Small islands, big expectations: the role of Isla de Cabras in the defense of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "In Small Islands Forgotten: Insular Historical Archaeologies of a Globalizing World", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Isla de Cabras is a small promontory located at the entrance to San Juan Bay, in Puerto Rico. Human activity has been traced to pre-European contact periods but it is after 1600 that it played an important role in defending against military and sanitary enemies. This presentation will highlight the various uses and modifications to the island through five occupation periods. It will then focus on the research framework developed to study the quarantine station (1878-1898) that coincides with the last twenty years of the Spanish hegemony. Lastly, it will show the importance of considering small islands that had similar uses in other parts of the world, and their archaeological potential.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• In Small Islands Forgotten: Insular Historical Archaeologies of a Globalizing World   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow