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 Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 4

Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 4

BAR S1677 2007

Contemporary
Studies in Contemporary andand Historical
Historical Archaeology 4

Contemporary
Archaeologyand Historical
in Theory
Archaeology in andTheory

MCATACKNEY, PALUS & PICCINI (Eds)

Contemporary
Papers from the and 2003 Historical
2004
CHAT conferences
Archaeology2003
Papers from the in andTheory2004
CHAT conferences
Papers from the 2003 and 2004
CHATEdited
conferences
by

Laura McAtackney
Edited by
Matthew
Laura Palus
McAtackney
Edited by

CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THEORY

Angela Piccini
Matthew Palus
Laura McAtackney
Angela Piccini
Matthew Palus
Angela Piccini

BAR International Series 1677

2007 Series 1677
BAR International
2007
B BAR International Series 1677
A
R 2007
McAttackney 1677 cover.indd 1 10/10/2012 14:04:04
 Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 4

Contemporary and Historical

Archaeology in Theory
Papers from the 2003 and 2004
CHAT conferences

Edited by

Laura McAtackney
Matthew Palus
Angela Piccini

BAR International Series 1677

2007
Published in 2016 by
BAR Publishing, Oxford

BAR International Series 1677

Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology 4

Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory

© The editors and contributors severally and the Publisher 2007

The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored,
sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted
in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781407301150 paperback

ISBN 9781407331546 e-format
DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407301150
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd.
British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR
Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR
group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with
British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series
principal publisher, in 2007. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing,
2016.

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 Foreword
Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology

Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology is a new series of edited and single-authored volumes
intended to make available current work on the archaeology of the recent and contemporary past. The
series brings together contributions from academic historical archaeologists, professional archaeologists
and practitioners from cognate disciplines who are engaged with archaeological material and practices. The
series will include work from traditions of historical and contemporary archaeology, and material culture
studies, from Europe, North America, Australia and elsewhere around the world. It will promote innovative
and creative approaches to later historical archaeology, showcasing this increasingly vibrant and global
field, and celebrating its diversity, through extended and theoretically engaged case studies.
Proposals are invited from emerging and established scholars interested in publishing in or editing for
the series. Further details are available from the series editors: Email [email protected] or Joshua.
[email protected]
In this, the fourth volume in the series, Laura McAtackney, Matthew Palus and Angela Piccini bring
together contributions from established and emerging scholars in historical archaeology and contemporary
archaeology, based in the United Kingdom and North America across 17 chapters. The volume brings
together papers that were read at the first two meetings of the CHAT (Contemporary and Historical
Archaeology in Theory) conference group, which were held at the University of Bristol in November 2003
(convened by Dan Hicks and Angela Piccini) and at Leicester University in November 2004 (convened by
Sarah Tarlow and Marilyn Palmer).
As the editors explain in their introduction, the papers address a number of themes - from colonialism and
conflict to heritage, performance and practice - from a range of different perspectives. The volume includes
15 innovative and detailed archaeological studies of the modern period, with studies that range from the
16th-century Rose Theatre in London to 19th-century clove plantations in Zanzibar, the colonial mapping
of British Columbia, an abandoned city street in Malta, public archaeology in Annapolis, Maryland, and an
early 21st-century out-of-town shopping centre in south Wales.
These 15 chapters are complemented by a preface and an afterword from two leading thinkers in the field -
Mary Beaudry (Boston University) and Victor Buchli (UCL).Based on their keynote papers at the inaugural
CHAT meeting in Bristol, these two major statements reflect upon current developments in historical and
contemporary archaeology. Taken together, this landmark volume captures much of the energy and diversity
of contemporary and historical archaeology, presenting substantive and compelling case studies that are
combined with theoretically sophisticated reflections upon historical and contemporary archaeology.

Dan Hicks and Joshua Pollard (University of Bristol)

Series Editors


 Table of Contents
Foreword Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology
Dan Hicks and Joshua Pollard i
List of Figures v
List of Tables vi
List of Contributors vii
Acknowledgements viii
Preface: Historical Archaeology with Canon on the Side, Please
Mary C. Beaudry 1
References 3
Introduction
Laura McAtackney and Matthew Palus 5
Colonialism 5
Conflict 5
Heritage 6
Performance and Practice 6
References 7
Significance, Value, and Property in the Public Face of Archaeology
Matthew Palus and Christopher Matthews 9
Introduction 9
Candlelight Cannibal Tours ofAnnapolis 11
Antagonism 12
Conclusion 13
References 14
Epidemic of Medicine: an Archaeological Dose of Popular Culture
Krysta Ryzewski 15
Patent medicines 15
Popular culture 16
Advertisements 17
Archaeological examples 18
Interpretation 20
The end? 20
References 21
Other Sources 22
Slavers, Swashbucklers, and Salvors: the Ethics of Public Presentation in Nautical Archaeology
Brian W Gohacki 23
Introduction 23
Case Study 1: The Henrietta Marie 25
Case Study 2: The Whydah 26
Constructing Informed Aternatives 27
References 28
The Paradox of Progress: Land Survey and the Making of Agrarian Society in Colonial British Columbia
Jeff Oliver 31
Introduction 31
The colonisation of British Columbia 31
Land survey in the Fraser Valley 32
The progress of civilization and the ‘god trick’ of the map 33
The paradox of progress: a view from the ground 34
The living landscape 34
The lie of the land 35
Conclusion 36
Acknowledgements 37
References 37
Constructing Capitalism: Speculation and Social Relations in the Building Industry, 1700–1850
ii
Martin Locock 39
Introduction 39
Marx’s model of the Agricultural Revolution 39
Castle Bromwich Hall 39
Rural capitalism 40
Urban building in the Midlands 41
Weber, the entrepreneurial spirit and the history of speculation 41
Entrepreneurship and risk management 42
Conclusion 42
Acknowledgements 42
References 42
Some Genealogies of Castles in Ireland
Andrew Tierney 45
Introduction 45
The colonial lineage of the Gaelic-Irish and its architecture 45
Excavating power: material genealogies of the English colonial order 48
The Gaelic-Irish Response 50
A new genealogy without castles 51
Conclusion 53
Acknowledgements 53
References 53
Cultures of Antiquity and the Practice of Archaeology in Britain and Ireland
(c.1700-1850): a Post-colonial Perspective
David Harvey 55
Introduction 55
Ancient monuments, colonialism and domination 56
Avebury: Protestant Druids and ideas of providence 57
The domination of Newgrange 58
Conclusions 59
Acknowledgements 60
Endnote 60
References 60
Encounters Between Actors, Audience and Archaeologists at the Rose Theatre, 1587–1989
Julian Bowsher 63
Conclusions 66
Acknowledgements 66
References 66
Not Surfing but Drowning. Historic Environment Data on the Internet:
Addressing Intellectual Barriers to Access
Martin Newman 67
Introduction 67
So what’s the problem? 68
Solutions 69
Retrieval 70
Conclusion 72
Acknowledgments 73
References 73
Concrete Islands
Paul Graves-Brown 75
Trostre: the background 75
Entire unto itself… 75
Liminal spaces 76
The history of the roundabout 76
Islands turned inside out 78
Transgression 78
Ephemerality and change 79
iii
 Conclusion: privatisation and the illusion of control 80
Acknowledgements 81
References 81
The Contemporary and Future Landscape: Change and Creation in the Later Twentieth Century
Graham Fairclough 83
Introduction 83
Contemporary archaeology, landscape and heritage 83
The Change and Creation programme and the late twentieth century 84
Reflecting on Archaeological Resource Management 86
Characterising the late twentieth- / early twenty-first-century landscape in England 86
After-word / Future fore-word 87
Acknowledgements 87
References 88
Titbits Revisited: Towards a Respectable Archaeology of Strait Street, Valletta (Malta)
John Schofield and Emily Morrissey 89
The place 89
History 91
Methods 92
Results 93
Conclusions 96
Acknowledgements 98
References 98
Cultural Identity and Perceptions of Slavery in the Clove Plantations of Zanzibar
Sarah Croucher 101
Introduction 101
Presentations of clove plantations 103
The archaeology of clove plantations 103
Conclusions – the importance of later historical archaeology on Zanzibar 106
Acknowledgements 106
References 106
From Rhetoric to Research: the Bloody Meadows Project as a Pacifist Response to War
John and Patricia Carman 109
The problem: the discourse of war studies 109
Alternatives: some inspirational texts on war 111
Our method: a ‘phenomenological’ approach to historic battlefields 112
Research as political challenge 112
Acknowledgements 113
References 113
Afterword: Towards an Archaeology of the Contemporary Past
Victor Buchli 115
Plural Materialities 117
References 118

iv
 List of Figures
Figure 1. Plate of Eastport neighbourhood made for the Mutual Building
Association by Surveyor John Duvall, 1868 (Source: Anne Arundel County Land Records Office). 10
Figure 2. 2003 Advertisement for the Annual Tug of War between Eastport and
the Historic District of Annapolis: ‘The Slaughter Over the Water’ (courtesy of
the Maritime Republic of Eastport, http://themre.org/tug2003/index.htm) 12
Figure 3. The Tug of War from the Eastport Side in November of 2003. Photograph: Matthew Palus. 13
Figure 4. Trade card advertisement for Hood’s Sarsaparilla. By kind permission
of Victorian Trade Cards Collection, Miami University Library, Oxford Ohio.
Digital collection viewable online at www.digital.lib.muohio.edu/tradecards 15
Figure 5. Cocaine praised for its curative powers, 1885. (National Library of
Medicine, History of Medicine Collections) 16
Figure 6. A late nineteenth-century advertisement featuring a combination of
imagery. By kind permission of National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Collections. 18
Figure 7. Advertisement for teething syrup with an active ingredient of
morphine, 1887. Unlike American versions, British labels for this product had
to be marked ‘Poison’ (Helfand 2002). 19
Figure 8. Diagram of survey posts, adapted from Thomson (1967: 52). (A)
Wood post, marking section corner 5 inches diameter, 3½ inches square. (B)
Iron post marker, township corner. 32
Figure 9. Colonial survey party (Chilliwack Archives, P.1484). 32
Figure 10. Plan of Township 11 in the central Fraser Valley (detail), Department
of the Interior, Technical Branch, Ottawa, 12 July, 1886 (British Columbia Crown Land Registry). 33
Figure 11. Lithograph of boundary line between the colony of British Columbia
and Washington Territory, after Whymper (Mayne 1862: frontispiece). 35
Figure 12. Successional forest in the Fraser Valley c. 1911 (Surrey Archives, P.180.5.01). 36
Figure 13. Castle Bromwich Hall by Henry Beighton, published in Dugdale’s
History of Warwickshire (2nd edition, 1730). 40
Figure 14. ‘Breoghan’s Tower’ at La Coruňa 47
Figure 15. Clonony Castle, Co. Offaly 48
Figure 16. Clonmacnoise Castle, Co. Offaly – destroyed by the Irish, according to Matthew De Renzi 50
Figure 17. Jordan’s Castle, Ardglass, Co. Down 52
Figure 18. Location map 56
Figure 19. Rose playhouse, phase 1 1587-1592 64
Figure 20. Rose playhouse, phase 2 1592-1606 65
Figure 21. Keys to the Past record for Bamburgh Castle with glossary definition
for keep. Courtesy of Durham and Northumberland County Councils. 68
Figure 22. One of the themed essays on the SEAX system. Courtesy of Essex County Council 69
Figure 23. The Thesaurus of Monument Types. 70
Figure 24. PastScape searching options. 71
Figure 25. HITITE, options for searching by shape. 72
Figure 26. HITITE, results. 73
Figure 27. Approach to Trostre Park on foot (video still). 76
Figure 28. The ‘Market Cross’ Trostre Park (video still). 76
Figure 29. Covered way at Trostre Park Tesco also showing ‘Essex Barn’ styling. 77
Figure 30. Typical landscaped roundabout. Yspyty, Bynea. 77
Figure 31. Shoppers crossing the main Trostre Park access road between Tesco
and the drive thru McDonalds. 78
Figure 32. Parc Tawe Two seen from Parc Tawe One. Note the erosion on the central reservation. 79
Figure 33. B&Q at Trostre Park South merges seamlessly into the Corus Steel
Works (on the left of picture). 80
Figure 34. Map of Strait Street 90
Figure 35. Joseph Buttigieg and his mother in the late 1960s. 93
Figure 36. Trellis ceiling of Rocks Bar. 94
Figure 37. Queen Mary at the Egyptian Queen. 95
Figure 38. Artists, including on the left a cross-dresser called Bobby 95
Figure 39. Artists on stage in Strait Street. 96
Figure 40. The Smiling Prince sign (a) and detail (b). 97

Figure 41. Map showing location of ZCPS03 survey areas on Zanzibar and Pemba 102
Figure 42. Stone built plantation owner’s house, Mgoli. 104
Figure 43. Discourses of Battle 110

List of Tables
Table 1. Distribution of bars on Strait Street 91

v
i
 List of Contributors
Mary C. Beaudry is Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology at Boston University
Julian Bowsher is Senior Archaeologist at the Museum of London Archaeology Service.
Victor Buchli is Reader in Material Culture in the Department of Anthropology, at University College
London.
John Carman is Birmingham University Research Fellow in Heritage Valuation and is co-Director of the
Bloody Meadows Project.
Patricia Carman is co-Director of the Bloody Meadows Project.
Sarah Croucher is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Wesleyan University.
Graham Fairclough is Head of Characterisation at English Heritage
Brian W Gohacki is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, at Brown University.
Paul Graves-Brown is a freelance archaeologist working in Wales.
David Harvey is Senior Lecturer in Historical Cultural Geography in the Department of Geography, at
University of Exeter.
Martin Locock is an Archivist at the National Library of Wales
Laura McAtackney is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, at the
University of Bristol
Christopher Matthews is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Hofstra University.
Emily Morrissey is a freelance archaeologist, based in Somerset.
Martin Newman works for the National Monuments Register, at English Heritage.
Jeff Oliver is a Research Assistant in the Department of Archaeology, at the University of Sheffield
Matthew Palus is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University
Krysta Ryzewski is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, at Brown University
John Schofield works for the English Heritage Chracterisation Team and is Research Fellow in Archaeology
at the University of Bristol
Andrew Tierney is Visiting Lecturer at the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College,
Dublin.

v
ii
 Acknowledgements

There are many people who, individually, we would like to thank in the construction of this volume, as it
has at times been a long and arduous task. However, we will use this space to thank only those who were
imperative to the successful completion of this volume. We express our special appreciation to Joshua
Pollard and Dan Hicks for their guidance and input throughout the editing process. We would also like to
thank all the contributors to this volume for creating their interesting and exciting papers, as well as for
their patience and fortitude in waiting for the production of the book. Lastly, we would like to thank Brent
Fortenberry for his swift and meticulous proofreading.
LM, MP & AP, April 2007.

viii
 Preface: Historical Archaeology with
Canon on the Side, Please

Mary C. Beaudry

I am privileged to be part of the excitement that CHAT the ‘socio-economic status’ and, sometimes, ethnicity of
is generating, by promoting innovative and theoretically households based on goods, chiefly ceramics and glass,
informed studies of the recent and contemporary past. I excavated from a wide range of sites (eg, Spencer-Wood
suspect, however, that some North American historical 1987).
archaeologists’ reaction to the notion of ‘contemporary
historical archaeology’ would be, ‘what’s the big deal? Silcott and Johnny Ward’s Ranch are examples of
We’ve been doing this sort of thing for decades!’ early studies in ‘contemporary archaeology’ that serve
as illustrations of the intellectual conservatism that
It is true that historical archaeology has been practiced characterizes US historical archaeology. A field that has
in the US and Canada for some time; since the 1960s it existed for less than a half-century has a pretty tenuous
has even been considered a respectable pursuit though not claim to maturity (Beaudry 1995; Hicks 2003) and, one
nearly as worthwhile as other sorts of archaeology. From would think, would not have developed a fixed set of
the initial stages of the development of North American intellectual precepts. Both Fontana and Adams advocated
historical archaeology, researchers have unabashedly an integrated approach to historical archaeology that
turned their attention to archaeology of the contemporary combined humanistic — specifically ethnological and
or very recent past; in 1962, for instance, Bernard ethnographic— with scientific approaches (Fontana 1965;
Fontana and colleagues published a monograph on a Adams 1980). Despite these early efforts to convince
late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century ranch in Arizona historical archaeologists of the value of an open-ended,
(Fontana et al 1962; Fontana 1967), ushering in the era of integrative approach that draws on diverse influences
‘tin can archaeology’ (Ascher 1974). In the 1970s, William from many fields, US historical archaeology has been
Hampton Adams conducted a multidisciplinary research characterized by a limited range of theoretical perspectives
project on the early twentieth-century town of Silcott in and by recurrent efforts on the part of one or another of
the US state of Washington, publishing in 1975 an article the major figures in the field to develop and promulgate a
titled ‘Archaeology of the Recent Past’ in Northwest consensus approach to the way historical archaeology is
Anthropology Research Notes. Adams defined his research done.
as ethnoarchaeology because he employed what he termed
a ‘synergistic approach’ that combined archaeological and In other words, there has been a fairly constant effort to
documentary research with oral histories from people who establish some sort of canon for both theory and practice,
had once lived in Silcott (Adams 1977). and since the late 1970s US historical archaeology has
entertained little in the way of debate about the direction
Publications on Johnny Ward’s Ranch (Fontana et al 1962) the field should take. Instead we have been treated to a
and Silcott (Adams et al 1975; Adams 1977) focused, series of pronouncements that it should be one thing or
however, on identifying the mysterious artifacts, often another: we are told that we should all employ the same
strangely familiar yet nevertheless unrecognized, from theoretical armature and the mode of practice it informs
these sites. Indeed, Adams’s analysis of the finds from if we are to be taken seriously (eg, Deetz 1989; Leone
Silcott focused not on what the people of Silcott did with and Potter 1999; Paynter 2000; Orser 1996; South 1977).
the material culture he unearthed from their dumps, privies, Many US historical archaeologists continue to espouse the
and houses but on the sources and systems of supply for the principles of the ‘New Archaeology’ (processualism) first
isolated community (eg, Adams and Riordan 1985). This embraced in the 1970s, or have adopted other totalizing
initiated a long-term devotion to the study of ‘consumer explanatory schemes; the resulting distinct and strongly
choice’ among US historical archaeologists. Initially delineated schools of thought are resistant to influences
the approach focused on the global supply systems that from contemporary social theory. This is why I see US
provided goods, such as bottled patent medicines, to far- historical archaeology as conservative at its core.
flung ‘frontiers’. Interest in ‘commodity flows’ and supply
networks often overrode any concern for the contents Under the processualist program, we were encouraged to be
of such bottles and what they meant to the people who truly scientific and to search for patterns in archaeological
used them and what this in turn could tell us about those data that would, in turn, lead to law-like generalizations
people (for a different approach see Jones 1981; 1983). about culture. The person whose work is most strongly
Eventually, consumer choice studies aimed to delineate associated with this approach in historical archaeology


Mary C. Beaudry

is Stanley South, whose 1977 book, Method and Theory under the purview of the state’s historic preservation office
in Historical Archaeology, was wildly influential in the by requiring that archaeologists report research results
late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. It found special according to a processualist, one-size-fits-all format;
favor among prehistorians who found themselves forced perhaps it is apt, then, that the acronym for California’s
by cultural resource legislation to address historical sites Archaeological Resource Management Report guidelines
even though they preferred not to. In part this was because is ARMR!
South’s program eschewed historical sources as overly
particularistic, and hence far too unscientific to be trusted. By the late 1970s, other theoretical programs were
His aim was to develop statistically based formulae that advanced by US historical archaeologists as alternatives
would permit archaeologists to dig historical sites without to processualism, with greater or lesser impact on the field.
having to mess about with documents. In other words, Among them is Deetz’s structuralist approach (Deetz 1977).
his aim was to make historical archaeology as much like Deetz’s students seldom embraced structuralism in an
prehistory as possible. ‘Southian’ processualist studies outright way (eg, Yentsch 1991) but many were influenced
have predominated in the US Southeast and Caribbean by his notion of mindsets, mental templates, and world
(eg, Deagan 1983; Ewen 1991; Otto 1984), but South’s view. In In Small Things Forgotten Deetz (1977) posited
approach was also embraced by many who worked in CRM that English immigrants arrived with a ‘medieval’ mindse,
archaeology as an easy means of ‘processing’ data without which eventually became Georgian; on the other hand,
having to think about it very much — though the stated African Americans maintained a distinctly African mindset.
rationale for employing the approach continues to be that Deetz viewed these mindsets as beginning with a blueprint
South’s rigidly defined artifact groupings and statistically that immigrants brought with them for recreating the life
based pattern analysis allow for ready comparability that they had left behind; mindsets were transformed into
of sites and assemblages (eg, Cheek and Seifert 1994) . new cultural orders that would then define America. The
Pattern analysis paired up very nicely with consumer ideas put forth by Deetz in his seminal volume influenced
choice studies that had already found a strong following historical archaeology’s focus on how cultural worlds were
among historical archaeologists (eg, Klein and LeeDecker reconstructed through objects, on ethnogenesis, quotidian
1991; Spencer-Wood 1987).
practices, ‘small things’, and disenfranchised peoples in
colonial contexts (eg, Purser 1995; Stewart-Abernathy
While UK archaeologists may justifiably congratulate
1992).
themselves on having escaped from what must be some
of the worst and most pernicious evocations of the
Both the South and Deetz programs have as their primary
processualist program ever promulgated—for example,
aim the ‘recovery’ or ‘discovery’ of sweeping, totalizing
studies of ceramic patterning, at military sites to
generalizations about cultural processes, offering rather
‘prove’ that officers had higher status than enlisted men
little in the way of explanation for cultural change or even
(Turnbaugh and Turnbaugh 1977), at southern plantations
for how culture is constituted in the first place. Leone’s
to ‘prove’ that masters and overseers had higher status and
better pots than enslaved Africans (Otto 1984), in urban critical theory approach and his insistence that historical
dumps to define a statistically based ‘holiday behavior archaeology is the study of capitalism is really not all
pattern’ (Dickens and Bowen 1980)—conservatism in US that different in ultimate aim; it merely offers a different
historical archaeology means that many archaeologists, explanatory mechanism, that is, a Marxist perspective,
especially those working in the US Southeast and in what on American culture (Leone 1995; Leone et al 1987).
we call contract archaeology, still practice ‘Southian’ It, too, is a universalizing approach that seeks similar
pattern analysis, mainly because they have always done explanations for disparate phenomena. In the ‘archaeology
so (eg, Seifert and Balicki 2005). For a time the state of of capitalism’ material culture plays an anecdotal role as
California mandated that all archaeological projects, illustration of the ways in which capitalism has affected
including those involving historical sites, should follow all aspects of human life for the past several centuries.
the hypothetico-deductive approach. Only after intense Artifacts may be seen to ‘act back’ in ways that control
lobbying on the part of what we would now think of as and shape human behavior (usually negatively, by creating
post-processualist archaeologists was this requirement false consciousness), but the interpretations of material
modified to allow for alternative theoretical perspectives, culture offered by Leone and his followers tend to be as
if the investigator provided sufficient justification for his lacking in subtlety and nuance as the other approaches I
or her divergence from the ‘canon’. The current guidelines have described.
for preparing archaeological reports for review by the
office of the California State Archaeologist nevertheless By addressing subtle differences in the deployment of
require that archaeologists must ‘present testable material culture, however, historical archaeology gains its
hypotheses’, stating that any ‘useful theoretical approach own subversive power. For me, an interpretive approach
should be capable of generating testable hypotheses’ and first establishes a local framework for interpretation,
that archaeologists must ‘identify the test implications of standing in contrast to decontextualized comparisons that
the hypotheses’ (California Office of Historic Preservation force the researcher to argue backwards towards context
1990: 9). Such requirements constitute a clear effort to only after he or she perceives some seeming anomaly in
restrict the intellectual breadth of archaeology conducted the data (Beaudry 1996: 490).

 Preface: Historical Archaeology With Canon On The Side, Please

Interpretive scholars are aware that the intersubjective validity of archaeological studies that incorporate bold
space of cultural transactions can be constructed through forays into the worlds of documentary analysis or material
deliberate manipulation of material culture in ways that culture studies; we reject the sadly still too prevalent notion
produce multiplicities of meanings. This awareness leads that archaeology is ‘only dirt, only excavation’ (Beaudry
interpretive historical archaeologists to seek ways of 1996: 480). The purposeful combination of multiple
comprehending ubiquitous items such as ceramics, glass approaches and theoretical perspectives that interpretivists
bottles, and a plethora of small finds not as parts of closed employ, which certain critics labeled sneeringly as
cultural ‘systems’ or as universal reflections of monolithic eclecticism, has not brought about a state of ritual impurity
‘total institutions’. Rather, artifacts and the cultural in the field but in fact represents a way of experimenting
‘transcripts’ in which they figured can be examined as and even playing with archaeological data, much as
potentially multivalent props employed in colonial and musicians in creating what falls loosely under the rubric of
post-colonial discourses (see, eg, Barrett 1988; Beaudry et
‘world music’ practice a kind of reckless eclecticism that
al 1991; De Cunzo 1996; Hall 2000).
results in new and engaging forms of music. Hybridity and
eclecticism, both in archaeological theory and practice,
My approach, which I identify loosely as interpretivist,
allows me to pursue my interest in how objects become are creative and far from reckless ways of challenging
highly charged with import and send messages that seem totalizing schemes and can only strengthen the field.
confusing because they are saying more than we expect them
to say. The message for the archaeologist may be equally Interpretive historical archaeologists in the US (eg, De
confusing because documentary examples that enable the Cunzo 1996, 2004; King 1996; Praetzellis and Praetzellis
construction of complex and polyvalent cultural fields for 2004; Wilkie 2000, 2003; Yamin 1998, 2005) and
interpreting material culture underscore the weakness of elsewhere (eg, Hicks 2005; Lawrence 2000; Symonds
analytical frameworks that aim to disambiguate artifact 2000; Turgeon 2004) are gently nibbling at the edges of
interpretation by slotting objects into grand narratives and canonical practice(s) in historical archaeology, but we still
systemic programs that have as their aim the delineation face knee-jerk negative reactions to much of our work. For
of fixed ‘meanings of things’. Such frameworks overlook instance that we are unable to ‘prove’ anything — as if that
the role individuals play in the negotiation of personal were desirable — and that we trivialize archaeology as a
identity and the role of symbols in social and cultural life. discipline by taking up as subjects of archaeological inquiry
Any object can be symbolically mobilized in service to the any and all cultural productions, including contemporary
ambitions of an individual as well as to the enforcement and recent ones, and also that by adopting empathetic
of rules and mores of the collectivity. Even humble or approaches we seek unjustifiably to ‘speak for’ people in
seemingly inconsequential objects figured prominently the past, and so forth. That is why I am very pleased to be a
in the construction and negotiation of identity, and it is part of the CHAT grouping, in which historical archaeology
our task to work at understanding not the true meaning of is truly being reinvented by a diverse group of people who
material culture in some universal sense but, to the extent are not bound by any established canon. I am heartened
that we can, possible, potential meanings that they have and by Victor Buchli’s argument that it is in the superfluities
may have had. Therefore, I see interpretive archaeologies and pluralities of experience, practice, and interpretation
as distinct not just from processualism, but also from that contemporary historical archaeology will find its
structuralist and Marxist or Marxian archaeologies (contra
strength (Buchli 2000: 7). I am privileged to be a part of
Hicks 2005; Thomas 2000), as separate from any rigidly
this emerging and wholly non-canonical reformulation
delimited ‘school’ of archaeological thought that at its
of historical archaeology, and I look forward to bearing
core is programmatic and canonical. Interpretive historical
witness to the continued and continuous reinvention of
archaeology is one of many projects in postmodern
cultural studies through which researchers aim to ‘gain an contemporary historical archaeology.
understanding of the context because the context itself has
in part already been constructed by theory, or at least by
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 Introduction

Laura McAtackney and Matthew Palus

This volume assembles some of the contributions to the construction of imperial British identities, specifically
the first two annual meetings of the Contemporary and through the inscription of ancient monuments such as
Historical Archaeology in Theory (‘CHAT’) conferences, Avebury, Co. Wilshire, England, and Newgrange, Co.
held at Bristol University in November 2003 and Leicester Meath, Ireland as sources of cultural power, emerging
University in November 2004. Bringing together a wide imperial identities and desires.
range of archaeological practitioners from higher education
and from professional archaeology, these contributions Jeff Oliver appraises the language of progress in the history
explore the potential of archaeological studies of the of colonial expansion, particularly in the tangible and very
recent and contemporary past from a range of perspectives. material drama of land survey and cadastral mapping. In
Included are studies that focus on a range of themes, the territorial survey of British Columbia, the abutting of
and whilst diverse they are united by an awareness of technologies for making progress – basic mapping and
archaeology as a contemporary practice, and of the radical survey infrastructure – and contexts of wilderness reflects
potential for the extension of archaeological perspectives the partiality or failure of cartographies superimposed onto
into the recent past and the contemporary world. British Columbia wilderness. Contradictory outcomes of
mapping on-the-ground undermine the very purposes of
In this brief introduction, we want to explore some of the colonization: the sale and (re)settlement of land (cf. Byrne,
themes that emerge from the papers collected here. The 2003; Mrozowski, 1999).
themes we choose to explore include, but are not limited
to, archaeological studies of colonialism, conflict, heritage Land is the original colonial desire, and that landscape
and performance and practice. We want to underline that should emerge as an important mode for interpreting
such themes are intertwined, and how complexity and colonialism and its alternatives may offer a particular
diversity contribute to the vibrancy of current research archaeological approach to this issue. Harvey does not
in contemporary and historical archaeology. We shall disarticulate landscape, as a particularly material domain
conclude with some final thoughts about this field of for colonialism, from the discourse on identity more
study. familiar from postcolonial studies. He reminds us that
empire is about more than land, but land itself is more than
Colonialism simple territory. This suggests approaches that begin to
consider land’s materiality and see it as a component of
The study of colonial and postcolonial worlds is an the colonial project equal in gravity to politicized identity
important emerging theme in historical archaeology projects, a vision that Jeff Oliver begins to fulfill.
(Orser, 1996; Gosden 2004; Lawrence and Shepherd,
2006). Several contributors to this volume exemplify our Croucher observes not only the invisibility of colonialism in
ability to interrogate colonialism as a mode of engagement the archaeology of Zanzibar, but the near-complete absence
with cultural and ecological settings around the world. of 19th-century archaeology in the region. The outcome
Chapters by Andrew Tierney, David Harvey, and Jeff Oliver is an awkward tourist fantasy elaborated upon clove
examine aspects of British colonial history in locations that plantations, at once exotic and quintessentially Oriental
have been little examined in postcolonial perspective by for their production of spices and their association with
archaeologists: British Columbia, Ireland, and the British Omani merchants. Croucher explores how archaeology
Isles itself. Moreover, Sarah Croucher presents an important can be used not only to enlighten historical narratives but
counterpoint to conventional Eurocentric archaeologies of to provide alternative stories of the past, and her essay
colonialism by examining the archaeology of slavery on has great relevance for understanding the contemporary
clove plantations in 19th-century Zanzibar. political economies and the consequences and conflicts
resulting from colonialism and empire-building throughout
This association of archaeology with colony and empire is East Africa.
emphasized by Andrew Tierney, who examines Irish oral
traditions in which the existence of castles was translated
into tenure in land, and therefore legitimate claims to rule Conflict
between competing chiefly lineages in the sixteenth and
seventeenth century. Association with these castles have The archaeological manifestations of both blunt and
been the subject of ongoing negotiation. Initially they were subtle forms of conflict can also be most effectively
usurped for colonialist discourses and identities, were later explored within the context of contemporary and historical
abandoned by Irish nationalist historians and now find archaeology. Research into conflict in the historical
their role within a confident, contemporary Irish society archaeological record crosses a wide spectrum of activities
subject to reappraisal. David Harvey in his contribution (see Schofield, 2002) and can cover such manifestations
submits that this same project is also a colonial one, and as warfare (Carman, 1997) as well the greater subtlety
that the intelligibility of these monuments is rendered of class conflict (Leone, 2005) Most prominently in this
simultaneously through scientific and imperial modes. volume, John and Patricia Carman focus on the much-
Just as race was central to nation-building in the New needed development of theoretical understandings of
World, Harvey describes the importance of racialization to battlefield archaeology with the ‘Bloody Meadows’ project,


Laura McAtackney and Matthew Palus

however, this is but one form of conflict to be found in the Heritage

archaeological record.
There has been a huge growth in recent years of interest
Less obvious manifestations of conflict, through class in the field of heritage as both a concept (Skeates, 2002)
conflict or political action, can also be found through and as a practice (Cooper et al, 1995). The treatment of the
conducting historical and contemporary archaeologies. remains of the very recent past as heritage is also a major
This is due to the existence of a greater survival and emerging field of current debate in archaeology (Bradley
range of archaeological remains from the recent past and et al 2004, Penrose forthcoming) and a number of papers
the existence of supporting, often documentary, evidence in this volume engage with the concept of the recent past as
that allows archaeologists to be able to investigate a potential heritage resource. Graham Fairclough’s paper
greater subtlety of conflict within the archaeological (this volume), in particular, uses the English Heritage
record. This documentary evidence covers institutional document, Change and Creation: historic landscape
and governmental records, which attempt to record the character 1950-2000, (Bradley et al, 2004) as a means to
workings of society, to the personal letters and diaries of provide suggestions for how the public can interact with,
the most lowly. The range of documents relating to any site and appreciate, the recent additions to the contemporary
can, like their archaeological remains, vary wildly in the British landscape. Of most interest is Fairclough’s
state of their survival between different periods, locations contention that there should be a move towards accepting
and people. Furthermore, the conditions of modernity has that the British landscape is, and always has been, changing
created circumstances in which new forms of conflict have and evolving and there is a need to use heritage issues and
arisen, in particular Marxist archaeologists highlight the contemporary archaeology to reflect on archaeological
growth of capitalism as the impetus to class consciousness practices in general.
and conflict (eg Leone and Potter, 1999). Of course, there Martin Newman’s discussion of the digitisation and
are difficulties with this approach in that it tends to focus organisation of archaeological materials in this volume
on the archaeology of the recent past and on western is also poignant and timely in regard to the public’s
ideas of what is significant. Explorations of conflict away relationship with archaeology. Newman’s paper focuses on
from North American and European contexts, such as archaeological data that is available to the public through
Croucher’s archaeological work on Zanzibar, are therefore the internet and, although it is obviously positive that such
especially welcome. data is now more freely available to those who ultimately
pay for it, he does highlight the problem of accessibility.
The forms of politics and conflict that can be expected He points to the potential problems of social exclusivity, in
to arise in such an archaeological context will, of course, particular, as archaeological material often continues to be
include the traditional concern with and interest in the presented in an élitest way with interested members of the
archaeology of warfare. In particular, the changes and public frequently discouraged through the use of overly
impacts of mass warfare in the twentieth century are of academic and specialist language. However, he does show
great concern to many archaeologists, particularly in that despite theoretical problems of physical and academic
Europe with the investigations of the battlefields and access there are a number of high-profile initiatives that
remnants of World Wars I and II. However, the growth of are attempting to break these barriers down.
nationalism from the nineteenth century onwards have also
precipitated, particularly within Europe, Africa, and Asia, The relationship between archaeology and the heritage
many physical manifestations of ongoing civil conflict industry is often difficult. Contemporary and historical
that have had a lasting impact on the cultural landscapes archaeologies can prompt us to explore issues of what
of many lands. For example, the security infrastructure becomes heritage and why. What aspects of our past and
associated with ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland are of present are officially selected for commemorations and
increasing interest. As the peace process appears to be a which areas are rejected? Brian Gohacki in his investigation
permanent fixture there is growing concern with what we of the treatment of shipwrecks off the North American coast
do with these long standing remains of conflict. With much (this volume) explores the interface between archaeology
of the fortified police stations and army bases disappearing and the heritage industry and highlights some potential
over night, with little trace of what once stood there, should causes for concern, as well as possible opportunities for
we be preserving, or at least recording, these manifestation a more fruitful relationship. The relationship between
of internecine conflict or is it more productive for society official and unofficial heritage is of particular concern, for
to attempt to forget periods of unrest? As with much as Ashworth and Graham (2005: 5) have shown, despite
investigation into the recent historical and contemporary heritage often being officially directed, the public will not
archaeological record, there is no easy answer. always interact with it as expected or designated. Official
heritage can, and is, subverted by the public at will. Such
Archaeologists are increasingly attempting to engage with themes are explored by Matthew Palus and Christopher
less obvious manifestations of the conflicts encountered Matthews (this volume), in their ongoing work in the City
in everyday life, especially through archaeologies of class of Annapolis. They especially concentrate on the continued,
conflict, the manifestations of capitalism and ‘the impact possibly racially related, rejection of one neighbourhood’s
of industrialisation upon those who make up what is known significant heritage value with preference to the more
as the working classes’. In this vein, Martin Locock’s mainstream Founding Fathers heritage of Annapolis’s
contribution to this volume explores the physical remains historic district, and thereby address the often murky
connected to early capitalist ventures in the buildings realities of heritage selection/creation.
industry through his case-study of Castle Bromwich Hall,
Warwickshire, UK. As in his paper, often we find that the
signs of politics and conflict are not as obvious as those of Performance and Practice
mass civil unrest but it is possible to locate the subversion The archaeological study of performance - including
and sabotage used by those who are considered powerless performance in the past, the performative qualities of
to show their discontent. As James Scott (1985) famously things, and even the ‘performance’ of archaeology itself
argued, small subversions can help to empower those who - has become an important area for archaeological focus
appear superficially weak. Archaeologies of the recent past in recent years (Pearson and Shanks, 2001; Shanks, 2004).
can often identify the traces of such small subversions. In their discussion of their ‘Bloody Meadows’ battlefield

