has enabled Halbirt to gain a unique perspective of the city’s archaeological landscape. His community involvement is varied and includes being past president of the St. Augustine Historical Society (2001 and 2002). Presently, Halbirt is a research associate with the Historical St. Augustine Research Institute at Flagler College and the St. Augustine Historical Society. His work has been acknowledged by various organizations. In 2010, Halbirt presented the Jillian Prescott Memorial Lectureship to the Florida Historical Society. In 2008 Halbirt received the Ripley P. Bullen Award from the Florida Anthropological Society. In 2001 he was presented with the City of St. Augustine’s Employee of the Year “for service to the people of St. Augustine through his untiring dedication to the exploration and preservation of the City’s past.” Halbirt has published articles in Historical Archaeology, El Escribano, Florida Anthropologist, and the Newsletter of the St. Augustine Archaeological Association.
Image: Wikipedia
Session Chair: John E. Worth, University of West Florida
Bio: John E. Worth is associate professor of historical archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, where he specializes in archaeology and ethnohistory focusing on the Spanish colonial era in the Southeastern U.S. A Georgia native, Dr. Worth received his doctorate in anthropology from the University of Florida in 1992, and spent 15 years in public archaeology program administration in Georgia and Florida before becoming a member of the faculty at UWF in 2007. He is author of Discovering Florida: First-Contact Narratives of Spanish Expeditions along the Lower Gulf Coast (2014), The Timucuan Chiefdoms of Spanish Florida Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (1998), The Struggle for the Georgia Coast (1995 & 2007), and more than one hundred-fifty other professional and lay publications and presented papers.
Amy Turner Bushnell, Brown University
“Living at Liberty”: The Ungovernable Yamasees of Spanish Florida”
Paper Abstract: Like Tom Stoppard’s three-part play, “The Norman Conquests,” the Yamasee drama played on three stages–English Carolina, the Indian Interior, and Spanish Florida–with every exit from one stage being an entrance onto another. So far, scholars have concentrated on the Yamasees of the Interior and Carolina, making little effort to follow their subjects onto the Spanish stage, although the Yamasees spent years in the company of floridanos and left easy-to-follow tracks in the Spanish records. This essay represents an attempt to sketch what the long-missing third part of the drama might have to offer. The essay poses a simple question: Why did the Yamasees--who twice came to Spanish Florida in search of a refuge, to be welcomed and given places to settle--not stay there? Did the Yamasees find membership in the Republic of Indians repressive? Did one of the parties to the colonial compact prove unable to honor its terms? Were the Yamasees responding to the pull of a stronger power with more abundant trade goods? Or did ancient enmities, reawakening violence in the Interior, push waves of refugees across the Florida border: unwanted refugees who would depart with military intelligence as soon as they dared and return as enemies? What clues are contained in the documents? An analysis of fifteen separate incidents or quotations casts light on various aspects of the Yamasee presence in Florida and leads to the conclusion that Yamasee and Spanish authority systems were essentially incompatible. The essay ends by suggesting that, while the movement of Yamasee refugees into Florida may have been premature, it opened the way for later Creek refugees, who would coalesce to form the Seminoles.
Bio: Amy Turner Bushnell, with a PhD from the University of Florida, is the author of The King's Coffer: Proprietors of the Spanish Florida Treasury, 1565-1702, Situado and Sabana: Spain's Support System for the Presidio and Mission Provinces of Florida, and dozens of essays, most of them on Spanish Florida. More recently, she has been focusing on the patterns of security and autonomy characteristic of "indomitable nations" throughout the Americas. Retired from the College of Charleston and from visiting professorships in the United States and abroad, she enjoys courtesy appointments at Brown University and the John Carter Brown Library.
Keith Ashley, The University of North Florida
“Yamasee Migrations into the Mocama and Timucua Mission Provinces of Florida (1667-1783): An Archaeological Perspective”
Paper Abstract: Less than a decade following the initial coalescence of the Yamasee confederacy, several founding communities moved into northeastern Florida under mounting attacks by Westo Indian slave raiders. Spanish officials permitted this initial wave of Yamasee into Florida (1667-1679), where the refugees settled at abandoned mission doctrina and visita locations formerly occupied by Mocama on Amelia Island and Timucua on the St. Johns River north (Enecape) and south (Myaka) of Lake George. Though the Yamasee were not missionized during this time, they were expected to provide tribute and laborers to the Spanish colony. By 1683, these towns were vacated and most of the Yamasee inhabitants fled north to Carolina. To date, limited archaeological investigations have been conducted at Yamasee sites outside the St. Augustine vicinity. In addition, several of these sites were occupied both earlier by Mocama and later by Guale immigrants—all three of which manufactured San Marcos (Altamaha) pottery—making it difficult to identify Yamasee occupational components. This paper will review the initial phase of Yamasee occupation in Florida and synthesize what is currently known about Yamasee archaeology in peninsular Florida.
Bio: Keith Ashley is coordinator of Archaeological Research and adjunct professor at the University of North Florida. He holds a PH.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida, and his current research focuses on Native American life in northeastern Florida before and after European arrival.
Eric C. Poplin, Brockington and Associates and John Bernard Marcoux, Salve Regina University
“Altamaha Ceramics in the 17th and 18th centuries: Comparing Yamasee Indian Occupations in Coastal Georgia and Coastal South Carolina”
Paper Abstract: Altamaha ceramics define the 17th century Indian populations of the Georgia coast, including the Yamasee who arrived there in the 1660s. The Yamasee moved to Carolina in the 1680s, and remained there until 1715 and the outbreak of the Yamasee War. Late Mississippian decorative motifs continue in Altamaha ceramics but also evolve into new motifs (like the fylfot cross and line block decorations). Researchers of contemporary Southeastern societies have noted a shift in modes of creating decorations, with a shift from complicated stamping to simple stamping. Altamaha ceramics from sites on the Altamaha River in Georgia and from Altamaha Town in Beaufort County, South Carolina, are compared to determine if similar shifts in production modes and motifs are present. These differences and changes are explored with respect to efforts by the Yamasee to create and maintain their identity among the Native American and colonizing societies of the Southern Atlantic Seaboard.
Bio: Eric Poplin (Ph.D. [Archaeology], University of Calgary; Registered Professional Archaeologist) has 36 years of experience with cultural resource management studies in the Southeast and the Bahamas. Dr. Poplin has been with Brockington and Associates for 27 years, and served in our Charleston office since it opened in 1990. He is well versed in studies of both the prehistoric and historic periods. Dr. Poplin has served as Principal Investigator, Project Manager, and Field Director/Author for a wide array of archaeological projects including surveys, evaluations, and data recovery excavations. He has completed cultural resource management projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, Norfolk, and Wilmington Districts), S.C. Department of Transportation, and many other federal, state, and local agencies in the Southeast. Dr. Poplin has also worked extensively with private development firms required to identify cultural resources during applications for state or federal permits. Recent projects include data recovery excavations at the 1710s-1920s Combahee Ferry site in Beaufort/Colleton Counties (South Carolina), the 1790s-1850s Barnett Plantation on Royal Island (The Bahamas), the 1750s-1860s Anson Barony/Baynard Plantation House and portions of the 1920s Wilson Mansion and Settlement at Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton (South Carolina), a Contact era hamlet/farmstead on Daniel Island in Charleston (South Carolina), portions of the 1690s-1715 Yamasee Indian town of Altamaha in Beaufort County (South Carolina), the excavation of 37 graves at the Gaillard Performance Hall in downtown Charleston (South Carolina), and the 2012 and 2014 investigation of the Congaree Creek Battlefield. Dr. Poplin serves as Brockington’s Laboratory Director and a company Vice President in our Charleston office.
SESSION 2: YAMASEES IN SOUTH CAROLINA (Friday April 17)
Session Chair: Charles Cobb, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
Bio: Charles Cobb is Curator and Lockwood Professor of Historical Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida. He specializes in the archaeology of the southeastern United States, and has a particular interest in Native American engagements with European colonialism. Along with Chester DePratter he has been involved in sustained research on Native American towns on the Carolina frontier. In a collaborative project with the Chickasaw Nation, Cobb is also exploring the multi-faceted interactions between the Chickasaw, English and French in the colonial era.
