Du Pratz's Dishes: Colonoware from Fort Rosalie, and the Paradox of Globalization

Summary

French colonial Fort Rosalie, situated in present day Natchez, Mississippi, was the site of intimate cross cultural exchange. Living in the frontier at a distant outpost of the Louisiana colony, the soldiers felt comfortable incorporating Indigenous foods into their diets, eating from Natchezan vessels, and even taking Native wives. Far from idyllic however, the European and Indigenous inhabitants of the Natchez Bluffs were swept up in larger paradoxes of globalization spurred by increasing colonial interest in developing the fertile land at the Bluffs.

Native-made colonoware identified from one of Fort Rosalie’s barracks reveal how the Indigenous population found ways to make creative accommodations for French tastes, and to expand their market base, while exercising survivance in the face colonial expansion. Meanwhile, the use of colonoware allowed the soldiers to maintain a sense of French identity in the frontier through their daily food regimes, despite their reliance on wild foods.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Intimate Economies: Independent Production in the Past

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 234