Illicit Landscapes and Illegal Economies in 19th century Southern Belize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Contested Landscapes: The Archaeology of Politics, Borders, and Movement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper examines how peripheral landscapes, along the coast and cayes of Southern Belize, shaped the region’s early colonial period (AD 1544-1840). Specifically, who were the people who settled southern Belize and how did the economies and industries that formed around them critically impact both Spanish and British colonial projects, particularly in their forms of resistance both overt and covert? Deemed "off-limits" by the colonial powers, the southern Belize wilderness provided protection and refuge for a wide array of Spanish and British colonists, pirates, runaway slaves, and indigenous Maya. Although archaeologists have long dealt with evidence of smuggling and piracy, these have been treated as unimportant or subordinate to the processes of colonization. As Hartnett and Dawdy (2013) note, ignoring their role in state-making is nonsensical. While peripheral landscapes were often precarious and violent, these spaces provided at least a temporary refuge for those fleeing the state. Research conducted as part of the Southern Belize Historical Archaeology Project focuses on the identification and recovery of archaeological sites associated with the early Colonial period as well as documenting how these illicit landscapes were integral in the formation, mantaince and construction of divergent economies and new ways of life.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Contested Landscapes: The Archaeology of Politics, Borders, and Movement   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24344