 Introduction

archaeology project, John and Patricia Carman (this and some of the issues we need to grapple with when
volume) explore: conducting these archaeologies. Moreover, they raise
many new themes with which archaeologists can work.
the often slow and deliberate movements of Many chapters fall across, rather than within, the themes
bodies of troops across the space of a battlefield discussed in this introduction - for example, John Schofield
frequently in defiance of a natural desire to avoid and Emily Morrissey’s chapter on Strait Street not only
danger … Accordingly, gaining a feeling for the explores past performances, but illuminates the tensions
place as a place and focussing on how one moves between the darker heritage of Strait Street in Valetta and
through it in performance, one can perhaps gain the city’s status as a World Heritage site. A number of
a sense of what a particular historic battlefield the papers discussed under the theme of colonialism above
represents in terms of experience and meaning.’ contribute equally to the archaeological study of conflict.
Julian Bowsher examines the archaeology of theatrical Indeed, although the contributions to this volume focus
performance in his chapter on the archaeology of the Rose on different geographical locations, as well as different
Theatre, London. Whilst focusing on the physical traces of aspects of past and contemporary experience, many
the performance of the theatregoers he highlights the wear papers use archaeology as a tool to unearth contradictions,
at the front of the stage, the dress accessories found under complexities and alternative narratives rather than to
the stage area, and items discarded by the audience such as supplement existing histories, or to contribute to single
hazelnut shells, counting tokens and drinking vessels. He disciplinary themes. At the same time, many of the papers
then delves further by considering the performance of the consciously interact with their studies as contemporary
archaeologists, in this arena of past performance, as they as well as historical concerns. In this way, they seek to
excavate the remains of the theatre. John Schofield and contribute to what Cornelius Holtorf has described as one
Emily Morrissey’s chapter on the archaeology of Strait of the principal aspects of all archaeology - its role as a
Street in Valetta, Malta, engages with performance insofar field that ‘offers a perspective from which the past and its
as it examines the deliberately hidden material remains of remains can be experienced and understood in the light of
ephemeral moments in the street’s former bars and brothels. our present’ (Holtorf, 2005: 15).
Their study is of particular interest in that Strait Street is
now largely derelict in comparison to its previous life as a
vibrant and alive, if seedy, section of Valetta, which would References
have been the focus of numerous nightly ‘performances’ Ashworth, G.J. and B. Graham (eds) 2005. Senses of
of consumption, forceful interactions and lust. Schofield Place: Senses of Time. Aldershot: Ashgate.
and Morrissey now explore it, during daylight hours, as a Bradley, A., V. Buchli, G. Fairclough, D. Hicks, J. Miller
largely ignored series of street that, by its very existence, and J. Schofield 2004. Change and Creation: the later
continues to contradict the city’s aspiring image of World 20th century contribution to England’s landscape. An
Heritage respectability. English Heritage manifesto on historic landscape
Some of the studies collected in this volume aim to character from the period 1950-2000. London: English
reveal hidden practices, which were performed, but in Heritage.
secret. Krysta Ryzewski’s archaeological study of the Byrne, D. R. 2003. Nervous Landscapes: Race and space
consumption of patent medicines in different social in Australia. Journal of Social Archaeology 3(2): 169-
contexts in New England during the nineteenth century 193.
(this volume) explores how respectability ensured that Carman, J. 1997. Material Harm: archaeological studies
higher social status ensured more covert use of patent of war and violence. Glasgow: Cruithne Press.
medicines, however, in reality their usage was similar in Cooper, M. A. Firth, J. Carman and D Wheatley (eds).
quantity and type throughout the social spectrum. Within 1995. Managing Archaeology. London: Routledge.
the more working class contexts the archaeological Gosden, C. 2004. Archaeology and Colonialism.
discovery of medicine bottles secreted around privies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
dating from a time when the consumption of alcohol was Graves-Brown, P. 2000. Always Crashing the Same Car.
forbidden, hidden consumption of patent medicines can be In P. Graves-Brown (ed.) Always Crashing the Same
interpreted as a small but important act of defiance. Car. London: Routledge, pp. 156-165.
Holtorf, C. 2005. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas:
The material dimensions of contemporary practices are Archaeology as Popular Culture. Oxford: Altamira
explored in Paul Graves-Brown’s unconventional study of Press.
the control of access for walkers to a contemporary shopping Lawrence, S. and N. Shepherd 2006. Historical
mall in South Wales (cf. Graves-Brown, 2000). Through Archaeology and Colonialism. In D. Hicks and M.C.
his own performative engagement with the landscapes, he Beaudry (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Historical
explores how the space is walked, how people often reject Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
the planned pathways and subvert the careful created spaces pp. 69-86.
by establishing their own paths, which they found more Leone, M. 2005. The archaeology of liberty in an American
suitable to their needs. Graves-Brown’s use of J.G. Ballard capital: excavations in Annapolis. London: University
in his explorations of these attempts to control movement of California Press.
– and more importantly the articulation of pedestrian and Leone, M. and P. B. Potter, Jr. 1999. Historical
automobile ways – makes chilling reading for those who Archaeologies of Capitalism. New York: Kluwer
usually are unconscious of the control of space by such, Academic/Plenum Publishers.
seemingly benign, corporations. Mrozowski, S. A. 1999. Colonization and the
Commodification of Nature. International Journal of
Historical Archaeology 3(3):153-166.
*** Orser, C. E., Jr. 1996. A Historical Archaeology of the
Modern World. New York: Plenum Press.
Pearson, M. and M. Shanks 2001. Theatre/Archaeology.
The essays by Mary Beaudry and Victor Buchli, which London: Routledge.
begin and end the collection, highlight the development Penrose, S. forthcoming. Images of Change. Swindon:
of archaeologies of the recent and contemporary past, English Heritage.

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Schofield, J. and W.G. Johnson 2006. Archaeology, Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday forms of
Heritage and the Recent and Contemporary Past. peasant resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
In D. Hicks and M.C. Beaudry (eds) The Cambridge Shanks, M. 2004. Three Rooms: Archaeology and
Companion to Historical Archaeology. Cambridge: Performance. Journal of Social Archaeology 4: 147-
Cambridge University Press, pp.104-122. 180.
Schofield, J., W.G. Johnston and C.M. Beck. 2002. Skeates, R. 2002. Debating the Archaeological Heritage.
Matériel culture: the archaeology of twentieth century London: Duckworth.
conflict. London: Routledge.


 Significance, Value, and Property in the Public
Face of Archaeology

Matthew M. Palus And Christopher N. Matthews

Introduction What contains it, and who else inhabits it? For it is
certainly inhabited, and through their desires, projects, and
Over four summers from 2001 to 2004, field school students agendas its other inhabitants contribute to the positioning
from the University of Maryland conducted excavations of archaeologists and their works. Following numerous
in a neighborhood in the city of Annapolis that is located scholars before us (Bender 1998; Hall 1994; 1999; 2001;
outside of and adjacent to – or perhaps most appropriately Dongoske et al 2000; Potter 1994) we acknowledge that
on the margins of – the historic district of the city. The
we cannot understand what a particular archaeology is
neighborhood is called Eastport and was named in the
late 1880s after the hometown of a local promoter and without closely investigating the discourses that subsume
entrepreneur, who brought a glass factory to the area that archaeological research. This entails mapping archaeology
faced Annapolis from Eastport’s waterfront. Annapolis is a into the larger domain of heritage, which we suggest both
peninsular city extending into the Severn river in Maryland, contains and gives shape to archaeological discourses. Thus
and Eastport was established as a speculative venture on the the ethnographic consideration of archaeology conducted
next peninsula south of what is today the historic district in specific places, and the ways it is appropriated or simply
of Annapolis. In 1868, a group of investors formed the borrowed, dissembled or reformulated, exploited for profit,
Mutual Building Association of Annapolis and purchased etc, becomes an objective of field research.
a 100-some acre tract on the peninsula. They laid out 256 How might our projects make space for these social
small home sites on a grid of streets, and this plan matches processes in our interpretation of archaeological remains?
the layout of the neighborhood today (Figure 1). Though How do our projects make room for those social relations
most lots have been subdivided and rearranged, they have that allow archaeologists to claim the legitimacy of what
not fundamentally been reassembled into larger packages they do within the non-archaeological world that has made
except for condominium developments on the waterfront space for us? For instance, in Eastport we must establish
facing the downtown. The interior of the peninsula is, for the contingency of our social positions as experts within a
lack of a better word, intact, and resembles the condition of certain prescribed system that allows for, if not desires, the
the neighborhood during the early twentieth century: small, existence of experts. We must examine this space, how it
wood-frame dwellings stand individually or as duplexes was formed, and what we (and others) now do to sustain it,
on lots of a quarter-acre or less. Archaeology in Annapolis, especially in our interpretations of the past. Then we must
the long-term project behind the University of Maryland’s critically evaluate and incorporate these public interests
field school, developed archaeological research in Eastport into the foundations of our interpretative projects. We
that approached the twentieth-century history of the city emphasize these as public issues because we feel that the
– a city that has literally attacked its twentieth-century term ‘public archaeology’ is fast losing any stable useful
fabric, for instance dismantling neon signage and overhead meaning. In particular we are concerned that the public
utilities that are considered a blight by preservationists stands now for interest groups who are objectively distinct
– and we have aimed for an archaeology that has relevance from archaeology and archaeologists. The public in this
to the community. This chapter discusses our approach to sense may be served by an independent archaeology,
identifying that relevance. The public to which this public while that formulation of archaeology as free from social
archaeology is addressed is that which resides in Eastport. interests is at best a fiction.
A key question for public archaeology is what immediate In this sense we are tracking the same patterns that Joyce
and local benefits derive from having archaeologists (2002) discusses regarding the ‘language of archaeology,’
working in a community? We might ask a more but we are engaged here in creating a revised notion of the
preliminary question. How have we arrived at the position ‘public face’ or the ‘community’ for archaeology. Joyce
of being able to provide an archaeology to a community, to adopts Bakhtin’s (1981) focus on dialogism to analyze
consider ourselves as its authors? Our point is not so much archaeological writing so that we may capture the ‘total
to survey those answers that have already been submitted contexts’ of authorship as part of the way that archaeological
in the public archaeology literature. Rather, we outline a research is produced as a communicative act. Bahktin’s
methodology for asking the question in a productive way, dialogics characterizes any text, including archaeological
to ask, as Foucault does in his 1984 essay ‘What is an reports or their productive contents – such as stratigraphic
author’, who we are when we write, and how do writing profiles or artifact descriptions – as dialogue rather than
and similar practices connect us to the social world in monolog. Dialogics is thus as concerned with knowing the
which we are affective as professionals. If archaeologists other who is being written for, as it is with the author and
have acquired the entitlement to disseminate information of matters being written about. In this light, the decisions that
importance – for instance, in public discourses on heritage create archaeological truths are always seen as dialogues
– we might ask how that was accomplished discursively, held between active and subjective voices.
and how those social powers were derived. Further, and
this is the key issue that will be treated in this paper, We see this process as active specifically in the manner in
what is the shape of that larger discourse within which which archaeology is locally situated. Ours is not a process
archaeologists have carved out an authoritative position, of simply doing archaeology, or in a metaphorically spatial
and within which archaeological discourses also circulate? sense, ‘putting’ archaeology in the world. Archaeology is


Matthew M. Palus and Christopher N. Matthews

Figure 1. Plate of Eastport neighbourhood made for the Mutual Building Association by Surveyor John Duvall, 1868
(Source: Anne Arundel County Land Records Office).

overdetermined by the substantial contexts of site access, situations that sustain archaeological research and public
political agendas and connections, or research interests interest in archaeology. In this way we think the dialogics
of archaeology and its publics. Archaeologists are not of archaeology may be brought to light in a manner that
free agents who bring archaeology to the world. To be allows these relationships and assumptions in turn to
archaeologists specific persons are already engaged with be made available for archaeological investigation. We
multiple discourses – including the interests and values illustrate this process by considering the specific dialogic
of private property, cultural heritage, and professional relations that fuel the archaeological results from this four-
status – whose boundaries restrict the possibilities of year research project in Eastport.
archaeological work. By this we mean the already-
established public discourse about archaeology that makes Our success in seeing other authors, in identifying these
our presence in the world as archaeologists meaningful, dialogues and in approaching and contacting community
regardless of what we say about why we are there. This values, has been partial, and for the purposes of this
heteroglossia is the public face we are considering here. essay we will select one value that has had relevance
for our project: the notion of property. In particular, we
We think this is an especially vital approach, for it brings address this issue by articulating the idea of property and,
to the surface the ruptures in, or caused by, the social especially, homeownership. All of the land available for
process of archaeology that are often smoothed over in our excavations in Eastport was privately owned, and we
our writing and practices as we assemble our work as an required the permission and cooperation of homeowners
archaeology, a consolidated production. If we assume that to begin excavations. We approached this work home-by-
‘what we do’ is archaeology then we silence the contexts home, family-by-family, taking opportunities to excavate
for our works, making it impossible to know which as they appeared and scheduling several home sites for
archaeology actually emerges from the field in the end. investigation each summer. The welcome we received
Nor can we know who the authors actually are because was uneven. Eastport today is a biracial community. The
instead we just say who they are. This is not to suggest that racial geography of the neighborhood, a site of ferocious
there is a programmatical step taken in each arrangement, gentrification since preservation efforts in the adjacent
of denial or suppression. Rather, we wish to describe historic district achieved some successes, is such that home
a more sincere investigation of the politically charged sites associated historically with African Americans were

10
 Significance, Value, And Property In The Public Face Of Archaeology

made available to our field school by their contemporary interactions, support for our project was strong, but only
white owners, while the relatively limited area that is still from a partial, if not in fact quite narrow, representation
occupied by African Americans was closed to us. This of the community. This prompted the methodological
situation did not improve despite outreach carried on question of how we might have garnered wider support
through appeals to cultural and spiritual leaders within the and acceptance, but in the context of our essay we also
African American community, contiguous with a larger want to understand why we received any support at
community extending throughout Annapolis and the all. This is especially pressing when one considers the
surrounding county. The response to our research would inevitable disruption and expense that our excavations
best be described as impassive disinterest among all but entailed and the number of home sites that contained no
a very few black Eastporters: we could and should have dramatic discoveries, or nothing traditionally recognized as
learned more from Carol McDavid’s experiences at Levi significant by historical archaeologists in the Chesapeake.
Jordon Plantation (see McDavid 1997). In other words, why would anyone in Eastport allow us to
dig at her or his home in the first place? We assume that
The profile of those who did cooperate with our research there is a reason, and that people do not participate for no
was fairly consistent, comprised of families who had come other reason than because they are asked. Were we simply
to reside within the community recently and who owned
their homes; their similarity to us was undeniable and underwriting the advancing gentrification and ballooning
unsurprising. As such – and like us – most of our hosts of property values in the neighborhood, with the prestige
had yet to establish their ‘residency’ in the sense that they and archaeological value-added that our work sometimes
might become ‘Eastporters.’ Many communities have the provides to homes as well as neighborhoods? That answer
sort of social criteria for residency that we witnessed in comes to us immediately, and seems to be almost too facile
Eastport, where working-class roots and ties to the water a criticism. While it cannot be set aside because it is facile,
extended residency to those who had family of four or even we can acknowledge that it could obscure something else
five generations on the peninsula, and to a few who had in at work regarding the relationship between discourses
the course of their lifetimes become ‘honorary’ residents. on heritage and living in a place that ‘has’ heritage (this
fetishization of heritage is also facile but, we believe,
Beyond the seeming narrow demographic appeal of useful in the following discussion).
our project, there was a particular case that struck us
as important in the context of our potential impact on
residents’ understandings and uses of the neighborhood. Candlelight Cannibal Tours of
One homeowner was forthright regarding his objectives Annapolis
for our excavation, and those were to show that his house We now want to consider ‘home’ in another context. Just
was the oldest on his block. In fact, based on discussions as in Dennis O’Rourke’s film Cannibal Tours, discussed so
with neighbors about who had built his home and when, cogently by Dean MacCannell (1992), some homeowners in
he concluded that his home preceded most others on the Annapolis open up their homes to tourists in a coordinated
peninsula with a construction date of 1855, more than ten performance of heritage stewardship. The domains of
years before the neighborhood had been platted. His house heritage and homeownership overlap considerably in
resembled other two-story wooden homes in Eastport and, Annapolis. Much of the historic district of the city is
after researching the title to the house, we concluded that zoned for residences, and the local engine for preservation
it had probably been constructed during the 1890s. Beyond claims wide support among private homeowners. By far
this, after two summers we failed to find anything deposited the majority of buildings contributing to the nationally
on the property predating the late nineteenth century. recognized historic district are residences, with a few
So based on this category of evidence it was not likely important exceptions that include five Georgian mansions
that the parcel had been settled earlier. This homeowner now operated as house museums or offices, several
had researched the title to his house himself when he shopping streets, and some civic architecture as well. We
purchased it. He saw documentation on the purchase of his want to present a parallel case from the historic district
lot from the original land speculators towards the turn of of Annapolis, whereby the premier preservation advocacy
the century, and (it seemed to us) implausibly maintained group in the city has formed important partnerships with
his early date for the construction of the house, with all of homeowners in one particular neighborhood. The purpose
the same information that was available to the field school. here is to problematize the overlap that exists in Annapolis
We may not agree, and we may find his steadfastness between heritage and homeownership, and learn something
implausible, but he has installed his 1855 date in the of value for our project in Eastport.
permanent land records of the county, allowing him to
throw our opinions back at us. We do not respond here Every autumn, Annapolis homeowners are enlisted in
with ridicule, but rather appreciate this illustration of the a fundraising scheme that extends to the beginnings of
push-and-pull over different issues that went on between historic preservation activism in the city with the founding
ourselves and homeowners everywhere in Eastport. That of the Historic Annapolis Foundation (HAF) in 1952,
he can maintain his statements against ready evidence is known then as Historic Annapolis, Inc. HAF sells tickets
confounding to archaeology, which, more often, is given for candlelight tours of private homes selected for their
greater evidential authority, and it betrays a tactics relevant architectural significance and excellent renovation work, but
to our consideration of heritage and homeownership in this they are also utilized due to the willingness of homeowners
community. The fact that we had no impact on his ideas to participate and open their homes so that HAF can raise
about his own house after working on his property for funds to support its activities. Exclusive VIP tours that
two summers was discouraging, but what we learn from include peeks into details of construction in cellars and
this is that he and other Eastport homeowners understand attics are also available. VIPs pay significantly more for the
the functional power of inscription, and are capable of privilege of receiving a tour from an architectural historian
weighing the social power we felt entitled to apply to the employed by HAF than those guided by volunteer-docents
situation against that of the documents he had installed in through the spotlessly-clean-but-cozy spaces designated
appropriate repositories. by homeowners for the candlelight tours.
As stated, while we intended to undertake an archaeology Most of these homeowners have been recognized by HAF
that was based in support from within the community with historic markers to display on their homes, which
and that addressed salient issues deriving from these are color-coded to indicate the period and style of the

11
Matthew M. Palus and Christopher N. Matthews

structure. They receive the recognition that this entails,

and during the tours they receive further recognition
for dramatizing homeownership and, perhaps more
importantly, dramatizing good-faith stewardship. Again,
the notion of gentrification occurs to us. However, historic
preservation has had a much more complicated role to play
in the twentieth-century development of the city than to be
considered synonymous with gentrification. Preservation
arrived in Annapolis as a viable alternative, if not a
counter-movement, to urban renewal and the location in
which HAF first settled was a neighborhood very much
like those cleared block-by-block in other parts of the city
during the 1960s. The neighborhood was predominantly,
but not exclusively, comprised of African Americans, many
of whom rented their homes. The result of preservation
was not dissimilar to that of urban renewal; however, what
we want to highlight is that in Annapolis – and we believe
many American cities – the two were contemporaneous
and comparable strategies for cities to shift populations
and re-designate or repurpose whole neighborhoods, and
were supported by many of the same people as a means
of returning economic vitality to the city. In fact, both
activities were supported by the same pool of money
made available by the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD). This refers to Federal money made
available to the states through housing reform laws passed
during the 1950s and then allocated to local authorities to
administer at the municipal level. Critics of urban renewal
have almost universally pointed to the fact that control
over vast monies introduced by urban renewal legislation
was obtained locally and with minimal oversight or control
at higher levels of government. Once a municipality
established a workable plan for renewal and an authority to
execute it, very little could deter the authority from making
dramatic and sweeping changes to the built environment Figure 2. 2003 Advertisement for the Annual Tug of War between
if not the social fabric of the community (Saunders and Eastport and the Historic District of Annapolis: ‘The Slaughter
Shackelford 1998; Wilson 1966; Schuyler 2002; Colborn Over the Water’ (courtesy of the Maritime Republic of Eastport,
1963; Foard and Fefferman 1966). http://themre.org/tug2003/index.htm)
HUD money built public housing projects in one part of
Annapolis, and HUD money also purchased the William
Paca house and garden and a dozen other buildings in the HA plaques are awarded to buildings that represent
neighborhood in which HAF made its headquarters (what distinguished architecture in their period. Such buildings
was once Pinkney-Fleet Street, southeast of the State usually combine construction characteristics representative
Capitol Building). Both were part of the same project, of their era and features that display an exceptional sense of
and both entailed complicated rationales and discourses design… The house [on] Chesapeake Avenue is described
that enabled each process to advance on underdeveloped by HA’s consultants in historical architecture as: ‘Another
portions of the city. These candlelight tours obviate the example of the Annapolis Federal vernacular that is so
need to consider the long-term strategies that were put common in the city. While this particular version has better
in place in order to recover this neighborhood for these than normal sawn trim on the porch, it is still vernacular
good stewards. They do so in part because this project of in style.’ In sum, the residence reflects the typical building
historic preservation was successful in Annapolis. The style of the era rather that the exceptional. Buildings such
neighborhoods that HAF took an interest in starting in the as this provide an important part of the background for
1960s, and Eastport for that matter, are underdeveloped the city’s high styled buildings in that, through their small
areas of the city that were not redeveloped when the size and wooden construction they provide the attractive
opportunity existed, and that is a significant part of their ambiance which is now associated with Annapolis (Letter
historical trajectory. dated 19 October 1984, on file, Historic Annapolis
Foundation Archive).
Antagonism This is followed with an apology, as well as an affirmation
Historic markers on homes in Annapolis are an interesting that the neighborhood has significant interest and ambiance,
way to view the power that preservationists have to and that there are plans being drawn to survey the
ascribe, by designating what is valuable in the standing neighborhood, etc. Meanwhile, HAF was simultaneously
architecture of the city. What is also interesting and telling deciding whether it was its responsibility to evaluate and
is the criterion under which individual homeowners have designate worthwhile historic buildings like those in the
applied for markers (again, administered by HAF, a private Eastport neighborhood that were outside of the established
advocacy group) and failed to qualify. Two homeowners historic district, and whether it would one day have a
in the Eastport neighborhood applied for house markers plaque designated for ‘environmental’ architecture that
during the 1980s, and one was considered eligible. The contributes to the feel of a neighborhood without itself
terms of the single proffered rejection were: excelling in any way.

12
 Significance, Value, And Property In The Public Face Of Archaeology

Figure 3. The Tug of War from the Eastport Side in November of 2003. Photograph: Matthew Palus.

This rejection may appear capricious, but it was based on a can and must possess in order to have a culture, and his
systematic evaluation of architecture in Eastport that took analysis is elegant. However, he writes as if the discourses
place almost ten years before this application was lodged. themselves were transparent, and that the basic necessity to
An architectural historian working for HAF surveyed have was not challenged. ‘My deed says 1855.’ I suggested
Eastport and evaluated each house, and HAF still has earlier that this statement demonstrated a facility in
these records, including photographs of the façade of each manipulating the specific social powers at work, in judging
Eastport home that was standing at the time. Across the between competing truths: archaeological discoveries
board, Eastport homes received the lowest marks possible: versus records administered by the municipality under a
they were consistently only ‘worthy of mention.’ So, while different regime of authorship. Eastporters have expressed
Eastport (and arguably other neighborhoods in the city) is the same facility in dealing with the historic district of the
excluded from the entitlement of historic home markers, it city, approaching it through satirical performances and
is an exclusion that is also an inclusion. The neighborhood parody directed at the emphasis on colonial history in the
seems to have been enclosed by the apparatus designed by downtown, with its patron signers of the Declaration of
preservationists for the purposes of rejection. Independence. This amounts to an insurrection against the
criterion applied to them from outside of the community
by preservationists. They have identified the terms of
Conclusion this discursive engagement with heritage and simply
This brief departure and criticism of historic preservation set them aside, provoking a sort of ‘scandal’ (Casteñeda
in Annapolis must also be a criticism of Archaeology 1996). The content of the parody includes: a Declaration
in Annapolis, as a project that has been defined by its of Independence from the City of Annapolis in 1998, read
partnership with preservationists in the city, and a project by costumed militia halfway across the bridge spanning
in which we have both played a part. We see a trajectory Spa Creek between Eastport and the historic district, and,
of antagonism between preservationists in Annapolis and amazingly, the firing of brussels sprouts from cannons
residents and business owners in Eastport, and as historical and muskets at the historic district. The flag of the City of
archaeologists we are guilty of underwriting the tacit Annapolis was also stolen from the front of City Hall under
valuation of older-as-better, even though we reject it in cover of night. Thus in 1998 was established the Maritime
daily practice and in the conduct of fieldwork in Eastport. Republic of Eastport, essentially a civic association that
promotes the interests of Eastport businesses and residents,
One Eastport resident showed us how to do this by similar in nature to the Conch Republic in Key West,
rejecting the social powers we had established working at Florida. The Declaration of Independence has become
archaeological sites in the historic district of Annapolis. an annual event, the hurling of brussels sprouts having
‘My deed says 1855,’ is what he asserted again and again, been replaced by a tug of war across Spa Creek involving
and this document, this date is conceptually equal to residents, business owners and sponsored teams (Figures
any we might try to connect to his home. This conforms 2 and 3). The Maritime Republic describes the 1,700-
to Richard Handler’s essay ‘On having a culture’, and foot rope used in this enterprise on its web site: ‘With a
his central statement, derived from an analysis of the replacement value [in 1998 US dollars] of $23,488.50, it is
relationship between nationalism and cultural patrimony one of MRE’s most valuable capital assets’ (www.theMRE.
in the Province of Quebec, that we are a nation because org/tug2003/rope.htm 20 November 2003). Witness also
we have a culture (Handler 1985). The key to this phrase the slogan of the Maritime Republic, ‘We like it this way,’
is not culture, it is the infinitive to have. Handler described and that of the Eastport Business Association, to us even
the identification of culture as objects that a collectivity more compelling: ‘What I do in Eastport is my business’.

13
Matthew M. Palus and Christopher N. Matthews

The possibilities for cooperation between heritage Foucault, M. 1984. What is an Author? In P. Rabinow (ed.),
professionals and homeowners, as well as the differences The Foucault Reader, 101–20. New York: Pantheon
and divisiveness that textures relationships between these Books.
two neighborhoods of Annapolis, constitute a context Hall, M. 1994. Lifting the Veil of Popular History:
in which home-ownership should be approached and Archaeology and Politics in Urban Cape Town. In
understood in Eastport as a domain that impacts our G.C. Bond and A. Gilliam (eds), Social Construction
interaction with homeowners. It includes categorizations of the Past: Representation as Power, 167–84. London:
and hierarchies, histories of exclusionary practices, Routledge.
apparatuses for preservation and so forth. It also entails Hall, M. 1999. Virtual colonization. Material Culture 4,
resistances – sometimes dramatic struggles – and local 39–55.
projects of emancipation from exactly those discourses, Hall, M. 2001. Social archaeology and the theaters of
and also from our own. Assembling this contextual memory. Journal of Social Archaeology 1, 50–61.
material is necessary for a critical dialogical approach to Handler, R. 1985. On Having a Culture: Nationalism
our own project and for considering what might comprise and the Preservation of Quebec’s Patrimoine. In G.W.
‘community archaeology’ in this very specific setting. Stocking, Jr (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on
Museums and Material Culture, 192–217. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
References Joyce, R.A. 2002. The Languages of Archaeology. London:
Blackwell.
Bakhtin, M.M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: MacCannell, D. 1992. Empty Meeting Grounds: The
University of Texas Press. Tourist Papers. London: Routledge.
Bender, B. 1998. Stonehenge: Making Space. Oxford: McDavid, C. 1997. Descendants, Decisions, and Power:
Berg. the Public Interpretation of the Archaeology of the Levi
Casteñeda, Q.E. 1996. In the Museum of Maya Culture: Jordan Plantation. Historical Archaeology 31, 114–31.
Touring Chichén Itzá. Minneapolis: University of Potter, P.B., Jr. 1994. Public Archaeology in Annapolis:
Minnesota Press. A Critical Approach to History in Maryland’s Ancient
Colborn, F.M. 1963. The Neighborhood and Urban City. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Renewal. New York: National Federation of Settlements Saunders, J.R. and Shackelford, R.N. 1998. Urban Renewal
and Neighborhood Centers. and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Dongoske, K.E., Martin, D.L. and Ferguson, T.J. 2000. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co.
Critique of the claim of cannibalism at Cowboy Wash. Schuyler, D. 2002. A City Transformed: Redevelopment,
American Antiquity 65, 179–90. Race, and Suburbanization in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Foard, A.A. and Fefferman, H. 1966. Federal Urban 1940–1980. University Park, Pennsylvania:
Renewal Legislation. In J.Q. Wilson (ed.), Urban Pennsylvania University Press.
Renewal: The Record and the Controversy, 71–125. Wilson, J.Q. (ed.) 1966. Urban Renewal: The Record and
Cambridge: MIT Press. the Controversy. Cambridge: MIT Press.

14
 Epidemic of Medicine:
an Archaeological Dose of Popular Culture

Krysta Ryzewski

In 1871, J.C. Ayer’s patent medicine factory in Lowell, of alcohol, drugs, or caffeine. In an era predating modern
Massachusetts was producing 630,000 doses a day. Ayer’s medical science, patent medicine producers marketed
remedies were advertised as cure-alls that would treat homemade remedies to soothe every imaginable ailment.
everything from anxiety to arthritis in a single product. Although the term ‘patent’ was applied by nearly all
The company claimed that the annual output of its 12 producers to invoke some sort of tangible authenticity,
million advertising pamphlets would stand at a height of a most medicines of the late nineteenth century did not
mile and a quarter, and that the circulation of its almanac actually have government-issued patents (American
was second only to that of the Bible (Steward 1993: 10). Medical Association 1912: 9).
The Ayer Company’s productivity was not exceptional The social conditions of the late nineteenth century enabled
but characteristic of the boom in the patent medicine patent medicines to spread rapidly. The introduction of
industry, which lasted from the mid-nineteenth until the inexpensive newspapers, the growth of urban populations,
early twentieth century. Across North America, medicinal unhealthy eating habits characterized by starchy diets,
advertisements surfaced in all conceivable forms of media. and emerging discourses on health and hygiene created
Images and testimonials were plastered everywhere from an untapped market, especially among the urban poor,
the sides of urban factory buildings to billboards along who represented millions of potential customers (Leiss et
country roads, and from the recently deforested land in al 1986: 74). The scale of patent medicine consumption
Yosemite to the cliffs of Niagara Falls (Helfand 2002). is impressive; the number of medicines advertised as
Historians refer to this period of explosive, transformative, ‘patented’ increased from 15,000 in 1850 to 50,000 by
and ubiquitous marketing as the ‘Age of Disfigurement’ 1905 (Young 1974: 94). In the United States, the growth
(Young 1960: 120). in patent medicine popularity coincided with a utopian
This chapter examines the patent medicine boom as a relic climate of institutional reform, temperance campaigns,
of nineteenth-century popular culture, thus prompting and suffrage movements. The democratic spirit of the
a critical discussion about what popular culture might 1840s supported the popular and traditional belief that
have been in the past and providing an example of how to everyone could be his or her own physician. In effect,
interpret it archaeologically. Patent medicine consumption advertisements informed consumers of what ailments
prospered in the increasingly global and industrialized should be medicated and which medicines should be used
world of the late nineteenth century. In the United States, (Helfand 2002; Figure 4).
patent medicines were among the very first standardized,
brand-name products marketed and consumed on a national
scale. Medicinal advertising shaped peoples’ perceptions
of well being and their senses of familiar landscapes. In
this period predating modern medical practices, consumers
self-medicated with non-prescription patent medicines,
many of which contained sizeable quantities of addictive
drugs and alcohol.
If the patent medicine boom represents a form of past
popular culture, then significance lies in understanding
how everyday, mundane medicine consumption became
elevated to a more symbolic status among users. By
examining the phenomenon of patent medicine usage in
a broader context of communication, it may be possible
to understand relationships between the production and
reception of advertisements, medicine consumption and
use, and the active negotiation of personal tastes, identities,
and concerns.
Understandings of the overlapping and discursive reality
of these processes, as gathered through the following
contextual analysis, provide insight into historical health
concerns, but also into less accessible and under-theorized
perceptions of the body, individual constructions of
self image, ideas of pain relief, and social expectations
(Beaudry et al 1991; Loren 2001; Meskell 2000: 20).

Figure 4. Trade card advertisement for Hood’s Sarsaparilla.

Patent medicines By kind permission of Victorian Trade Cards Collection, Miami
Patent medicines were non-prescription, brand-name University Library, Oxford Ohio. Digital collection viewable
remedies concocted with plant extracts and heavy doses online at www.digital.lib.muohio.edu/tradecards

15
Krysta Ryzewski

The turn-of-the century exposés of muckraking journalists of intellectuals (Burke 1978: 9; Browne 1991: 2). By
and Progressive Era temperance crusaders portrayed the the nineteenth century popular culture was commonly
patent medicine boom as an epidemic that prospered by associated with mass-produced culture, particularly those
creating drug addicts out of consumers. In 1905, Samuel items made for and consumed by working classes (Traube
Hopkins Adams’ compositional tests revealed that many 1996: 131). Today this association persists, especially in
of the best-selling patent medicines included intoxicating the scholarly tendency to analyze material culture using
amounts of alcohol and sizeable doses of narcotics such as binary (high vs low) classifications in which popular
cocaine, cannabis, morphine, and opium (Adams 1905: 10– culture objects are understood as analogous to low culture.
12). Adams published his findings with Collier’s Weekly in Glass medicine bottles from three distinct New England
a series of essays entitled ‘The Great American Fraud’. In settlements confirm that patent medicine usage transcended
one essay Adams warned that in 1905, ‘[America would] conventional and structured socio-economic categories.
swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount This complexity signals a more ambiguous dimension that
of opiates and narcotics, and a wide assortment of drugs forces us to reexamine the ‘popular’ in popular culture.
ranging from powerful and dangerous heart depressants
to insidious liver stimulants, and far in excess of all other A challenge exists for historical and contemporary
ingredients, undiluted fraud’ (Young 1960: 219). These archaeological theory in how to recognize and grasp past
exposés provided the impetus for the swift passage of the popular culture. A review of the literature on popular culture
Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Pure Food and reveals that archaeologists have rarely attempted to define
Drug Act in 1906. or apply the topic in relation to material culture research
(see Gould and Schiffer 1981; Shanks and Tilley 1987;
Typical of the period, American manufacturers did not Browne 1991; Little 1991; Buchli and Lucas 2001). Rather
usually disclose ingredients on their bottle labels, which than conducting contextual analyses, the predominant
critics viewed as intentional manipulation of consumers’ tendency of archaeologists working with items of popular
trust. In advertisements, however, many manufacturers culture, especially mass produced goods, is to analyze them
made no effort to hide narcotic substances or stimulants; in Marxist-inspired frameworks. Consequently, artifacts
they often stressed their presence by promoting their of popular culture are usually interpreted as reflecting
reliable and invigorating properties (Spillane 2000: 74–75; relationships of dominance and resistance, and as being
Figure 5). Even though the feel-good ingredients in patent particular to lower social classes (Shackel 1991: 36).
medicines may have only masked rather than cured some
ailments, consumers relished in their powers, familiarity, The aim here is to reexamine interpretations for material
and satisfying performance. remains of popular culture by exploring possibilities
that account for the complexity of human agency within
culturally and temporally-specific social phenomena
Popular culture (Gramsci 1971: 7; Hall 1981: 239: Bennett 1986: 6–21;
‘No class escapes them – from the poor man’s Barker 1989: 261; Beaudry et al 1991: 159–65; Traube
pay, the nostrum takes no trifling part away.’ 1996: 133). In understanding these complexities, it is
(Crabbe in A.M.A. 1912: i) necessary to move beyond straightforward analyses of
objects and their dissemination, and, as Kaplan suggests,
Popular culture emerged as an idea during the shift attention to the diverse ways that objects of popular
Enlightenment era among intellectual circles who aimed culture were ‘by accident and by design’ perceived, used,
to set apart the culture of the people, which was considered and transformed (1984: 2). Approaches that consider
the more primitive culture, from the high, learned culture dialogues between individuals and cultural texts are most

Figure 5. Cocaine praised for its curative powers, 1885. (National Library of Medicine, History of
Medicine Collections)

16
 Epidemic of Medicine: an Archaeological Dose of Popular Culture

applicable, especially for broaching less exotic topics that of consumption that traversed the American population.
were once hallmarks of daily life in a diverse community Through careful contextual analysis, the complexity of
ie, conceptions of well-being, health concerns, body image, the dialogue between people and these cultural texts sheds
pain relief, and even addictions (Abu-Lughod 1991: 130; valuable light onto the unfolding of social relationships
Hall 2000; Ortner 1991: 163–89; Thomas 1991: 3). One and individuals’ very personal concerns.
influential approach is Martin Barker’s notion of ‘contract’,
which simply states that texts communicate to people in
ways that they will recognize. The resulting dialogues Advertisements
succeed insofar as they have elements that are relevant to Advertisements were the flexible mechanism that allowed
values in the readers’ lives (Barker 1989: 261). patent medicines to appear respectable and acceptable.
The ability of people to recognize and find relevance in a Depending on the media in which they appeared, the
medicinal advertisement or patent medicine product can images used, and their embedded ideological constructs,
be further understood as operating within the framework patent medicines thrived as a form of popular culture
of Bourdieu’s habitus, in which structure and agency are that capitalized on and overlapped realms of high, low,
mediated, reproduced, and transformed by both individuals and folk cultures. Advertisements flourished in all types
and social circumstances (Bourdieu 1977: 72–79). The of magazines, newspapers and literature, at tourist
concept of habitus offers a critical link between the social attractions, and along railroad routes. All of these media
contexts of patent medicine popularity, advertising, and the had manifestations favored by working and upper classes
meaningful experiences of individuals negotiating these (Traube 1996: 140). The urban working classes were likely
broader social structures. This perspective provides the to encounter advertisements in public spaces, at amusement
ability to contextualize individuals within lived experiences parks, and in the penny press. These public activities were
of the patent medicine boom. Most importantly, their lived routinely frowned upon by the long-established upper
experiences embody the many motivations, strategies, class, which related to advertisements that catered to
and tastes that factored into decisions to consume patent their more refined values, as they traveled along railroad
medicines. These theoretical underpinnings stress the need routes or read intellectual publications. The character of
to recognize artifacts of popular culture for their complexity. advertisements simultaneously catered to and redefined
Patent medicine bottles and advertisements can only be identities by targeting social expectations and familiar
understood as objects infused with multiple meanings and cultural concerns. With such an overwhelming and rapid
situated within individual cultural negotiations. saturation of media in their daily environments, it is likely
that peoples’ senses of time, space, routine, and self were
As the following archaeological evidence illustrates, somewhat altered (Kasson 1978; Strinati 2000: 242).
the same brands of patent medicines were consumed
by all classes. The widespread trend of patent medicine Advertisements had as profound an effect on the landscape
consumption does not mean, however, that people had as they did in shaping how people treated and understood
the same concerns for the same reasons. In this case, their bodies in the late nineteenth century. By notifying
the failure of class to act as a structure for interpreting and sometimes alarming the public about health concerns,
meaning signals the presence of more complex concerns advertisers created new social realities of the body that
located at the individual level. Central to Barker’s idea of were not necessarily accurate medically. Some products
‘contract’ is the need to recognize ideology as dialogical, were advertised to treat entirely unrelated ailments in one
contextually dependent, and enormously variable, with dose. For example, Atlas’ Baby Syrup claimed ‘to facilitate
reasons for consumption rooted in explanations that can teething and regulate bowels’ at the same time, while
be rational, emotional, private, public, harmless, and Cooper’s Quick Relief offered the ‘three minute cure of
harmful (Barker 1989: 261). These manifold possibilities deafness and stiffened joints’ (Fike 1987: 145; Baldwin
for consumption demonstrate that a clear relationship 1973: 128).
does not exist between treatments of the body, advertising
representations, material culture, and landscape. Rather, Manufacturers contributed significantly to social
the relationship between medicine consumption and the conceptions of disease by publicizing names of illnesses,
user’s behavior is supported by archaeological contextual outlining their symptoms, and explaining both with
associations, which sometimes signal regular use inside the biological and medical language. By suggesting a
home, but sometimes clandestine use elsewhere. The very common frame of reference for how people thought about
act of ‘medicating’ in a particular place is tied to conscious and talked about bodily concerns, these new notions of
decisions of the consumer. These decisions are further medicine and illnesses likely superceded many traditional
mediated by culturally constructed discourses concerning and cultural understandings of disease. To a degree, the
the body and a perceived need for medicine. All of these public displays of advertising created a collective social
elements are inextricably linked in a way that can inform memory that was greater than an individual experience,
constructions of identity in relation to particular episodes yet simultaneously allowed for the individual to reflect on
of consumption (Meskell 2000: 13). his or her own identity (Fisher and Loren 2003: 227; Joyce
1998). Whether or not individuals paid close attention to
The wide range of media outlets containing patent medicine ‘medical’ information in advertisements, at the very least
advertisements, both in print and on the landscape, provide advertisements urged individuals to dose with medicine
part of a cultural text for recovering meanings about how when they did not feel well. For the consumer who might
medicines were received, experienced, and incorporated not be sure what was wrong or which product to buy, an
as part of the users’ realms of acceptable treatment endless array of all-in-one products existed. Medicines,
possibilities at a given moment (Beaudry et al 1991: 165; such as Fahrney’s Celebrated Blood Cleanser, Davis’
Brumfiel 2000: 249). The advertisements should not, Depurative, Daniels’ Electric Oil, and Colton’s Tonic
however, be viewed as literal displays of late nineteenth- Elixir, promised simply to ‘cure everything’ (Baldwin
century social realities. Instead, they should be recognized 1973: 141).
for their intrinsic ideological constructs, which reflect
social relationships, identities, and ideals concerning The magnitude of advertising and its implications for
health, hygiene, and morality (Fisher and Loren 2003: reshaping cultural and physical landscapes, as well as social
227). The phenomenon of patent medicines and their and individual bodies, should not be understated. In effect,
advertisements documents a widespread popular culture people were literally surrounded by advertisements at every

17
Krysta Ryzewski

turn. In 1893, Ayer’s patent medicine varieties, originating used to gain public appeal except, of course, images of
from Lowell, were advertised in 6,900 publications. One ill people, who were conspicuous by their absence from
of these, the Ayer’s Almanac, sold 18 million copies in 31 medicine advertisements. Many products were named
languages ranging from Swedish to Hawaiian. Advertisers after doctors, presumably with the intention of adding
catered to every imaginable audience. Medicines appeared a measure of medical legitimacy to the remedy. Native
on trading cards, puzzles, in children’s storybooks, and Americans also frequently appeared in product names and
in the housewife’s Preserve Book, Book of Emergencies, imagery, invoking special healing powers along with the
and Book of Pies and Puddings (Steward 1993: 42). Each charm of the noble savage (Helfand 2002; Figure 6)
publication was sure to contain at least one reference per
page to an Ayer’s patent medicine variety, reminding users Other advertising tactics involved partial descriptions
at all stages of life where to turn when they felt ill. in Latin, which were likely to appeal to more educated
audiences. Often, patent medicines implied worldliness
Advertisers recognized that pain and vanity had the in their depictions of foreign, remote, and mythological
strongest psychological appeal to consumers (Fishbein places (Orser 1994). By utilizing these exotic destinations,
1932: 328). Some patent medicine manufacturers advertisers marketed patent medicines as the ticket to
used personal testimonials to market their product. paradise. Most common, however, were images of children
Manufacturers from Raymond & Co., the maker of (see Figures 5 and 6), due to their associations with
Raymond’s Pectoral Plasters (‘the positive cure for universal and romanticized ideals of innocence and purity:
whooping-coughs, bronchitis, etc.’), combed through local children symbolized the vitality that the sick, unpleasant,
newspapers to target potential customers. In a superficial and tired consumers hoped to regain through taking patent
attempt at humanitarian outreach, Raymond & Co. located medicines (cf. Figure 7).
a Sunday school superintendent in Virginia and furnished
him with the following note, which was later published in
advertisements: Archaeological examples
Dear Sir: We noticed in the ________ Journal An initial attempt to tease out the complex interrelationships
that Whooping Cough is interfering with the between advertising, the popularity of patent medications,
attendance of your school and are of the opinion and their uses is explored in analyses of patent medicine
that Raymond’s Pectoral Plasters are not known bottle assemblages from excavations at three contrasting
in your vicinity, or this would not be the case. properties in Massachusetts: the urban upper-middle-class
We wish you would hand the one enclosed to the Kirk Street Agents’ House in Lowell; the working-class
mother of one of the little ones affected, that she Boott Mills boardinghouses also in Lowell; and the
may see for herself what they ACCOMPLISH. rural upper-middle-class Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in
Then advise us, on the enclosed card the name of Newburyport. The embossing, manufacturing techniques,
the merchant in ________ who sells medicines and style of glass medicine bottles provide highly
of any kind that we may take up with him the diagnostic information on product date and type (Toulouse
sale of these Pectoral Plasters in your community. 1970: 50). Contextual associations reveal much about the
(American Medical Association 1912: 689) social circumstances surrounding the bottles’ deposition
and reasons for use.
Manufacturers used especially clever marketing strategies
to promote their patent medicines. The assortment of Excavations conducted by Boston University over the
meaningful and provocative imagery in advertisements past two decades situate the Spencer-Peirce-Little farm as
communicated to all classes, ethnicities, genders, and ages. the seat of Newburyport merchant elite from 1670–1827,
Advertisers transformed traditional symbolic meanings by and as the residence of upper-middle class farmers for
pairing patent medicines with mixes of artistic imagery, the remainder of the nineteenth century (Benes 1986: 13;
patriotic heroes, historical events, and cultural references. Beaudry 1995: 19). The excavated deposits document
Ultimately there were no limits to the tactics that advertisers three distinct periods of occupational history; glass bottle

Figure 6. A late nineteenth-century advertisement featuring a combination of imagery. By kind

permission of National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Collections.

18
 Epidemic of Medicine: an Archaeological Dose of Popular Culture

Figure 7. Advertisement for teething syrup with an active ingredient of morphine, 1887. Unlike
American versions, British labels for this product had to be marked ‘Poison’ (Helfand 2002).

remains reflect a clear transition in consumption from blood impurities, nausea, anxiety, pimples, balding and
homemade and locally produced remedies in the earlier graying hair, female concerns, and teething – to name but
years to a full scale and frequent consumption of patent a few (Fike 1987: 239; Bingham 1994: 151; Ryzewski
medications during the later half of the nineteenth century. 2001: 51). To infer specific health problems directly from
A minimum number of 64 medicine bottles were excavated the medicines present in the archaeological assemblage
and of these 58 bottles were manufactured in the later third may be possible, but this inference risks masking the more
of the nineteenth century. The increasing consumption of complex connections between advertising, medicines,
patent medicines is associated with the late nineteenth- and individuals. As items of popular culture, these patent
century Little family occupation and two stratigraphic medicines must not immediately be viewed as literal
contexts, a wood house outbuilding and a fence-post indicators of the Littles’ ailments, but rather as vehicles
construction. The deposits reveal an assortment of baby for interpreting how they perceived their bodies, their
syrup, extracts, pectoral, frostilla, nervine, hair restorer, health, and the standards of well-being established in their
cocaine, sarsaparilla, and highly alcoholic bitters. Many broader social contexts.
of these products were locally produced examples from
the Colton and Ayer Companies in Lowell, Massachusetts, Similar insight into the widespread popularity of patent
while some indicated manufacturers as distant as Oregon medicines is gained from analyses of bottles from the
(Ryzewski 2001: 56). Boott Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Kirk St.
Agents’ House was constructed in 1845–46 to house
At first glance, the assemblage seems to depict an array the agents and their families from the Boott Mills and
of health concerns troubling the Little household. At least the Massachusetts Mills, which were two of the largest
two different brands of hair restorer (Burnett’s Cocaine and textile mills in Lowell. Located just one block away from
Ayer’s Hair Vigor) were found in separate archaeological the mills’ boardinghouses, this impressive upper-middle
contexts. Perhaps a Little had seen the ad for Burnett’s class duplex stood in stark contrast to the workers’ living
Cocaine that proclaimed: conditions (Beaudry and Mrozowski 1987: 11).
Premature loss of the hair, which is so common now-a- In 2001, archaeological fieldwork in the Boott Mills agent’s
days, may be entirely prevented by the use of Burnett’s half of the private backyard uncovered a minimum of 16
Cocaine. It has been used in thousands of cases where patent medicine bottles in two strata of a single 1x1 meter
the hair was coming out in handfuls, and has never unit, which dated to the late nineteenth century (Griswold
failed to arrest its decay, and to promote a healthy and 2003: 19–22). Such a high volume of patent medicine
vigorous growth. It is, at the same time unrivaled as a consumption excavated from this one area indicates a
dressing for the hair. A single application will render probable habit of frequent usage amongst the Boott Mills
it soft and glossy for several days (Harper’s Weekly agents who, ironically, were notorious for their firm
1861, cited in Wilson 1981: 65). restrictions against workers’ drunkenness (Mrozowski et
Or perhaps someone in the household had seen an al 1996: 72).
advertisement for Burnett’s Cocaine and was drawn to the Despite such efforts to regulate workers’ lives, earlier
product that claimed to be, ‘The Best and Cheapest Hair excavations at the Boott Mills workers’ boardinghouses
Dressing in the World’ (cited in Abodeely 1999: 12).
did uncover evidence of frequent medicine consumption,
Viewed in light of the diseases they claimed to treat, the with minimum totals of 29 and 49 patent medicine bottles
patent medicines at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm indicate from two excavated areas. In total, medicinal bottles
that the Littles might have experienced an array of ailments represented 50% and 49.5% of the total assemblages
including indigestion, constipation, chest congestion, (Bond 1989: 124–27). The vast majority of these bottles

19
Krysta Ryzewski

date from 1880 to the early 1900s. With strict regulations materialized through the decisions of consumers. These
and a negative stigma attached to alcohol consumption, individual experiences involved overlapping relationships
complete medicine bottles excavated from a privy, under to one’s landscape of advertisement, material culture of
the floorboards of an outbuilding, and along regularly patent medicines, bodily perceptions, motivations, and
traversed backyard pathways provide important contextual desired outcomes.
associations. Kathleen Bond suggests that these contexts
indicate clandestine drinking activities among the borders, Historical archaeology can achieve more in-depth
which included a range of ethnic and immigrant groups. explorations of selection and consumption by recognizing
what popular culture was, by viewing its processes in a
Whether or not these medicines were consumed with larger framework of communication, and by using multiple
intentions to treat health concerns, it is noteworthy that strands of evidence in reconstructing the complex and
a bottle of medicinal bitters, such as those found at the sometimes discrete variables of selection (Bennett 1986;
boardinghouses contained as much as 44% alcohol at a Miller 1987: 175; Spencer-Wood 1987; Barker 1989;
time when beer contained 5% alcohol (American Medical Ashplant and Smyth 2001: 47; Majewski and Schiffer
Association 1912: 16–21). 2001: 27).
These diagnostic artifacts and their associated contents No matter how inexpensive or common the medicine, the
permit comparisons between household deposits and consumer always aimed for a specific outcome, but not
the social context of the patent medicine boom. The necessarily an outcome that was listed in an advertisement
archaeological evidence from the Kirk Street Agents’ or on a medicine bottle’s label. Perhaps an outcome would
House reveals that the Boott Mills agent’s household was enhance a reputation, relieve stress, calm a crying baby,
consuming many of the same locally produced brands as prevent balding, freshen breath, clear up a complexion,
the Little family in Newburyport and the workers in the lessen female complaints, or intoxicate. These desired
nearby Boott Mills boardinghouses. Bond noted that of outcomes were always deeply rooted in non-medical
the 29 medicine bottles excavated from one area of the social contexts. In one of the many testimonials for
boardinghouses 14 were local products from the Ayer and Hood’s Sarsaparillas, the medicinal and non-medicinal
Hood Companies in Lowell, three were products from uses of patent medicines are both praised. At 18% alcohol,
other Massachusetts companies, and the remaining 12 were Hood’s could not freeze but, as advertised, could certainly
from a variety of distant locales linked to Massachusetts ‘cheer as it cured’ (Holbrook 1959: 45). This ‘cheer’ might
by the transcontinental railroad (Bond 1989). This pattern have been especially alluring for someone who sought to
mirrors the diversity in origins of the Little’s and the Kirk alleviate the stress of a long day, or for someone who needed
Street agents’ bottles (Ryzewski 2001). a quick boost. In some situations, consumers may have
Also intriguing is the deposition of intact or nearly intact hoped that the medicine’s effects would give them abilities
glass bottles at each site (Mrozowski et al 1996: 73). to gain access to different social groups by revealing
The reluctance to recycle or redeem bottles for cash and concealing different selves. Extending Fisher and
signals a degree of privacy, secrecy, or even shame about Loren’s notion that, through dressing, individuals have the
exposing one’s health concerns, or drinking habits, to ability to ‘put on a social skin’, perhaps patent medicines
the boardinghouse keepers and general public. Whether provided an outcome or feeling that empowered some
dosing for disease, leisure, vanity, or addiction, it is likely weary individuals to ‘face the day’, and allowed others to
that if these vulnerabilities were revealed, one would not ‘save face’ in demanding social situations (2003: 225).
measure up to the social standards of the late nineteenth However mundane or routine the concern appears, the
century. Given the importance of maintaining a healthy aspired end result signifies a very individual concern
and upstanding image, openness about the misuse of these related to the consumer’s desire for group membership,
medicines would not only discredit the product, but the individual identity, well being, and comfort. The wrong
immoral undertones of addiction, abuse, and indulgence medicine selection or an unintended outcome could
would likely exclude the consumer from membership in easily lead to frustration, embarrassment, and exclusion
Newburyport’s social circles or in Lowell’s community. (Miller 1987: 171). Most importantly, however, the
archaeological evidence surrounding the popularity of
patent medicine consumption indicates that people really
Interpretation believed in their curative and their comforting powers and
The patent medicine boom was both embraced and correspondingly purchased and dosed with medicines in
propelled by closely intertwined dialogues between media, epidemic proportions. This insight into individual concerns
medicines, social expectations, and individual identities. is facilitated within the mediating framework of habitus
Several archaeologists and material culture scholars have and by close contextual readings of the complex dialogues
discussed the role of advertising in relation to consumption, surrounding the patent medicines as popular culture.
concluding that there is no direct relationship between
advertisements and long-term consumer choice (Miller
1987: 169; Majewski and Schiffer 2001: 32). To treat The end?
consumers of patent medicine (and popular culture) They can talk about Shakespeare, but in my
as duped by misleading advertisements is to accept a opinion old Hostetter – and Ayer – had more
deterministic perspective that ignores other aspects of influence on the national life than any of ‘em.
culture and the consumer’s active role in the decision (Uncle Henry in Collier’s Weekly, in Young 1960:
making process. Chapter 9)
It is clear from the archaeological evidence that patent Archaeological remains of patent medicine bottles coupled
medicines were popular. It is clear from the documentary with documentary evidence from advertisements provide a
evidence that advertisements of patent medicines were clear example of the significance of past popular culture.
also popular. Yet a clear cause-and-effect relationship does The abundance of advertisements, which ostensibly
not exist between advertisements and patent medicine offered consumers complete freedom of choice, did not
consumption, or vice versa. Rather, the contexts of actually articulate social reality. As structures within a
medicinal use and the content of advertising exist together broader cultural discourse, advertisements harnessed and
as part of an intangible popular domain, which was only organized ideological constructs, framing a limited set of

20
 Epidemic of Medicine: an Archaeological Dose of Popular Culture

possibilities for how users thought about, spoke about, thrive, propelled by recurring promises of cheerful, stress-
and imagined how medicine should work. Consumers free and happier lives for a new generation of consumers.
of patent medicines in the late nineteenth century were
reminded through advertisements about new standards for
well being, health and hygiene. Forced to negotiate and References
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Methodologies in Archeology, Anthropology and Other Young, J.H. 1974. American Self-dosage Medicines: An
Fields, 25–35. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State Historical Perspective. Kansas: Coronado.
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Loren, D.D. 2001. Social skins: orthodoxies and practices Other Sources
of dressing in the early Colonial Lower Mississippi
Valley. Journal of Social Archaeology 1 (2), 172–89. Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Varieties of Medical
Majewski, T. and Schiffer, M. 2001. Beyond Consumption: Ephemera, online exhibit, National Library of Medicine,
Toward an Archaeology of Consumerism. In V. Buchli www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/ephemera/ephemera.html
and G. Lucas (eds), Archaeologies of the Contemporary (23 September 2003).
Past, 26–50. London: Routledge. History of Medicine Archives, United States National
Meskell, L. 2000. Writing the Body in Archaeology. In Library of Medicine. National Institutes of Health,
A.E. Rautman (ed.), Reading the Body: Representations www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/ (24 March 2006).

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 Slavers, Swashbucklers, and Salvors:
the Ethics of Public Presentation in Nautical Archaeology

Brian W. Gohack

i
Introduction Unlike most modern archaeologies, nautical archaeology
as a discipline has remained generally uninterested in a
Nautical archaeology today faces a profound challenge. problem-based, theoretically informed anthropological
Despite continued international efforts over the past approach to the past (Gould 1981, McGhee 1998). Rather,
three decades to enact legislation protecting underwater nautical archaeologists tend to conduct themselves
heritage (Giesecke������������������������������
���������������������������������������
2002: 577–80), the number of like architectural historians, in that they seem content
professional salvors exploiting historic shipwrecks has to describe the minutiae of ship construction without
risen at an alarming rate. Profit-driven salvage, despite attempting to contextualize ships, their cargoes, and the
its demonstrated negative impacts on archaeological site people who traveled in terms of wider cultural processes.
integrity and analytical rigor (Miller 1987; Kechington This obsession with ship construction has led to a narrow
et al 1989; Johnston 1989; Mather and Watts 2002), has focus on ‘oddity’ vessels: the biggest, oldest, most obscure,
increasingly been viewed by governmental regulators or otherwise outstanding examples of maritime technology.
and the public at large as an acceptable balance between As late as 1987, prominent nautical archaeologist Anne
academic research and free enterprise. A substantial, Giesecke (1987: 12) estimated that of 12,000 known
well-developed body of literature addressing the ethical shipwrecks in US waters, only 5% were ‘historic’ or ‘had a
problems inherent in the practice of underwater salvage story to tell about their past.’ Likewise, investigations into
exists (eg, Elia 1995; 1992; Mather and Watts 2002), and I more technologically nondescript vessels are often driven
will not rehash arguments that have been made elsewhere. by their associations with famous historical episodes or
Rather, this chapter will explore the various strategies by time periods (Gould 2000: 10–11). These same biases
which salvors have successfully come to dominate public are plainly evident in archaeological articles on slave
discourses on nautical archaeology and in turn use them shipwrecks. Graeme Henderson’s 1974 excavation of the
to publicly legitimize a body of practice that is inherently former Portuguese slaver James Matthews (interim report
published in 1976), for instance, is mainly interested in the
at odds with effective archaeological inquiry. These ship as a rare example of slave ship construction from the
strategies, often carried out with the help of professionally mid nineteenth century, a period when the British Royal
trained archaeologists and other heritage professionals, Navy pursued an official policy of destroying vessels
result in a public deemphasizing of the importance of captured engaging in slaving activities. Likewise, Abbass’
controlled archaeological methodology, long-term artifact and Zarzynski’s (1998) investigations of what they contend
preservation, and critical interpretation of the past in favor is the Gem are almost exclusively descriptive, with almost
of sensationalism and wild speculation (Johnston 1989; no attempt to contextualize the ship’s use. A small cadre
Bass 1990; Goodheart 1999). of behavioralist archaeologists conducting programs of
While such criticisms apply to salvage operations on comparative research on less glamorous sites (Gould
many different types of submerged archaeological sites, 2000; Muckelroy 1978; McCarthy 2001; Souza 1997)
has offered an encouraging alternative to the status quo
I will specifically examine how salvors have exploited in nautical archaeology. However, their success has been
slave ships, a symbolically potent class of vessels that constrained on one side by a lingering general antipathy
is little understood in historical and archaeological toward theory among nautical archaeologists, and by the
terms. The origins of this paper lie in observations I rejection of behavioral theory among terrestrial historical
made while conducting a seminar project on slave ship archaeologists in favor of more ideologically-centered
archaeology as well as in background research that I interpretive frameworks.
conducted with Krysta Ryzewski on the possible 1850s
wreck of the reputed slaver Gem in Newport, Rhode Dismayingly, the increasing success of salvors in positioning
Island. Considering the current popularity of African themselves as legitimate scholars (Cockrell 1990: 14) has
diasporic archaeology among historical archaeologists, it exposed this lack of theoretically situated analyses as
is surprising that while the two slave ships excavated by an increasing liability. The first major wave of historic
private salvors, and archaeologists working with them, had salvage, typified by Mel Fisher’s pillaging of the galleon
Atocha and the Gold Plate fleet, was aimed at an extremely
each received full-length publications, extensive media small subset of vessels notable for their material value.
coverage and accompanying museum exhibitions, only While initial bonanzas such as these did prove lucrative
five pieces of archaeological literature concerning slave to salvors, both through sales of artifacts and through
ships and written by authors not associated with for-profit investments by venture capitalists, the ensuing profusion
salvage were in publication at the time. Furthermore, just of treasure-hunting enterprises could not support itself on
one, a monograph on the slaver Fredensborg written by a series of financially disappointing hauls (Throckmorton
amateur archaeologist Leif Svalesen (Svalesen 2002), was 1990). In response, salvors used to selling their projects by
greater than article length. What is worse, each of these employing popular fantasies of the past quickly realized
publications exhibited the typical deficiencies of nautical that history, not gold, was their most valuable commodity.
archaeological scholarship, weaknesses that help to explain At first, their attempts to exploit this realization were
the ineffectuality of the subdiscipline in countering the awkward and heavy-handed. A tactic typical among
challenges posed by treasure hunters. unscrupulous salvors was to plant unprovenienced artifacts

23
Brian W. Gohacki

on famous wrecks (Gould pers. comm.), thus increasing of their most common criticisms (Bass 1990). Boding even
their market value through historical association. Fisher worse for anti-salvage archaeologists, salvors can honestly
himself was accused of pioneering this kind of scheme say that they are bringing information to the public about
by selling fake Spanish doubloons allegedly recovered kinds of wrecks that academic archaeologists have written
from the Atocha (Carrier 1998). However, spurred on by off as unimportant.
the mass-market success of projects like Ballard’s quasi-
archaeological explorations of the Titanic, the savviest The practical results of the legitimacy imparted by
treasure hunters soon concluded that the profits generated such activities are depressing. Simplistic salvor-owned
by selling countless books, videos, and museum tickets museums, offering lots of flash but little in the way
would far outstrip those from the sale of a handful of US of contextualization or critical analysis, have become
$5,000 teapots to unwitting collectors. Thus was born the popular tourist destinations (especially troublesome, given
phenomenon of wreck recovery as popular culture event. Throckmorton’s (1990) estimate that the state of Florida
alone could be making over US $0.5 billion each year had
Treasure hunters had put on museum exhibitions before; it invested from the start in public nautical archaeology
Mel Fisher himself was forced, as part of his settlement museums, supplied objects by research archaeologists,
with the state of Florida over the Atocha haul, to reserve rather than settling on a 25% cut from privately salvaged
20% of his finds for museum display (Elia 1992: 103). But artifact sales). Traveling exhibits have netted millions of
what began as begrudging compliance soon took on a life of dollars at respected national and international museums
its own. Wrecks once deemed worthless by gold-obsessed willing to turn a blind eye to archaeological critiques.
salvors suddenly became fair game for uncontrolled Multinational corporations have thrown their financial
excavation, their artifacts fodder for the newest private muscle and their respected names behind salvage projects
gallery or blockbuster traveling exhibition. Whereas many (Henrietta Marie Exhibit Catalog 1995: 3). Television
archaeologists could rationalize a modicum of tolerance specials and glossy magazine articles (Steinberg 2002;
for salvage activity before, it was not long before they Webster 1999) tout the salvors’ discoveries, often sneering
would have to engage with the problem head-on. The at the concerns of archaeologists. Many academics,
kinds of high-profile wrecks favored by archaeologists, including archaeologists, have been swayed by the salvors’
treasure-poor but easy sells to a popular audience, were case into working with them, believing that the recovery of
the first obvious targets. knowledge ultimately trumps concerns with professional
ethics and well-established standards of research-driven
The discipline was neither intellectually nor legally ready archaeological practice.
to deal with the salvors’ new tactics. As scholars spent
years debating the usefulness of different approaches to The ramifications of this trend for archaeologically and
the problem, from inaction to cooperation to overt political historically sound interpretations are also troubling.
challenge, salvage continued unabated, and its practitioners Giesecke (2002: 583) convincingly argues that driven by
refined their strategies. With the passage in the US of the profit rather than a theoretically grounded research design,
1987 Abandoned Shipwrecks Act, ownership of wrecks salvage operations, even those conducted under the auspices
in US territorial waters was turned over to individual of trained archaeologists, will always attempt to maximize
states, resulting in a hodgepodge of laws governing the financial profit while minimizing operating costs at all
preservation and salvage of abandoned vessels. Against points in the recovery, conservation, interpretation, and
this confused legal backdrop salvors began to employ display processes, resulting in an exaggeratedly skewed
various strategies to gain access to wrecks in different final product. Even if they could somehow overcome
localities (Pelkofer 1987: 114), usually centered on the the deficiencies engendered by the salvage process, most
question of ownership. Despite the transformation of the professional archaeologists could not use material from
American maritime salvage industry as whole from an salvage operations even if they wanted to. The Council
asset-recovery business to a pollution-mitigation industry for Underwater Archaeology (Neyland 2002), the Society
(Zarzynski et al 1996: 43), treasure salvors portrayed for Historical Archaeology, the Society for American
archaeological resistance to their activities as standing Archaeology, and several other professional archaeological
in the way of a long tradition of American free enterprise associations (Noble et al 2002) have enacted bans on
(Cockerell 1990; Mather and Watts 2002: 598). Fighting publications from commercially salvaged sites, rightfully
the battle for legal opinion on a state-by-state basis with considering them to be hopelessly compromised (Mather
limited resources, anti-salvage archaeologists have focused and Watts 2002: 594), and archaeologists daring to use
their efforts on influencing regulations for the in situ such materials risk professional anathema. Meanwhile, in
preservation of wrecks (Arnold and Mclaughlin-Neyland the absence of critical interpretations, salvors have happily
1994, Hannahs 2003), often openly welcoming private busied themselves with producing the kinds of accounts
sector and enthusiast involvement (Halsey 1994: 110–11). that their audiences have proven to be willing to pay for,
that is to say interpretations that merely illustrate popular
While in many areas, the efforts of archaeologists have and politically acceptable views of the past. Given this
been met with appreciable success, savvy salvors quickly situation, it is no surprise that alternative or potentially
realized that their problem was a political one, which could unpopular interpretations are almost nowhere to be found
in many cases be solved by publicly positioning their work in the accounts produced by salvors, nor has there been
as superior to that of archaeologists, and that museums any real opportunity for meaningful scholarly review and
were the place to do it. Already eying the potential financial critique of what interpretations private interests actually
value of the huge pool of marketable wrecks ignored by have produced.
archaeologists, vessels that might be little-known, but
which hold strong cultural, emotional, or dramatic appeal Since the formalization of archaeology as an academic
to particular segments of society, salvors quickly realized discipline, archaeologists of different theoretical stripes
that these sites hold value in other ways. By moving away have argued over the merits of various theoretical
from unselfconscious treasure hunting towards allegedly paradigms within which to appraise archaeological
academic investigations of neglected vessels, salvors have data (Trigger 1989: 370–29). Despite these differences,
managed to cloak themselves in a new mantle of legitimacy. however, scholars within the field have arrived at a general
By selling the story, rather than the loot, they can truthfully consensus (one often shared with the public at large)
claim that, to quote Barry Clifford, ‘no artifacts will be that the central mission of the archaeological endeavor
sold’ (Webster 1999), at least physically, neutralizing one is the recovery and distribution of knowledge of the past

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 Slavers, Swashbucklers, And Salvors: The Ethics Of Public Presentation In Nautical Archaeology

(codified eloquently in the mission statement of the SAA drawing is particularly telling, given its well-known use
at www.saa.org). Even the curio cabinets of the nineteenth as a propaganda piece by late eighteenth-century British
century, despite embodying all of the internalized abolitionists. While no one can argue against slavery being
colonialist ideologies of their producers, shared this one of the most despicable and dehumanizing institutions
intention. With a century’s worth of hindsight, today’s the world has ever seen, the exhibit promoters’ choice
archaeologists and heritage scholars have come to realize of this arguably atypical image, specifically designed to
that any depiction of the past, even the most well thought- depict the worst abuses of the slave trade (Garland and
out, will necessarily be shaped by the ideologically driven Klein 1985), starkly reinforces an impression of their
decisions of its producers (Russell and Woodall 1998). willingness to overlook more sophisticated, broader-based
While no clear consensus regarding the ideal way to analyses in favor of maximized emotional impact, and
address the latent biases in archaeological investigation hence, profit (cf Moeller’s 1999 discussion of profit and
and presentation has yet emerged, self-reflexive and critical sensationalism in popular visual media).
analyses of previous and current work have contributed to
a theoretically robust methodology of interpretation that, As the exhibit’s debut approached, its (predominantly
if not ideal, is increasingly effective at producing accurate white) planners took steps to generate advance interest
and informed pictures of the past (Trigger 1989: 382–84). among their target audience, placing multiple ads in
The following case studies, however, illustrate the ways in popular African-American publications like Ebony and
which the commercialization of underwater archaeology, Jet. Upon its arrival in 1995, the exhibit was widely
by eschewing these methodologies in favor of financial hailed both in the black media and in the mainstream
expediency, seriously compromises the factual accuracy press. In the succeeding years, the associated media
and critical integrity of both primary archaeological data blitz would continue unabated. Exploiting the exhibit’s
and the interpreted accounts made available to the public. wild popularity, journalist Michael Cottman wrote not
one, but two successful books (1995; 1999) recounting
his experiences diving on the Henrietta Marie, which
Case Study 1: The Henrietta Marie in turn helped to boost the exhibit’s attendance further.
The types of problems engendered by commercialized The exhibit would receive even more exposure when, in
archaeological salvage are probably best exemplified by August 2002 (Steinberg 2002), it achieved the holy grail
the recovery and subsequent commercialization of the of the commercial culture industry, a full-length feature
Henrietta Marie, a slave ship wrecked off Key West, article in National Geographic Magazine - for better or for
Florida in 1701. It was first discovered in 1972 by divers worse the arbiter of scholarly legitimacy for a large portion
employed by Mel Fisher’s Treasure Salvors Inc., which, of America’s populace. National Geographic has been
at the time, was engaged in a search for the Atocha. criticized elsewhere for its often problematic presentations
Having cleared the site with highly destructive prop-wash of cultures past and present (Lutz and Collins 1993; Gero
deflectors, devices designed to bore indiscriminately into and Root 1996), and its feature on the Henrietta Marie is no
the seafloor by redirecting a boat’s propulsive power exception, essentially parroting the Mel Fisher line, while
straight downward, Fisher’s men noted the presence of downplaying criticisms by archaeologists of the Fischer
several sets of iron shackles, but no treasure, and quickly Organization’s handling of the vessel’s investigation,
moved on, having determined the site was of no value to recovery, and exhibition.
them (Clifford 1999). It was not until 1983 that the wreck
would be investigated again, this time by an archaeologist The overall result was a resounding success for the once
named David Moore, then studying for his MA at Eastern notorious Mel Fisher Organization. The American public,
Carolina University. While Moore’s investigations at the corporate America, and important segments of academia
site were self-initiated, after the first few years of work came to embrace Fisher’s Henrietta Marie project as
the Fisher organization began to recognize the potential the ideal example of a successful and socially conscious
marketability of the wreck and began devoting large private salvage operation. In terms of actual contributions
amounts of capital to remove and conserve the artifacts that to cultural and historical scholarship, however, the project
would provide the basis for their 1995 traveling exhibit A was an unmitigated disaster. Moore’s unpublished (and,
Slave Ship Speaks. given his association with salvors, probably unpublishable)
thesis (1989), representing the only substantial
As the excavations continued and concrete plans for the archaeological document on the wreck, languished on a
exhibit began to take shape, the Fisher group used the shelf at Eastern Carolina University. In the meantime, the
ship’s association with the slave trade to attract the support exhibit and its associated catalog remain the only widely
of a broad spectrum of national organizations, including available publications on the ship. Both, however, possess
the Association of Black Scuba Divers, historically major problems. In the exhibition, the artifacts recovered
black universities, and the National Geographic Society from the ship function merely as illustrations, fetishized
(Steinberg 2002). In order to lure corporate sponsors material synecdoches for a familiar script composed of an
for the exhibit, the Fisher Corporation produced fliers amalgamation of information from historical documents
overtly connecting the opportunity for corporate image and simplistic popularized notions regarding the horrors
building with the raw emotions associated with slavery. of slavery. Little attempt is made to address the underlying
One such flier, reproduced on the Mel Fisher Web Site causes of slavery in political, social, or economic terms;
(www.melfisher.org) explicitly compares the exhibit with and enslaved Africans are portrayed as passive victims,
one of the most successful black-themed American pop with scant attention paid to active and habitual resistance
culture productions of the past century. ‘ASTONISHING,’ strategies during the slave experience. The exhibit
its headline shouts, ‘Not since Roots has there been an catalog is somewhat better, with multiple articles by non-
event in African-American history that provides such an archaeologists attempting to contextualize the history of
excellent sponsorship opportunity.’ the Henrietta Marie in terms of larger cultural processes.
The advertisement is replete with emotionally charged Yet even here the cultural significance of material evidence
imagery, including a drawing of shackles in the upper - how the objects were used, and the meanings they held -
left and a huge reproduction of the infamous 1789 Brooks is ignored. The artifacts are simply presented in schematic
diagram, illustrating the conditions aboard a Middle line drawings with solely descriptive labels (Henrietta
Passage slaver. The Fisher organization’s use of this Marie Exhibit Catalog 1995).

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Brian W. Gohacki

The complete reluctance on the part of the Fisher group to Conference 1987). While at the time, Clifford’s presence
use the artifacts in any analytical sense is the greatest failure at the conference lent his operation an air of credibility
of the Henrietta Marie project. Unfortunately, despite their among archaeologists not enjoyed by most salvors, the
superior recovery methods, the atheoretical framework papers presented seem less inclined toward establishing a
still clung to by most nautical archaeologists makes it well-formulated research protocol, then as ex post facto
unlikely that they could be expected to do much better a rationalizations for previously uncontrolled recovery
job of interpretation. This situation does, however, suggest operations. For example, Robert McClung (1989), an EMI
a point of weakness in salvors’ claims of legitimacy that, employee, in a paper entitled ‘Supporting Archaeological
in the event of a more theoretical turn in the subdiscipline, Research in the Real World,’ chides archaeologists for their
could be used by self-reflexive nautical archaeologists and resistance to the project. Yet, he describes prop washing
archaeologically aware exhibitors to present persuasive as controlled archaeological excavation and makes an
arguments demanding more rigorous investigations. artificial semantic distinction between artifacts (objects of
academic value) and treasure (objects of financial value).
Case Study 2: The Whydah A visit to the Whydah Museum reveals a continued
The salvors of the second wreck to be considered here failure to responsibly deal with the material generated by
have used similar methods to those used by the Fisher the excavation. Upon entering the museum, visitors are
organization, but with several interesting variations. Like immediately greeted by unconserved ship’s timbers drying
the Henrietta Marie, the Whydah was the wreck of an early and cracking atop ‘treasure chests’ that the woman working
eighteenth-century slaver salvaged by private interests. the register informed me had come from ‘flea markets and
Few in the general public, however, are familiar with the Barry’s Grandmother’s attic.’ Inside the museum itself,
vessel’s role in the slave trade, for it is much more famous other poorly conserved artifacts degrade in the air or are
for its one-month career as the flagship of the pirate simply displayed in saltwater tanks. Human remains are
‘Black’ Sam Bellamy, lost off Cape Cod in 1717 while callously treated throughout the museum, nowhere more
carrying a sizable treasure. Barry Clifford, the treasure so than in a fanciful and fantastically macabre diorama of
hunter who discovered the ship in 1982, freely admits that ‘conditions on the bottom,’ featuring a simulated ‘corpse’
it was ‘gold lust’ (Webster 1999) that initially drove him the docent informed me was constructed from human
to search for the vessel: its discovery made international bones and modern materials. Before visitors are admitted
news, with headlines trumpeting the US $400 million to the main exhibit gallery, they are led to a side room to sit
treasure allegedly soon to be recovered (Elia 1995: 23). through a 28-minute video biography of Clifford playing
Initial uncontrolled blasting of the site by Clifford’s group, up the importance of his finds and deriding the efforts of
Maritime Explorations Incorporated (MEI) was quickly
halted by legal action by the State of Massachusetts, archaeologists and heritage regulators.
which claimed ownership over the vessel, but the case was Regarding the subject of the history of piracy, the
eventually settled in Clifford’s favor in 1988, although he museum’s admitted focus, the exhibition is sorely lacking
was obliged to conduct his subsequent recovery operations in substance. While Clifford vaingloriously plays up the
under the auspices of a revolving cast of archaeologists Whydah’s short stint as a pirate ship, he, like the Fisher
(Elia 1992). group, has made no attempt to use the evidence in critical
As the recovery proceeded through the early 1990s, it soon interpretations of the culture of piracy itself, especially those
became apparent that the Whydah haul would not live up that might touch upon politically sensitive, but incredibly
to investor expectations, prompting a shift in tactics on important and interesting issues like homosexuality or
Clifford’s part. Following a strategy innovated by Mel racial resistance (see Bly 1998). Much of the museum’s
Fisher, Clifford began to market his efforts differently. focus seems rather to be on Clifford himself. Displays
Repositioning himself as the guardian of the Whydah’s claiming to present accurate reinterpretations of pirate
history, he pledged that he would not sell any artifacts from history instead perpetuate romantic popular visions of
the wreck but instead maintain the collection intact at his egalitarian and race-blind swashbuckling adventurers,
new museum on Provincetown’s Macmillan Wharf. Like using language strikingly similar to that which Clifford
the Henrietta Marie exhibition, the Whydah museum’s uses to describe himself, in effect anointing him as their
popularity has been enhanced by complimentary and modern day successor.
uncritical media productions. Clifford himself authored
a self-congratulatory book, entitled Expedition Whydah Clifford’s presentation of the ship’s (and part of its crew’s)
(Clifford 1999), featuring a dashing photograph of previous role in the slave trade can be called no less than
the author front and center on the cover, with the ship shamefully inadequate, consisting of only one-and-a-half
itself pushed to the background, and romanticized tales pages in the museum catalog (McLean 1996: 10–11),
about his project inside. As with the Henrietta Marie, passing references in Clifford’s book, and a small display
National Geographic lent its imprimatur to the Whydah in the museum that compares unfavorably in size and
project, with a slick article (May 1999), web site (www. prominence to a nearby one recounting John F. Kennedy
nationalgeographic.com/whydah/), and television program Jr’s participation in the project in the early 1980s. Even
(1999) documenting the wreck, again downplaying more offensive are displays of Akan gold recovered from
criticisms from legitimate scholars (Webster 1999). the wreck. Accompanying signage fails to explain this
However, despite his success with National Geographic, treasure for what it is: accumulated profit from the repeated
Clifford’s efforts at maintaining a front of archaeological buying and selling of human bodies and other commodities
respectability, both methodological and interpretive, have along the West African coast (see Behrendt 2001). Instead,
been, compared to Fisher’s, clumsy at best. Two years the exhibit presents it merely as gleaming booty from
before the conference enacted a ban on papers generated Clifford’s latest adventure. Clifford’s preoccupation with
by for-profit salvage operations (Johnston 1989: 148), the gold and downplaying of slavery are even worse in his
Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) meetings hosted book (eg, 1999: 232) where several pages are devoted
a session devoted to the Whydah in which archaeologists to loving descriptions of the gold, while even the most
and professional salvors presented their findings (see obvious articles of slavery - branding irons, and other
Underwater Archaeology Proceedings from the SHA restraints - receive less than a paragraph’s attention.

