AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF CHOCTAW PLACEMAKING IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY INDIAN TERRITORY

Abstract

Beginning in 1831, the United States began to forcibly remove over 12,000 Choctaws from their homelands in the Southeast into Indian Territory. Despite the existing scholarship documenting the history of Indian Removal and the steps the Choctaw Nation took to form a new society, several broad questions exist within the Tribal community about the experiences Choctaws encountered during the initial decades of Removal. By examining the amptoba (pottery) from 19th-century homesteads in Oklahoma, this project examines the roles and ways in which Choctaw migrants used foodways to contend with the pressures of migration and settler colonialism. This project uses a mixed-methods approach to highlight migrant experiences and the relationships that families maintained with ancestral traditions. The results of archival, chemical, and morphological analysis reveal that while many families were prohibited from bringing cooking and serving wares with them along the Trail of Tears, many of these traditions were reconstructed in Indian Territory and used to form new relations. Furthermore, a comparison of archaeological contexts in which these objects were distributed in Mississippi and Oklahoma reveals that Indigenous placemaking efforts in Indian Territory relied heavily on the knowledge and actions of Choctaw women. Finally, this project argues that working in collaboration with descendant communities can lead to a more holistic anthropology and the production of knowledge that benefits living peoples.