Colonial Encounters in Lucayan Contexts

Summary

There are numerous examples of material and bodily flows (e.g., human transfer, enslavement) between the Lucayans and the Spanish during the period of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century colonial encounters. A variety of indigenous and Spanish items circulated, as relationships were established. These are known from ethnohistoric accounts and archaeological evidence from several different islands and sites located in the Bahama archipelago, including San Salvador, Andros, Long Island, Middle Caicos, and others. In this paper we will examine procurement and exchange from the perspective of the givers and receivers and those who recorded these acts. We will examine what objects and bodies were circulated; the intentions of the givers and receivers; the acts of procurement, giving, and receiving; the meaning of the items and bodies in the contexts in which they were procured and distributed; the changing values of the objects and bodies in these contexts, and the relationships that were established as a result of these acts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15233