Queering 'American': Archaeological Investigations of a 19th c. Military Fort in West Texas

Summary

This paper investigates how racial identity impacted the creation and maintenance of an American frontier and border community using an assemblage from a 19th century American Army encampment from Fort Davis, Texas as a case study. By engaging a queer theoretical framework, this research focuses on how Black, Mexican, and immigrant bodies challenged ideals of normative White citizenship during a period of great social upheaval and racial tension. With thousands of European immigrants and newly emancipated African-Americans enlisting in the army during the period of reconstruction, the demographics of the new postbellum U.S. Army challenged the very notion of a unified American perspective. Moreover, this research investigates what strategies were employed by members of these frontier/border communities that lead to a collective nationalized identity despite a racially and ethnically mixed population. This paper demonstrated that by queering our understanding of nineteenth century American identity, a more holistic and nuanced understanding of racial interaction can challenge traditional interpretations of the American Westward Expansion.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Directions in Historical Archaeology: Theory, Method, and Practice   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage