Graduation Year

2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Granting Department

Anthropology

Major Professor

E. C. Wells

Keywords

Bay Islands, culture contact, Miskitu, royalization

Abstract

In 1742, the settlement of Augusta was established as an outpost of English royalization on Roatán Island, Honduras. This military camp housed a mix of English soldiers, English colonists, and local indigenous Miskitu peoples. While the settlement was occupied for only a brief span of seven years, the material record of the community provides insight into Miskitu-English interactions during the royalization process. Royalization encompassed strategies deployed by the English Crown to bring about loyalty to the state. In this dissertation, I discuss the concept of royalization from an agent-centered perspective to consider the intentions behind the occupants' usage of objects and spaces in everyday practice. This interdisciplinary research integrates documentary evidence with the results of four field seasons of archaeological investigations, which have unearthed mixed deposits of English and Miskitu material culture. I contend that such deposits indicate that Augusta's occupants were participants in the royalization process, but that these strategies were not fluid or enforced. The royalization of Augusta was complicated by a number of factors including the settlement's distance from the Crown, its local environment, and the diversity of its occupants. By considering the historical and archaeological evidence, I contend that elements of English lifestyles were integrated into Miskitu identity, and that this integration reveals some of the ways in which the process of royalization was adapted to the unique social and natural landscape of the western Caribbean.

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