Mapping Marronage and Afro-Indigenous Relationality in Central Peninsular Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Seeking Freedom in the Borderlands: Archaeological Perspectives on Maroon Societies in Florida" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Following investigations at the early nineteenth-century African/Black Seminole settlement of Pilaklikaha (“Abraham’s Old Town”), Florida has emerged as a key space for examining the complex intersections between archaeologies of marronage and Afro-Indigenous relationality. Beginning with sites in the Caribbean and Central and South America, archaeologists have increasingly suggested that Eurocentric and Afrocentric readings of marronage can obscure important convergences between African Diasporic peoples and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. To date, however, the majority of maroon “settlements,” “villages,” and “towns” documented in Florida (including those previously linked to histories of Afro-Indigenous relationality) have not been investigated through archaeology—due in large part to difficulties of defining, locating, accessing, interpreting, and preserving these sites and broader landscapes. This paper addresses efforts to map ancestral African/Black Seminole settlements and landscapes in central peninsular Florida and highlights some of the core challenges and opportunities for exploring marronage and Afro-Indigenous relationality through archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Seeking Freedom in the Borderlands: Archaeological Perspectives on Maroon Societies in Florida   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36629.0