Empires of Displacement: Native American Spatial Encounters at Postbellum Fort Davis and Russian Fort Ross

Summary

While recent scholarship gives attention to Native American agency as it relates to the Spanish mission system, the same may not be said about military forts on the nineteenth-century American ‘frontier.’ Using archival material from Fort Davis, Texas and Fort Ross, California, this paper argues for a comparative approach in studying how groups from the Comanche/Apache and Kashaya Pomo tribes employed geographic mobility as a form of resistance in the face of Euro-American fortified occupation. This research reveals how, in the face of violent change, complex negotiations between Native American groups and the government institutions that controlled these militarized posts resulted in Native American survival and cultural maintenance. Furthermore, focusing on Native American agency under fort occupations forces an examination of the long term historical implications regarding tribal recognition.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Tales of the Texas Frontier: Research Conducted by the Fort Davis Archaeology Project (FODAAP) in Fort Davis, Texas

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Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 332