Landscapes Of Liminality: Trail Of Tears Disbandment Sites In Indian Territory

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Landscapes Above and Below in Southern Contexts (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

During the 19th century, the U.S. government enacted a program of forced removal of Native Americans from their southeastern homelands to an area west of the Mississippi River known as Indian Territory. The end-points of the migration trails were known as Disbandment Sites where the tribes temporarily camped and received supplies before dispersing throughout the region. These sites were often associated with other contemporaneous occupations such as military forts and farmsteads as well as subsequent events affiliated with tribal government and religion and thus occupy a liminal space within material culture studies and are often interpreted by their landscape setting. To understand the Native American diaspora of the 19th century is to acknowledge this shared history by deciphering how past fieldwork and research has influenced our understanding of these ephemeral sites and their connection to the events, movement and identity of people in the Southern Plains region during this time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Landscapes Above and Below in Southern Contexts (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology