"Trade & Instruments of War": the Carolina Gun and England’s Struggle for Empire on the Southeastern Frontier (1763-1781)

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

By the dawn of the eighteenth century, Native Americans in the Southeast (and beyond) had already grown accustomed to items of European manufacture. Of these goods, firearms were undoubtedly the most consequential. The earliest guns given or traded to native peoples were not specifically manufactured for this purpose; however, by this period, England had begun producing muskets according to a set pattern, specifically intended to meet the demands of her Indian allies and customers. In 1763, The Treaty of Paris gave the English Empire a virtual trade monopoly with the Indian nations of the Southeast, and the English trade gun gained increased prominence in the region. This poster discusses both documentary and archaeological evidence for this particular type of English trade musket, often referred to as the “Carolina gun” or T. M. Hamilton’s “type G” gun, remains of which have been recovered from eighteenth century sites throughout the Southeast.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• 2020 SHA Poster Submissions

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1077