Colonial Archaeology at a Regional Scale: Linking British and Spanish Settlements in Caribbean Coastal Honduras

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Gateways to Future Historical Archaeology in Mexico and Central America", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

No settlement is an island. This paper presents results from ongoing research on the historical archaeology of Central America, showing how understanding one site on Honduras's Caribbean coast, the fortress and town of Omoa, requires investigation of settlements in other areas. Our excavations of the fortress and town of Omoa in 2008 and 2009 documented late 18th century residences. My research demonstrates that we cannot write the history of this 18th century Spanish fort without taking into account the history of the British Black River colony in eastern Honduras, and their connections with British settlements in what today is Belize. To understand Omoa, and particularly the histories of its African Diaspora populations, we need to take a regional scale approach that crosses the boundaries between territories controlled by different colonial powers, and the territory controlled by the independent indigenous Miskito nation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Gateways to Future Historical Archaeology in Mexico and Central America

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow