"And the Land Is Not Well Populated": The End of Prehistory on Pensacola Bay

Summary

The sixteenth century was marked by Spanish expeditions that brought the prehistoric lifeways along Pensacola Bay to an end. Accounts from the 1559 Luna expedition indicate a meager population of Indian fishermen lived along the bay of Ochuse. Collectively, this and subsequent documentary evidence illustrates movements of people in and out of the region and hints at the dramatic cultural changes already underway. Interestingly, archaeological evidence supports the idea that the native populations of west Florida were not the same as those who came to live in association with Pensacola’s later Spanish forts and missions. Who were these last prehistoric Indians and how did they fit into the broader cultural patterns of the central Gulf Coast? This paper summarizes our current approaches to understanding Pensacola’s prehistory and outlines several lines of evidence being brought to bear on questions of identity, lifeways, and responses to colonialism.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Symposium: The Tristan de Luna Shipwrecks and Settlement (1559-1561) in Pensacola, Florida

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 641