Chester B. DePratter, S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina
“The Yamasee on the Ashepoo and Combahee Rivers, South Carolina, 1686 to c. 1695”
Paper Abstract: In 1684 the Yamasse arrived on the lower coast of South Carolina where they settled around Port Royal Sound. Soon after their arrival, the Yamasee joined forces with the Scots who settled at nearby Stuarts Town, and they began raiding missions in Spanish Florida. In 1686, Spanish forces attacked and destroyed Stuarts Town and the Yamasee settlements. The Scots withdrew to Charles Towne, and the Yamasee relocated to the banks of the Ashepoo and Combahee Rivers. The Yamasee remained in this northern territory until the mid-1690s when they migrated back to Port Royal Sound. Archival sources and new archaeological discoveries allow a full recounting of this important decade in the history of the Yamasee.
Bio: Chester DePratter earned his doctoral, master's and bachelor's degrees in anthropology from the University of Georgia. He has worked on a variety of Native American sites, primarily in South Carolina and Georgia, and has written numerous articles on prehistoric archaeology, exploration routes of Spanish explorers and the early European presence in the southeastern United States. In addition, he is the author of the book Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Chiefdoms in the Southeastern United States. Since 1989 he has focused on the 16th century Spanish site of Santa Elena and the search for the French site of Charlesfort and on the archaeology of Yamasee sites in South Carolina.
William L. Ramsey, Lander University
“Ethnicity and the Yamasee Polity in Peace and War.”
Paper Abstract: This essay proposes to study the process by which the various components of the Yamasee Confederation came to occupy the Carolina Coastal Plain from 1695 to 1715 and how those legacies shaped the behavior of the Yamasee Nation as a whole in times of peace and war. It is now generally accepted that the Yamasee settlements fell into two halves that sometimes acted independently of one another. The essay will explore the ethnic foundations of that divided this polity with an eye toward mapping their respective approaches to trade and diplomacy with Europeans, on the one hand, and with other Indian nations in the South on the other.
Bio: William L. Ramsey is a professor at Lander University in South Carolina and author of The Yamasee War: A Study of Culture, Economy, and Conflict in the Colonial South.
Alex Sweeney, Brockington and Associates
“The Yamasee Capitals of South Carolina: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Research at Pocotaligo and Altamaha Town”
Paper Abstract: Over a span of at least 20 years during the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries, the multiethnic amalgamation of Yamasee Indians of coastal South Carolina lived within two distinct groups, the Upper and Lower Yamasee. Each of these groups contained their own Primary Town which served as a political capital; Pocotaligo served as the Upper Yamasee capital, while Altamaha Town was the capital of the Lower Yamasee. Pocotaligo and Altamaha each retained unique cultural origins tied to distinct areas and groups in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Archaeological and archival research at Pocotaligo and Altamaha Town has provided data regarding Yamasee material culture, settlement patterning, activities, and burial customs. This project examines ethnohistorical documentation and excavation data from Pocotaligo and Altamaha Town to provide insight into Yamasee lifeways at their political capitals, as well as to explore their brief and tumultuous alliance with the British colonists in nearby Charleston.
Bio: Alex Sweeney (M.A., University of South Carolina) has over 13 years of experience in southeastern archaeology. Alex served as a co-author and field director for numerous survey, testing, and data recovery projects that were located in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and Japan. His graduate research at the University of South Carolina was conducted on the Yamasee village of Pocotaligo in the lower coastal plain of South Carolina, and examined the ethnogenesis and migration of the associated group. This research required a comparison of stylistic attributes of data collected from contemporaneous sited in the region to examine if group identity and differences can be inferred from the archaeological record. Alex currently serves as the branch manager and senior archaeologist in the Savannah office of Brockington and Associates.
SESSION 3: YAMASEES, AFRICANS, CREEKS, AND SEMINOLES (Friday April 17)
Session Chair: Alan Gallay, Texas Christian University
Bio: Alan Gallay is the Lyndon B. Johnson Chair of U.S. History at Texas Christian University. Gallay teaches and researches American and Atlantic World history with particular interest in colonialism, intercultural relations, and the history of slavery. Much of his work focuses on the evolution of the Colonial South into the Old South with studies and courses on the evolution of the region’s native peoples, frontier interactions, and the development of the plantation system. Gallay’s most recent books include Colonial and Revolutionary America (Prentice Hall), Indian Slavery in Colonial America (Univ. of Nebraska Press), and The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (Yale University Press), which was awarded the Bancroft Prize. His current book project is titled “Ralegh and the Origins of English Colonialism.”
Jane G. Landers, Vanderbilt University
“Yamasee Relations with Africans in Carolina and Florida”
Paper Abstract: Drawing on a variety of sources from colonial Carolina and Spanish Florida, this paper will examine the relations enslaved Africans formed with Yamasee Indians in Carolina prior to the Yamasee War that erupted in 1715 and their subsequent ties in Spanish Florida. Some African slaves joined in the uprising and some fought for several years before fleeing southward with the Yamasee to seek religious sanctuary in Florida. Spanish officials settled the Yamasee chiefs and their people into villages on the periphery of St. Augustine, but not all their African allies had the same outcome. Some were retained as slaves by “infidel” Yamasee until being purchased by Spanish officials. After years of enslavement Yamasee chiefs such as Jospo joined in the Africans’ legal efforts to secure a long-sought after freedom.
Bio: Jane Landers is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. Landers’ award-winning monographs include Black Society in Spanish Florida and Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Her research has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the British Library Endangered Archives Programme. She directs the Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies digital archive at Vanderbilt and directs projects to digitally preserve the oldest records for Africans in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba and the present-day United States.
(http://www.vanderbilt.edu/esss/index.php)
Steve C. Hahn, St. Olaf College
“The Long Yamasee War: Reflections on Yamasee Conflict in the Eighteenth Century”
Paper Abstract: While the massacres at Pocotalico on April 15, 1715 constitute the unambiguous beginning of the Yamasee War, the conflict’s end point remains difficult to identify with similar precision. South Carolina’s restoration of peace with the Creeks in 1718, along with John Palmer’s 1728 raid against Yamasees living near St. Augustine, are commonly cited as final acts, but what of the violence between Yamasees, Britons, and Creeks that persisted for decades more? As this essay will demonstrate, the Yamasee War was divisive from the start, causing what proved to an irreparable rift between Yamasees and some Creeks, who, aided by British allies, continued to exchange sporadic blows through the War of Jenkins’ Ear and beyond. From this standpoint, then, it is plausible to suggest that Yamasee-Creek conflict was one of the war’s most durable legacies and that the war itself had no discernible ending.
Bio: Steve Hahn’s scholarly and teaching interests are centered in the fields of colonial American, Native American, and Atlantic world history. Hahn was born in the city of Flint, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. He earned a master’s degree in history from the University of Georgia and completed his doctoral work at Emory University, specializing in Native Americans of the colonial South. Dr. Hahn’s first book, The Invention of the Creek Nation, 1670-1763 (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), recounts the internal and external political history of the Muskogee (Creek) Indians in the era prior to the French and Indian War. Hahn’s second book, entitled The Life and Times of Mary Musgrove (University Press of Florida, 2012) unravels the story of Mary Musgrove (ca. 1700-1764), one of the colonial South’s most unique and fascinating characters. Born to a Creek Indian mother and English father, Mary’s bicultural heritage prepared her for an eventful adulthood spent in the rough and tumble world of Georgia Indian affairs – engaging in the realms of trade and diplomacy that were typically dominated by men.
Denise I. Bossy, The University of North Florida
“Invisible Indians: Yamasees and Strategic Diaspora”
Paper Abstract: From the very beginning of their ethnogenesis in the mid-seventeenth century, the Yamasee Indians developed two innovative strategies to survive the chaos wrought by European colonialism: migration and dispersal. Through deliberate migrations in and out of Indian, Spanish, and British communities, the Yamasees crafted an expansive network of kinship, trade, alliance, and communication. While tempting to read such population movements as diasporic, the Yamasees actively used dispersal to preserve their communities. Furthermore, they created a cultural identity that was not rooted to a particular locale and that could survive aggregation with other communities. Just how they accomplished this is the focus of my talk. Beginning in the second half of the seventeenth century, I examine the Tama-Yamasees who simultaneously lived in Spanish missions among the Apalachees of Florida, Lower Creek towns in Georgia, and near the British in Port Royal, South Carolina. Yet they all remained part of a broader Yamasee community and they all carried their town identities with them as they moved. Using this strategy, Yamasees have remained in the South to the present day (despite the faulty claims by many archaeologists and ethnohistorians that the Yamasees are extinct). I conclude by considering how Yamasees today continue to practice dispersal and remain connected by expansive kinship ties and sacred ceremonies.
Bio: Denise I. Bossy is an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Florida. Her research and teaching focus on Southeastern Indians, comparative slavery, and identity formation in early America. Her recent publications include "Spiritual Diplomacy, the Yamasees, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel: Reinterpreting Prince George's Eighteenth-Century Voyage to England" (Early American Studies 12(2): 366-401). In this essay Bossy reconstructs the world of a Yamasee "prince" who was born in Spanish La Florida, moved to British South Carolina, traveled to London, and then returned to the Southeast in the midst of the Yamasee War. Bossy earned her Ph.D. in American History at Yale University (2007) and her B.A. from Princeton University (1995).
SESSION 4: YAMASEES IN ST. AUGUSTINE (Saturday April 17)
Session Chair: Gifford Waters, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida
Bio: Gifford Waters is the Collections Manager for Historical Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History and is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology, with a minor in History, from the University of Florida. His dissertation examined how the Spanish mission system of La Florida and its ultimate collapse impacted Native American cultures in the Southeast, in particular its effects on ethnic and tribal identity. Waters’ primary research interests are in the Spanish colonial period in the Southeast and Caribbean, with an emphasis on the Spanish mission system in the Southeast.
Susan Parker, Executive Director of the St. Augustine Historical Society
“Chief Francisco Jospo: Reconstructing a Yamasee Family through Spanish Records, 1660s to 1763”
Paper Abstract: For most of his seventy years, Chief Francisco Jospo(gue) found himself caught between the Spanish and the English in the southeast. Born c. 1660 in a Spanish coastal mission of Guales, he lived literally half way between century-old St. Augustine and newly settled Charles Town. An autobiographical petition in the Archives in of the Indies and St. Augustine's parish and property records permit tracing of Jospo's family for a century. Despite loss of his family and continual pressure from Yamasee English Indians, Jospo remained allied with the Spanish. He headed a Spanish Indian militia, oversaw an aggregated village of Yamasee and other refugees on the outskirts of St. Augustine. At his death, he resided in his own home in St. Augustine. Through Francisco Jospo and his family we can see the personal meaning of shatter zones, slave-hunting, piracy, European religious and cultural enmities, and diplomats' geopolitical decisions.
Bio: Susan Richbourg Parker holds a Ph.D. and M.A.in history from the University of Florida. She is the executive director of the Saint Augustine Historical Society and specializes in the Spanish presence in the southeast. She served as a historian and as a historic preservation consultant with the Florida Department of State and taught at University of Florida, University of South Florida and University of North Florida. In 2013 three books were released with her work: The History of Florida (University of Florida Press), From La Florida to La California (Academy of American Franciscan History Press), and Signposts: New Directions in Southern Legal History (University of Georgia Press). She is currently working on a book for Oxford University Press about the residents of Spanish St. Augustine and Spanish Florida.
Amanda Hall, University of North Florida
“Pocotalaca: Recreating an 18th Century Yamasee Refugee Mission Village in St. Augustine, Florida, 1717-1752”
Paper Abstract: Following the Yamasee War of 1715, many of the Yamasees that occupied Yamasee towns in South Carolina fled to La Florida to escape British forces and settled in refugee mission villages in St. Augustine. One of these villages, significant to this study, is San Antonio de Pocotalaca, also referred to as Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion de Pocotalaca (1717 to ca 1752), that is believed to be the relocation of the primary upper town of Pocotaligo in South Carolina. Much of the Yamasees’ history that addresses their cultural identities and mission villages in Spanish Florida following the war (1715 to 1763) has not been analyzed. That said, this study of Pocotalaca, that uses a combination of archaeology data collected from Pocotalaca and other Yamasee sites, as well as Spanish and English documents, focuses on uncovering the identities of the mission’s Yamasee inhabitants, tracing their connections to Pocotaligo, and recreating what life may have been like for Pocotalaca’s Yamasee occupants in St. Augustine socio-politically and culturally.
Bio: Amanda Hall is a graduate student in the History Program at the University of North Florida and is a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the History Department. Her research emphasis is on Southeastern Indians in colonial America. Hall’s current thesis research focuses on Yamasee Indian relations with other Indian groups and the Spanish in La Florida (1717 to 1763). Hall received her undergraduate degree in Anthropology with a concentration in Archaeology from U.N.F in 2012.
Andrea Paige White, University of New Orleans
“Archaeological Manifestations of Community Stress and Resiliency at la Punta, a Post-War site in St. Augustine”
Paper Abstract: This talk will provide the post-war account of the Yamasee at la Punta highlighting the community’s struggle to maintain their traditional lifeways in uncertain times. Seeking refuge following the Yamasee War, many Yamasee settled in peripheral mission communities around Spanish St. Augustine. One of the Yamasee-occupied missions was Nuestra Señora del Rosario de la Punta. By the time the Yamasee people established la Punta, they had experienced the stress of settlement migration, population decline, and war. In their new life on the outskirts of St. Augustine, the Yamasee had to negotiate a multiethnic space that included the Spanish and other refugee indigenous groups. Archaeological investigations at la Punta by the City of St. Augustine’s Archaeology Program chronicled the community’s struggle to maintain their traditional lifeways in a post-war setting. The archaeological record provided evidence of continued community stress and upheaval. While life at la Punta was challenging, the archaeology suggested the Yamasee continued to preserve some aspects of their traditional culture and maintain group identity. Thus, the archaeology of la Punta illustrated the resiliency of the Yamasee people during tumultuous times.
Bio: Andrea P. White is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University and Principal Investigator at Coastal Environments, Inc., in New Orleans, Louisiana. Additionally, Ms. White is a courtesy faculty member of the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans where she previously served as the Greater New Orleans Regional Archaeologist. Prior to moving to New Orleans, she worked in St. Augustine and examined the archaeology of the Yamasee people as part of her Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary.
Carl D. Halbirt, Archaeologist for the City of St. Augustine
“Back Under the Spanish Fold: 18th Century Yamasee Mission Sites in St. Augustine, Florida”
Paper Abstract: This essay will provide an overview of Yamasee presence in and around St. Augustine after the Yamasee War.
Bio: Carl Halbirt is the city archaeologist for St. Augustine. He has a BA in anthropology from the University of Arizona (1974), a MA in anthropology from Northern Arizona University (1985), and a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from University of North Florida (2004). Since arriving in St. Augustine in 1990, Halbirt has conducted over 700 archaeological projects within the City limits. All of the projects were in response to planned ground-penetrating construction activities, as mandated by the City of St. Augustine’s Archaeological Preservation Ordinance. While most of his work deals with the historic era, Halbirt has examined prehistoric sites some dating back 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. The 25 years spent in St. Augustine has enabled Halbirt to gain a unique perspective of the city’s archaeological landscape. His community involvement is varied and includes being past president of the St. Augustine Historical Society (2001 and 2002). Presently, Halbirt is a research associate with the Historical St. Augustine Research Institute at Flagler College and the St. Augustine Historical Society. His work has been acknowledged by various organizations. In 2010, Halbirt presented the Jillian Prescott Memorial Lectureship to the Florida Historical Society. In 2008 Halbirt received the Ripley P. Bullen Award from the Florida Anthropological Society. In 2001 he was presented with the City of St. Augustine’s Employee of the Year “for service to the people of St. Augustine through his untiring dedication to the exploration and preservation of the City’s past.” Halbirt has published articles in Historical Archaeology, El Escribano, Florida Anthropologist, and the Newsletter of the St. Augustine Archaeological Association.
Image: Wikipedia
Copyright © 2015 Denise I. Bossy and Chester B. DePratter. All rights reserved.
