Maritime Legacy: Blood and Water, Before and After Columbus Made Camp in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Environmental Intimacies: Political Ecologies of Colonization and Anti-Colonial Resilience", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Legacy Project uses modern techniques of geo-archaeology to recreate prehistoric maritime landscapes, combining cultural ecology, history and archaeology to reimagine future stewardship. Reinterpretation of all phases of the area's occupation, looks beyond the scope of traditional heritage.

In St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica Christopher Columbus first encountered the Taino in 1494. Within a decade, Columbus, his last two ships sinking, returned. They immediately beached their vessels. He and 115 men lived there over a year before rescue.

Prior expeditions and archaeologists ignored the prehistory, or focused solely on the enslaved and first sugar plantation to follow at Sevilla, then Seville. We seek to gather information gleaned from excavations at the Taino village of Maima, sugar plantation, and periods of agrarian habitation, industrialization and modern tourism to refocus heritage. Using social media, podscast, film and exhibition to refocus Jamaican pride and future legacy. One love, one heart, with respect.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Environmental Intimacies: Political Ecologies of Colonization and Anti-Colonial Resilience   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow