Plantation Archaeology at Riviere Aux Chiens, ca 1725-1848

Author(s): Gregory Waselkov; Bonnie L. Gums

Year: 2000

Summary

When the French began colonizing the Mobile Bay area early in 1702, one of the first places they explored was a small estuary on the western shore, Riviere aux Chiens or Dog River. A patch of ground near the river's mouth, about twenty feet higher than the adjacent expansive marshes, attracted their attention. There, on the south bank. the expedition's leader, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, had his men construct a warehouse as a way station for the crews of small sailing craft that would ferry goods far upstream to the Louisiane colony's first capital at Twenty-seven Mile Buff on the Mobile River. That warehouse was short-lived, but by the mid-1720s that bluff attracted the Rochon family, who constructed a home there. For the next 125 years, the Rochons and their descendants operated a diversified, slave-labor plantation engaged in cattle raising, crop agriculture, and forest products, such as wood and tar. Extensive excavations from 1994 to 1998 investigated a large swath across the middle of this plantation site, in conjunction with state highway bridge replacement. The result is the most thoroughly investigated historic plantation site in the area of Mobile, Alabama

Cite this Record

Plantation Archaeology at Riviere Aux Chiens, ca 1725-1848, 1st edition. Gregory Waselkov, Bonnie L. Gums. Archaeological Monograph ,7. Mobile, Alabama: University of South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies. 2000 ( tDAR id: 380941) ; doi:10.6067/XCV81Z442K

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Keywords

Culture
British Colonial • British Colonial Period • Euroamerican • French Colonial • French Colonial Period • Historic • Historic Native American • Spanish

Material
Building Materials • Ceramic • Chipped Stone • Fauna • Fire Cracked Rock • Glass • Macrobotanical • Metal • Shell • Wood

Site Name
1MB161 • Dog River Plantation

Site Type
Agricultural or Herding • Domestic Structure or Architectural Complex • Domestic Structures • House • Midden

Investigation Types
Data Recovery / Excavation • Historic Background Research

General
Dog River Site • Glass Beads

Geographic Keywords
Dog River • MOBILE BAY • MOBILE BAY DRAINAGE

Temporal Keywords
Colonial Period • Historical Period • Historical Sites and Artifacts

Temporal Coverage

Calendar Date: 1725 to 1848

Spatial Coverage

min long: -88.099; min lat: 30.556 ; max long: -88.077; max lat: 30.572 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Gregory Waselkov; University of South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies

Record Identifiers

2007.001(s): Accession Number

1997.001(s): Accession Number

File Information

  Name Size Creation Date Date Uploaded Access
dog-river-monograph-as-pdf.pdf 21.06mb Jan 16, 2013 2:51:35 PM Public