Description

Life in an Indigenous town during an
understudied era of Haitian history

This
book details the Indigenous Taíno occupation at En Bas Saline in Hispaniola between
AD 1250 and 1520, showing how the community coped with the dramatic changes
imposed by Spanish contact. En Bas Saline is the largest late precontact Taíno
town recorded in what is now Haiti; the only one that has been extensively
excavated and analyzed; and one of few with archaeologically documented
occupation both before and after the arrival of Columbus in 1492. It is thought
to be the site of La Navidad, Columbus's first settlement, where the cacique Guacanagarí
offered refuge and shelter after the sinking of the Santa María.

Kathleen
Deagan provides
an intrasite and spatial analysis of En Bas Saline by focusing on households,
foodways, ceramics, and crafts and offers insights into social organization and
chiefly power in this political center through domestic and ornamental material
culture. Postcontact changes are seen in patterns of gendered behavior, as well
as in the power base of the caciques, challenging the traditional assumption
that Taíno society was devastatingly disrupted almost immediately after
contact. En Bas Saline is the only
archaeological account of the consequences of contact from the perspective of
the Taíno peoples' lived experience.

A
volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series