From Accommodation to Massacre: Evolving Native Responses to Spanish Military Expeditions in the Interior Southeast, 1540-1568

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeologies of Contact, Colony, and Resistance" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Between 1540 and 1568, three Spanish military expeditions penetrated the interior region of the southeastern United States, interacting on two or more occasions with several Native chiefdoms extending between Alabama and the Carolinas. The army of Hernando de Soto crossed this entire area in 1540, followed by revisits to the western portion of this region by members of Tristán de Luna y Arellano’s expedition in 1560, and additional revisits in the eastern zone by Juan Pardo’s expeditions between 1566 and 1568. While the Soto expedition was characterized by only short-term stays in any one location in this region, both the Luna and Pardo expeditions involved lengthier stays and thus more extensive interactions with groups previously visited by Soto. Careful comparison of documentary accounts, including several newly-identified sources regarding the Luna expedition, provides fresh insights into the evolution of native responses to these military expeditions across nearly three decades. Native strategies of accommodation and passive resistance ultimately evolved into open hostility depending on the size of the Spanish forces. This evolution ultimately culminated in the Native massacre of more than a hundred Spaniards in five remote forts, leaving the deep interior free of further European intrusions for more than a century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeologies of Contact, Colony, and Resistance   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24148