Go-Betweens, Transculturation, and the Notion of the Frontier in the Potomac River Valley

Summary

Go-betweens, including translators, traders, diplomats, and other individuals who move between two or more cultures, are often viewed as important and even transforming actors in the colonial encounter. Go-betweens in the early modern Chesapeake are understood as not only moving between two or more cultures but between cultures located at some geographical distance from one another’s territories (in Maryland, Henry Fleet and William Claiborne would be examples). But what about the nature of everyday encounters, especially as colonization took hold? Archaeological survey in the Potomac River valley, where Natives and English lived in relatively close proximity, has indicated a variety of interactions in which local go-betweens were involved. This paper examines the material record of these varied interactions and what artifacts and their spatial location might reveal about transculturation, colonialism, and the nature of frontiers in the early modern Chesapeake.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Advancing Frontiers in the 21st century: Reconsidering Colonial Encounters in the Atlantic World

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 394