Seeking the Indigenous Perspective: Colonial Interactions, Archaeology and Ethnohistory at Fort St. Pierre, 1719-1729, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Summary

French Fort St. Pierre was a completely failed colonial endeavor from start to finish. Applying a post-colonial approach to the site, I realized that the power dynamic between the French ‘colonizers’ and the ‘colonized’ Yazoo, Koroa, and Ofogoula peoples was essentially reversed. To understand this reversed power dynamic from an indigenous viewpoint, I took an ethnohistorical approach to the written record. To understand the events that unfolded between the French and Native peoples of the Yazoo Bluffs, it was necessary to "provincialize" this history by placing it within the wider regional context of Native and European relations in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Using archaeological and written records to discuss these ideas, I will present the region’s political intrigues, the attack and looting of the fort, and the ultimate destruction of all of the Yazoo Bluffs inhabitants.    

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Indigenous Perspectives on Historical Archaeology of Colonialism

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 337