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 Slavers, Swashbucklers, And Salvors: The Ethics Of Public Presentation In Nautical Archaeology

Constructing Informed Aternatives of geographic and historical distance. Furthermore, such

interpretations need not be couched strictly in materialist
Given the destructiveness of these projects to the physical, terms of capitalist economic development (Richardson
contextual, and informational integrity of archaeological 2001, Klein et al 2001). As the vehicles upon which
resources, and also to scholars’ abilities to conduct enslaved Africans of many cultures were first thrown
theoretically meaningful work, it is obvious that nautical together and removed from their continent, slave ships
archaeologists need to reassess not only their responses represent one of the first stages for the creation of a global
to salvage activity, but their entire modus operandi. For African cultural diaspora. Considering Harris’ (1996)
better or worse, in order to repossess the popular and legal contention that it is the common social condition of
mandates that salvors have managed to acquire, nautical slavery that has led to the creation of more unified pan-
archaeologists must become overtly political in their African identities, evidence of the formation of new social
practice. No longer can we busy ourselves with studies arrangements and resistance strategies aboard slave ships
of extraordinary architecture, publishing our results only has the potential for shedding light on some of the earliest
in academic journals for the consumption of like-minded processes of domination, resistance, and transculturation
scholars. We need to ask bigger questions, and we must by which diasporic identities were forged.
find it within ourselves to engage the public in meaningful
ways. This is not to say, of course, that we should attempt Even more importantly, once comparative studies have taken
to beat the salvors at their own game by producing our own place, it is incumbent upon any archaeologist conducting
publicly accessible but factually bowdlerized accounts of them to disseminate his or her findings not only through
the past. Rather, we need to offer alternative visions of the the usual academic channels of journals and monographs,
past based upon anthropologically informed studies of a but also through museum exhibitions and popular media
diversity of wrecks, ones that allow popular audiences presentations. The success of the problem-riddled
to acknowledge, understand, and interact with historical Henrietta Marie exhibit has shown that the public thirsts
complexity without pandering to entrenched racial or for untold histories, and that it believes that archaeologists,
political ideologies. or facsimiles thereof, have the ability and authority to
provide them. Without more compelling alternatives,
This strategy will necessarily entail a much broader however, archaeologically based exhibitions will be lost in
comparative approach to the practice of nautical a crowd, and we will continue to lose not only the ability
archaeology. While particularizing investigations and to deliver our own interpretations effectively, but we may
accounts of wrecks will still be necessary in order to gain also lose our identity and authority as archaeologists (Smith
deeper understandings of the construction and specific 2002). With well-developed legal protections - comparable
use-histories of individual vessels, all analysis must be to those for terrestrial archaeological sites - still missing
considered in terms of broader cultural developments, not underwater, popular discourse has become the main arena
just typologically. Scholars need to ask themselves not only in which the battle for control of underwater heritage is
why particular vessels were built in certain ways and used fought. Slick, successful exhibits embraced by the general
by certain people for certain purposes, but also how and public go a long way toward securing the approval of well-
why the materiality and uses of various vessels are similar meaning policy makers for private salvors. Only through
to or differ from each other in different systemic contexts. a conspicuous, sustained campaign of engagement with
Ships must be treated not as static and systemically isolated the public can nautical archaeologists create a demand for
objects, but as complex archaeological sites - simultaneously informed, unsensationalized accounts of the slave trade and
loci of human activity and conveyers of people, things, and the past in general, accounts next to which the distortions
ideas across much larger cultural, economic, and historical and shortcomings of those produced by private interests
contexts. Pointing to the recovered remains of specific become glaringly obvious (Johnston 1993).
vessels such as those discussed here and using them as
stand-ins for large-scale cultural phenomena such as slave A successful response to the Henrietta Marie and Whydah
trading or piracy is simply unacceptable. To do so is to take exhibits and media campaigns would have to be carefully
a facile reading of the value of archaeological evidence, planned in order not to fall victim to the kinds of simplistic
relegating it to a role of mere illustration of preexisting analyses that plague privately produced exhibits, or, worse
historical interpretation, rather than treating it as the rich yet, to validate their approaches and content. A responsible
primary informational source that it is. exhibition should both reflect and continue the process of
contextualization undertaken during the research phase.
With regards to our knowledge of slave ships and their place The kind of self-referential, vessel-centric approach
in the development of modern global culture, the potential is inherently awkward and difficult to reconcile with
contributions by archaeology are almost boundless. An contextualizing narratives, and for this reason, a better
electronic search of the Transatlantic Slave Trade database strategy would be to shift the subject of the exhibition
(Eltis and Nwokeji 1999) reveals 825 ships known away from particular slave ships and toward the slave
historically to have been wrecked during slaving activities trade in toto. Considering the broad geographic, cultural,
and an additional 55 abandoned. Even ignoring additional and historical depth of the subject, the ideal scenario would
ships that engaged in slaving illicitly or went undocumented perhaps be an entire museum focusing on the slave trade.
for other reasons, it seems that enough sites should exist in However, the potential benefits of a wider museum audience
accessible locations to provide not just one or two good and concomitant increased media exposure suggest that
examples of slave ships, but rather a sample large enough for practical reasons, a traveling feature exhibit would be
for meaningful comparative and diachronic analyses to be more effective in changing public perceptions.
made. A program of archaeological investigation of these
wrecks, in conjunction with existing documentary evidence Such an exhibition must be both informed and interactional,
and oral traditions, has the potential to contribute deeply reflecting the actual contributions of archaeology to
to a much more nuanced and sophisticated understanding knowledge of the slave trade, and presenting these
of the global development and practice of slaving. Such findings in ways that challenge audiences to participate
an understanding would recognize the human toll of the in the interpretive process. Given the subject’s sensitive
trade but move beyond a simple condemnatory position nature, exhibits should take care to present slavery in a
and seek deeper, more complex understandings of the compassionate and humane way but should not compromise
Middle Passage as an ongoing historical phenomenon factual or analytical integrity for the sake of raw emotive
taking place aboard ships, but situated across vast stretches power as the Henrietta Marie exhibition does. Rather, the

27
Brian W. Gohacki

topic should be presented in a dignified and restrained way, Cottman, M. 1995. Spirit Dive. New York: Three Rivers
one which does not shrink away from the brutality of the Press.
trade but which allows audiences to digest its reality and Cottman, M. 1999. The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie. New
come to their own intellectual and emotional conclusions. York: Harmony Books.
Elia, R. 1992. The ethics of collaboration: Archaeologists
Finally, exhibit managers must take great care to ensure that and the Whydah project. Historical Archaeology 26(4),
associated media productions follow the same standards 105–17.
of rigor as the research and exhibition. Doing so will be Elia, R. 1995. Nautical shenanigans. The INA Quarterly
much more difficult than it would seem at first glance. It 22(3), 23.
is an unfortunate fact that for-profit heritage media giants Eltis, D. and Nwokeji, U. (eds). 1999. The Transatlantic
have a stranglehold on the US popular psyche and are Slave Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press.
the only outlets capable of producing the kind of large- Garland, C. and Klein, H.S. 1985 .The allotment of space
scale popular awareness that they do. For this reason, it is
important that scholars work with mass-media outlets but for slaves aboard eighteenth-century British slave ships.
do so in an extremely cautious manner so as to ensure that William and Mary Quarterly 3d Ser., 42, 238–48.
any resulting productions neither distort interpretations nor Gero, J. and Root, D. 1996. Public presentations and
convey any unintended messages. National Geographic, private concerns: Archaeology in the pages of National
in particular, is notorious for allowing its staff writers to Geographic. In I. Hodder (ed.), Contemporary
rewrite articles written by academics in order to make them Archaeology in Theory, 531–47. Cambridge, MA:
more palatable to a mass audience, often simplifying or Blackwell Publishers.
excising important interpretations (Gero and Root 1996). Giesecke, A. 1987. Creative Financing and Project
For this reason, it is of utmost importance that exhibitors Management. In A.B. Albright (ed.), Underwater
act decisively to make themselves heard by the creators of Archaeology Proceedings from the SHA Conference
media productions before they are released. 1987, 12–13.
Giesecke, A. 2002. Wrecked and Abandoned. In C.
The suggestions made in this paper address the uniquely Ruppe and J. Barstad (eds), International Handbook of
specific circumstances surrounding the subject of the Underwater Archaeology, 573–84. New York: Kluwer
archaeology of slave ships. However, many of the Academic.
critiques presented are broadly valid for large swaths of the Goodheart, A. 1999. Into the depths of history. Preservation
interpreted and depicted past. Issues of commercialization, 51(1), 36–45.
homogenization, and ideologically driven soft-pedaling Gould, R. 1981. Looking Below the Surface: Shipwreck
continue to confound museum and other heritage Archaeology as Anthropology. In R.A. Gould (ed.),
scholarship and practice (Kirby 1988, Roberts 1997). Shipwreck Anthropology, 3–22. Albuquerque:
Fortunately, the greater awareness of these problems University of New Mexico Press.
generated by modern heritage studies has provided us with Gould, R. 2000. Archaeology and the Social History of
the tools we need to fight back against this trend. And fight Ships. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
we must, for the results of our disengagement are readily Halsey, J.R. 1994. Shipwreck Law and Underwater
apparent. This struggle will no doubt be protracted and Management. In R.P. Woodward and C.D. Moore
unpleasant, but we can no longer afford to be anything but (eds), Underwater Archaeology Proceedings from the
political. SHA Conference 1994, 108–13. Pleasant Hill CA: The
Society for Historical Archaeology.
Hannahs, T. 2003. Underwater Parks vs. Preserves: Data
References or Access. In J.D. Spirek and D. Scott-Ireton (eds),
Abbass, D.K. and Zarzynski, J.W. 1998. The Rhode Island Submerged Cultural Resource Management, 5-16. New
ship ‘Gem’: Slaver or Propaganda. In L.E. Babits et al York: Kluwer Academic.
(eds), Underwater Archaeology, 74–8. Tucson, Arizona: Harris, J.E. 1996. The Dynamics of the Global African
The Society for Historical Archaeology. Diaspora. In A. Jalloh and S.E. Maizlish (eds), African
Arnold, J.B. III, and Mclaughlin-Neyland, K. 1994. Diaspora, 7–21. College Station, Texas: Texas A+M
State Responses to the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of Press.
1987. In D.H. Keith and T.I Carrell (eds), Underwater Henderson, G. 1976. James Matthews excavation, summer
Archaeology Proceedings from the SHA Conference 1974. Interim report. The International Journal of
1994, 114–18. Pleasant Hill CA: The Society for Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration
Historical Archaeology. 5(3), 245–51.
Bass, G. 1990. After The Diving is Over. In T.L. Carrell Johnston, P.F. 1989. Between The Devil and The Dark
(ed.), Underwater Archaeology Proceedings from the Blue Sea: Archaeology and the Council of American
SHA Conference 1990, 10–13. Pleasant Hill CA: The Maritime Museums. In J.B. Arnold III (ed.), Underwater
Society for Historical Archaeology. Archaeology Proceedings from the SHA Conference
Behrendt, S. 2001. Markets, transaction cycles, and profits: 1989, 148–49. Pleasant Hill, California: The Society
Merchant decision making in the British slave trade. for Historical Archaeology.
William and Mary Quarterly 58 (1), 171–204. Johnston, P. 1993. Treasure salvage, archaeological ethics,
Bly, A. 1998. Crossing the Lake of Fire. Slave resistance and maritime museums. The International Journal of
during the Middle Passage. The Journal of Negro Nautical Archaeology 22, 53–60.
History 83 (3) (Summer, 1998), 178–86. Kechington, T., Carter, J.A. and Rice, E.L. 1989. The
Carrier, J. 1998. Sunken Treasure’s Sinking Fortunes. New Indispensability of Non-artifactual Data in Underwater
York Times. Archaeology. In J.B. Arnold III (ed.), Underwater
Clifford, B. 1999. Expedition Whydah. New York, NY: Archaeology Proceedings from the SHA Conference
Cliff Street Books. 1989, 111–20. Pleasant Hill CA: The Society for
Cockerell, W.A. 1990. Why Dr. Bass Couldn’t Convince Mr. Historical Archaeology.
Gumbel: The trouble with treasure revisited, again. In Kirby, S. 1988. Policy and Politics: Charges, Sponsorhip,
T.L. Carrell (ed.), Underwater Archaeology Proceedings and Bias. In R. Lumley (ed.), The Museum Time
from the SHA Conference 1990, 13–18. Pleasant Hill Machine: Putting Cultures on Display, 89–101. New
CA: The Society for Historical Archaeology. York: Routledge.

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Klein, H et al. 2001. Transoceanic mortality: The slave from the SHA Conference 1994, 114–18. Pleasant Hill,
trade in comparative perspective. William and Mary California: The Society for Historical Archaeology.
Quarterly 58 (1), 93–118. Richardson, D. 2001. Shipboard revolts, African authority,
Lutz, C. and Collins, J.L. 1993. Reading National and the Atlantic slave trade. William and Mary Quarterly
Geographic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 58 (1), 69–92.
Mather, I. and Watts, G. 2002. Ethics and Underwater Roberts, L. 1997. From Knowledge to Narrative:
Archaeology. In C. Ruppe and J. Barstad (eds), Educators and the Changing Museum. Washington
International Handbook of Underwater Archaeology, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
593–608. New York: Kluwer Academic. Russell, A. and Woodall, J.N. 1998. The roles of
McCarthy, M. 2001. Iron and Steamship Archaeology: archaeology and ideology in the reconstruction of an
Success and Failure on the S/S Xantho. New York:
eighteenth-century North Carolina Moravian dwelling.
Kluwer Academic.
McGhee, F.L. 1998. Towards a postcolonial nautical Paper presented at the 31st Conference on Historical and
archaeology. Assemblage 3, www.assemblage.group. Underwater Archaeology. www.wfu.edu/anthropology/
shef.ac.uk/3/3mcghee.htm (1 June 2006). archeology/library/SHA.htm (1 June, 2006).
McLean, R. 1996. Quest For a Pirate. Catalog. Key West, 1997 A Slave Ship Speaks, The Wreck of the Henrietta
Florida: Barry Clifford Museum. Marie – Museum exhibition. Mel Fisher Maritime
McClung, R. 1989. Supporting Archaeological Research Heritage Society.
in the Real World. In A.B. Albright (ed.), Underwater Smith, S. 2002. Education: The Power Tool of Underwater
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1987, 46. Pleasant Hill CA: The Society for Historical International Handbook of Underwater Archaeology,
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Miller, G. 1987. The second destruction of the Geldermalsen. Souza, D. 1997. The Persistence of Sail in the Age of
The American Neptune XLVII (4), 275–81. Steam. New York: Kluwer Academic.
Moeller, S. 1999. Compassion Fatigue. New York: Steinberg, J. 2002. Last voyage of the slave ship Henrietta
Routledge. Marie. National Geographic Magazine 202 (2), 42–61.
Moore, D.D. 1989. Anatomy of a l7th Century Slave Svalesen, L. 2000. The Slave Ship Fredensborg.
Ship: Historical and Archaeological Investigations Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
of the Henrietta Marie. MA Thesis. Eastern Carolina Throckmorton, P. 1990. The World’s Worst Investment:
University. The Economics of Treasure Hunting with Real Life
Muckelroy, K. 1978. Maritime Archaeology. New York: Comparisons. In T.L. Carrell (ed.), Underwater
Cambridge University Press.
Archaeology Proceedings from the SHA Conference
Neyland, R.S. 2002. Open Letter to US Commission
on Ocean Policy.www.oceancommission.gov/ 1990, 61–72, Pleasant Hill CA: The Society for
publicomment/octcomments/neyland_comment.pdf (1 Historical Archaeology.
June 2006). Trigger, B. 1989. A History of Archaeological Thought.
Noble, V., Kelly, R. and Wilkie, N. 2002. Joint Statement New York: Cambridge University Press.
to the US Commission on Ocean Policy, The Society Webster, D. 1999. Pirates of the Whydah. National
for Historical Archaeology, The Society for American Geographic Magazine May 1999, 64–77.
Archaeology, The Archaeological Institute of Zarzynski, J., Abbass, D.K., Benway, B. and Farrell, J.
America. www.oceancommission.gov/publicomment/ 1996. ‘Ring-Around-A-Radeau’ or, Fencing in a 1758
octcomments/noble_comment.pdf (5 May 2002). Shipwreck for Public Access and Preservation. In S.R.
Pelkofer, P. 1987. The Abandoned Shipwreck Act and State James Jr. and C. Stanley (eds), Underwater Archaeology
Law: A Legal Perspective. In R.P. Woodward and C.D. 1996, 41–44. Tucson, Arizona: The Society for
Moore (eds), Underwater Archaeology Proceedings Historical Archaeology.

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 The Paradox of Progress: Land Survey and the Making of
Agrarian Society in Colonial British Columbia

Jeff Oliver

Introduction establishment of the international boundary and a program

of cadastral survey. Establishing a basic infrastructure
They had a little map with them, and asked me to show
them where they were, of which they appeared to have of survey lines and monuments acted as an important
a very hazy idea (R.C. Mayne, Four Years in British technology to appropriate and give order to what was
Columbia 1862: 175). essentially perceived as wilderness. However, through
investigating the gap between the artefact of survey maps
Progress is the idea that ‘civilization’ has moved, is and the material effects of land survey ‘on the ground’,
moving and will continue to move in a desirable direction this paper will argue that the seemingly progressive ideal
(Bury 1955: 2). During the colonization of North America could be muddled and contradictory. Sliding between
in the nineteenth century, progress was usually linked with the abstract scale of cartography and the local scale of
material changes in the land where the natural environment experience in the landscape will allow me to argue that
was ‘improved’ for farming and other forms of productive there is a very real tension between these different ways
investment (Ekirch 1969: 13). Colonialism, in the context of seeing. The process of land survey may have helped
of this chapter, refers to the frontiers or margins of the to subdue nature, but it also facilitated the construction
civilized world and how they were appropriated and of cultured wildernesses that served to fragment colonial
moulded by Europeans for their interests. Thus, colonial interests. The material reality of colonial power and the
history and the idea of progress are inextricably linked. way it was interpreted was not a coherent one-way process,
Following a narrative pattern in common with other many but something that resolved itself at different scales.
parts of the continent, the history of environmental change
in colonial British Columbia has a tendency to rest on The paper concludes by suggesting that land survey and
two assumptions. First, it is couched in terms of ‘impact’ the decisive architecture that the land system attempted
where a singular and self-conscious group of colonists to establish was at times antithetical to a unitary vision
intentionally shape a passive landscape for the betterment of progress, and that historians must balance the premise
of ‘civilization’. Second, its narrative form follows a of a colonial discourse with the different ways that it
simple ‘ascending plotline’ (Cronon 1992), or ‘world became enmeshed and refigured in different contexts of
growth story’ (Gellner 1964), where change is registered inhabitation. Shifting between different forms of evidence
along a progressive chronological time scale (see for and scales of analysis, the approach employed can also be
example papers in Seimens 1976a and Wynn and Oke seen as an attempt to dissolve the intellectual boundaries
1992). Although this is beginning to change in academic between the more abstract spaces of historical geography
circles (cf, papers in Sandwell 1999a), among broader and the more place-centred focus of archaeology. To the
public opinion the notion that colonization uniformly extent that colonialism is often treated as a unilateral
brought progress and civilization to the west coast is still means of representing, subjugating and reforming peoples
typically unquestioned. and places, what I will propose can be seen as part of that
While colonial history is laudable in that it seeks to growing body of work that seeks to write back from the
represent the ‘truth’ of environmental change, according colonial margins (eg, Bender 1999; Clayton 2000).
to recent developments in post-colonial theory it is only
a partial truth. Post-colonial theory, an umbrella term The colonisation of British Columbia
for critical approaches that have sought to shed light on
the voices of ‘sub-altern’ groups displaced by colonialist British interest in the northwest coast begins in the latter
history, suggests that the problem lies in the premise of half of the eighteenth century. However, it was not until
a static and monolithic view of cultures and of colonial 1858 that the mainland colony of ‘British Columbia’ was
encounters. This body of critique can be separated into established. In that year, a contingent of Royal Engineers
two main themes. First, history and environmental change was sent to the Fraser Valley to partake in the International
are often confused as the same phenomenon, the natural Boundary Commission, to establish a property cadastre
result of which is a teleology according to which change and to build the colony’s first roads (Woodward 1974–75).
is perceived as inevitably moving forward in one direction In the words of the colonial secretary the engineers were
(Giddens 1984: 242). Second, the categories of ‘colonizer’ dispatched to ‘conquer nature…so that all nations will…
and ‘colonized’are unrealistic objectifications that disregard gaze on gardens and cornfields…first carved from the
the often fluid social boundaries of inhabitation (Gosden wilderness’ (Lytton 1858). Over less than a single lifetime,
2001: 242). Rather, colonial cultures and encounters were the valley passed through remarkable transformations,
far more complex than this and were constituted by a changes which took Europe itself millennia to develop
blurring of this duality into hybrid and often-ambiguous (Harris 1997: 68). By the turn of the twentieth century the
realities. landscape was remodelled along class lines and reshaped
It is in this context that I want to take a critical look at the by agrarian values (see Demerit 1995–96: 42). None
idea of progress through the prism of land survey. During the less, attempting to recreate the land-based society of
the second half of the nineteenth century ‘improvements’ rural Britain was not achieved haphazardly. The practice
to the colony of British Columbia began with the of land surveying helped to create a single cartographic

31
Jeff Oliver

truth, a form of scaffolding upon which settlement and the

aspirations of progress could hinge.

Land survey in the Fraser Valley

Of all possessions west of the Rocky Mountains, the Fraser
Valley saw the earliest land surveys of British mainland
territory. Between 1858 and 1890, most of the valley was
carved up into a cadastre, a geometric property grid that
was used to help organize Crown land into parcels for
an anticipated market of settlers and investors (North et
al 1977: 45). For newcomers good land meant improved
agricultural land, and creating a framework of survey lines
that corresponded with maps of land division was the first
step in bringing what was perceived to be unproductive
wilderness into the clutches of civilization. Quite simply,
land surveys helped to organize, control and record the
settlement of ‘empty’ lands (Kain 2002: 11).
The early years of land survey saw a number of different
systems used in the valley. However in 1873, following the
example of the United States, a more permanent solution
was found in the Township and Range System (Taylor Figure 8. Diagram of survey posts, adapted from Thomson (1967:
1975: 43; see also Johnson 1990: 135). This system divided 52). (A) Wood post, marking section corner 5 inches diameter,
the valley into six-mile square blocks, each subdivided 3½ inches square. (B) Iron post marker, township corner.
into 36 sections of one-mile square. Blocks were hung
on meridians running north to south, with baselines and
correction lines running east to west. With minor variations soil (Fannin in British Columbia Legislative Assembly
the Township and Range System remains the framework Sessional Papers 1873: 4). In heavily forested areas, such
for land holding to the present day. as the valley, the placing of landmarks along survey lines
– such as ‘corner posts’, ‘section’ and ‘half section posts’
Surveying land that was commonly dominated by tall trees – planted two feet into the ground, helped settlers to visibly
and thick underbrush required a means of demarcating register land divisions. Above ground, posts were squared
survey lines so that they would clearly stand out. By
cutting a clear line of sight through underbrush and blazing with three-inch faces (Figure 8). Below ground, they were
nearby trees with an axe, surveyors were able to rough set on charcoal, crockery or broken glass, a measure to
out the line of their traverse. Additionally, trails were cut both impede rot and reconfirm their location should they
along the exterior lines of townships, enabling settlers to be displaced (Cail 1974: 62; North et al 1977; Taylor 1975:
get through and satisfy themselves as to the quality of the 43; Thomson 1967: 51).

Figure 9. Colonial survey party (Chilliwack Archives, P.1484).

32
 The Paradox Of Progress: Land Survey And The Making Of Agrarian Society In Colonial British Columbia

The progress of civilization and the ‘god trick’ of the boundaries) were perhaps the ultimate means of legitimizing
map land divisions through identifying boundaries in the land
So far I have touched on the more practical role of land with specialized signs and symbols, as if they reflected the
survey. However, we must not overlook the fact that natural order of things. Moreover, because maps that were
it also served an important symbolic purpose. Surveys produced from land surveys suggested a mathematically
and cadastral maps (maps that show surveyed property precise representation of boundary lines – as they existed

Figure 10. Plan of Township 11 in the central Fraser Valley (detail), Department of the Interior, Technical Branch, Ottawa, 12 July,
1886 (British Columbia Crown Land Registry).

33
Jeff Oliver

in ‘reality’ – they bolstered these claims while at the same palpable authority; that the land between the mountains
time framing the landscape through the lens of progress. and the gulf was underwritten by the colonial state and
the rule of law. To landowners, ‘the presence of their
By marshalling the authority of the state with the rhetoric property clearly identified on a map…confirmed their
of scientific accuracy the surveyor acted on behalf of stake in the new nation…etching the cadastre into the
settler society as an arbiter of power (Figure 9) (Burnett public mind’ (Kain and Baigent, 1992: 307). Moreover,
2000; Edney 1997). Crosscutting older forms of land the fact that geographical knowledge was extended year
tenure, they undermined aboriginal claims by ‘mapping on year, by filling in the blank spaces on the map, created
them out’ of the land, effacing their memory with a new a certain conflation between mapping and the progress
geography of boundary lines and an index of place names of civilization. As one local newspaper suggested, recent
(Brealey 1995) (Figure 10). Survey landmarks helped government surveys in the Fraser Valley ‘wonderfully
to reinforce the power of the state, although they were assisted newcomers in selecting locations for settlement’
sometimes contested - for example, Bruce Stadfeld (1999) (Mainland Guardian 13 January 1877). This is a notion
has showed how in certain contexts local native groups alluded to not only by historical figures but also by
challenged boundary demarcations, particularly along historians of cartography who have equated mapping with
Indian reserves. But land surveying had perhaps a more the process of civilizing by throwing back the boundaries
profound performative quality for those who observed of terra incognita (cf, Farley 1960; Gilmartin 1986).
and participated in this reterritorialization. The rehearsed
choreography of a disciplined troop of men wielding At this point I want to move from cartography to the ‘view
scientific instruments was a visual display that helped to from the ground’, for I want to show that land survey at
give their actions a lasting emphasis. Moreover, settlers this scale was caught up in complex negotiations that
were not simply passive onlookers to this performance. problematize its role in evoking a coherent and unified
When land was already occupied they actively joined in perception of the progress of civilization.
by closely scrutinizing this process, legitimizing what they
deemed to be an accurate survey by signing their names in
the meticulously kept survey register (Ralph 1875). The paradox of progress: a view from the ground
Drawing on Foucault’s arguments about surveillance and Threading evidence together from an on-the-ground
control of the body, Cole Harris (1997: 101) has argued perspective can ‘cut reality in different ways’ (Gosden
that by 1881, the land system acted like a ‘disciplinary 1994: 140) and suggests a far more messy history to the
appendage’, with its sprouting fence lines, zones of process of land survey. While cartographic victories were
exclusion, and landowner ‘watchmen’ backed up by the proclaimed as methods became more scientific and more
power of the state. This is not to suggest that other changes accurate, the stability and very materiality of this ‘truth’ on
like road building, establishing farms or cutting down the ground was contested. Certainly, idiosyncrasies among
the forest were less effective in constructing a colonized surveyors and survey systems were one problem. Despite
landscape. Nevertheless, the built environment unfolded the rigour that many surveyors imposed upon their work,
far more slowly than the relatively fast paced land survey. ‘it was not always possible to measure what was intended
In contrast, the ‘god trick’ of the mapped image, which to be measured’ (Taylor 1975: 18). The unforgiving terrain
allowed its users an infinite view of the landscape where and the use of different survey technologies inevitably
everything could be seen from one perspective (Haraway meant mistakes and fudged results. What is more,
1991: 189), facilitated vision across the valley, beyond however, is that the material effects of survey in many
the giant trees ‘fringing the river like a gigantic hedge’ places contradicted the ‘natural’ order of things portrayed
(Dawson in Cole and Lockner 1989: 10). by the map when relationships between colonial interests
and the landscape escaped their assumed stable references.
Additionally, surveys mobilized the rhetoric of progress In particular I address the reactive qualities of forest
by inscribing land with spaces and boundaries equivalent ecology and biogeography (Butler 1995; Head et al 2002:
to the ideals of capitalism and ‘man over nature’. While 176). Assumed to be a simple background for the playing
most settlers were firmly brought up within the ethos of out of colonial desires, the forest was imbued with its own
capitalism, where land was understood as a commodity, agency (Jones and Cloke 2003) – in this case, a counter
maps helped to reinforce the perception of land as an agent to progress – when we take into consideration the
alienable object. Articulated in terms of repetitive symbols, different ways in which the material effects of surveying
maps suggested that land was equivalent and exchangeable (as well as other forms of forest modification) were drawn
with other such spaces (Harley 1988: 282; Strang 1997: upon by differently situated social actors.
252). Some maps also included information about local
vegetation and soil quality, helping to narrow the definition
of land to one of economy. No longer inhibited by the The living landscape
disorientating characteristics of wilderness, the new spatial
geometry anticipated the enabling powers of agriculture A major problem with imposing boundaries on the land and
and its rewards of social improvement. ensuring that they stood out was simply that the trees grew
back. In contrast to the colonial desire to carve passive
Crucially, following common practice with other parts wilderness into a new social and economic framework,
of North America, maps of the valley were displayed in ‘nature’ showed the uncanny ability to ‘act back’ – to
public places, such as at Land Offices in Victoria and reclaim the landscape as successional forest. Paradoxically,
New Westminster where land grants and land sales were areas of re-growth were sometimes described in terms
registered (see Home 1997: 37; Kain and Baigent 1992: usually reserved for the most primeval wilderness. For
307; Spittle 1988). Although in some contexts it was not example, from 1859 to 1863 Royal Engineers of the
always this straightforward; in the colony of Vancouver British Boundary Commission surveyed a line along the
Island, access to survey maps appears to have been through 49th parallel delimiting British from American territory.
favour by the governor (British Colonist 1860). Even To demarcate the boundary clearly, a wide avenue of trees
if these images were not readily available, most settlers was felled on both sides of its axis along the entire length
owned a legally binding sketch of the survey of their own of the border (Figure 11). To reinforce this line cut through
land (Harris 2002: 76). It was through consuming these the wilderness, the Boundary Commission placed cast iron
images that newcomers were instilled with a sense of monuments and wooden posts along its course at regular

34
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[43] See George Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature (Sixth
edition, Boston, 1888), vol. iii., p. 94. Ticknor, however, failed to
notice that the date in his copy was a forgery: see Mr. J. L.
Whitney's Catalogue (Boston, 1879), p. 234, and compare Salvá y
Mallen, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 168.
[44] Scherillo, op. cit., p. ccxlvii.
[45] The proof of this has been supplied independently by the
late John Ormsby (see vol. iii. of the present edition (Glasgow,
1901), p. 51, n. i.); by Professor Hugo Albert Rennert (see The
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myself (see the Revue hispanique (Paris, 1895), vol. ii., pp. 304-
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monograph entitled Jorge de Montemayor, sein Leben und sein
Schäferroman die "Siete Libros de la Diana" nebst einer Übersicht
der Ausgaben dieser Dichtung und bibliographischen
Anmerkungen herausgegeben von Georg Schönherr (Halle, 1886),
p. 83.
The decisive point is that Ticknor's copy, the oldest known
edition, must be at least as late as 1554, for Montemôr here
refers to the Infanta Juana as a widow: see (lib. iv.) the fifth
stanza of the Canto de Orfeo. Her husband, Dom João, died on
January 2, 1554. A duplicate of the Ticknor volume is in the
British Museum library.
[46] See the preface to Fray Bartholomé Ponce's Primera Parte de
la Clara Diana á lo divino, repartida en siete libros (Zaragoza,
1582): "El año mil quinientos cincuenta y nueue, estando yo en la
corte del Rey don Philipe segundo deste nombre ... vi y ley la
Diana de Jorge de Mõtemayor, la qual era tan accepta quanto yo
jamas otro libro en Romance aya visto: entonces tuue entrañable
desseo de conocer a su autor, lo qual se me cumplio tan a mi
gusto, que dentro de diez días se offrecio tener nos combidados a
los dos, vn canallero muy Illustre, aficionado en todo estremo al
verso y poesia."
[47] For Ribeiro, see Madame Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, op. cit.,
pp. 291-295. Ribeiro's work seems to have been printed
posthumously, the earliest known edition being issued at Ferrara
in 1554. But, as Madame Michaëlis de Vasconcellos observes (p.
295, n. 8): "Dass lange vor dem ital. Drucke Ribeiro's wie Falcao's
Werke grossen Ruf hatten, steht ausser Zweifel. Sie müssen in
Handschriften oder Flugblättern unter den Lesenden Kurs gehabt
haben." It is, perhaps, not superfluous to mention that Ribeiro's
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takes its title from the opening words.
[48] See Schönherr, op. cit., p. 26. "Was das genauere Datum des
Todes Montemayor's betrifft, so wird hierfür im Vorwort der Diana
ed. 1622 der 26. Februar des Jahres 1561 angegeben, und zwar
war es des Dichters Freund Alonso Pérez, der es der Nachwelt
überlieferte, wiewohl es sich in dessen erster, 1564 erschienener
Ausgabe der Segunda Parte de la Diana noch nicht findet. Die
Richtigkeit seiner Angabe lässt sich einigermassen prufen, nicht
mit Hülfe der Elegie des Dorantes, die Salvá's Vermutung (No.
1909) entgegen der Ausgabe vom Jahre 1561 noch nicht
angehängt ist, wol aber in Hinblick auf des oben stehende Sonett
Pagan's, welches bereits in dessen 1562 erschienener Floresta de
varia poesía enthalten ist, so dass man hiernach keine Ursache
hat, der Datierung des Pérez zu misstrauen."
The sonnet mentioned by Schönherr, and reprinted by Salvá y
Mallen, occurs on f of Diego Ramírez Pagán's Floresta de varia
poesía (1562):

Nuestro Monte mayor, do fué nascido?

En la ciudad del hijo de Laerte.
Y que parte en la humana instable suerte?
Cortesano, discreto, y entendido.
Su trato como fué, y de que ha biuido?
Siruiendo, y no acerto, ni ay quien acierte.
Quien tan presto le dió tan cruda muerte?
Imbidia, y Marte, y Venus lo ha mouido.
Sus huessos donde están? En Piamonte.
Porque? Por no los dar a patria ingrata.
Que le deue su patria? Inmortal nombre.
De que? Larga vena, dulce, y grata.
Y en pago que le dan? Talar el monte.
Y haura quien le cultiue? No ay tal hõbre.

The British Museum Library contains a copy of Ramírez Pagán's

Floresta: a book esteemed by Gallardo, Gayangos, and Salvá (op.
cit., vol. i., p. 153, no. 339) as "uno de los más raros que existen
en la literatura poética española."
[49] See the prologue to Pérez' continuation (A 5 of the Antwerp
edition, 1580) " ... casi en toda esta obra no ay narracion, ni
platica, no solo en verso, más aun en prosa, que à pedaços de la
flor de Latinos y Italianos hurtado, y imitado no sea; y no pienso
por ello ser digno de reprehension, pues lo mesmo de los Griegos
hizieron."
[50] The whole history, bibliographical and literary, of the pastoral
movement in Spain may be studied in the searching and learned
monograph of Professor Hugo Albert Rennert, The Spanish
Pastoral Romances (Baltimore, 1892). A minute examination of
Texeda's plagiary, which escaped detection by Ticknor, will be
found on pp. 39-42 of Professor Rennert's work.
[51] The reference is, no doubt, to the passage in the fifth book
of Montemôr's Diana: "Y tomando el vaso que tenía en la mano
izquierda le puso en la suya á Sireno, y mando que lo bebiese, y
Sireno lo hizo luego; y Selvagia y Silvano bebieron ambos el otro,
y en este punto cayeron todos tres en el suelo adormidos, de que
no poco se espantó Felismena y la hermosa Belisa que allí
estaba...." Cp. Sannazaro's Arcadia (Prosa nona, Scherillo's
edition, p. 171): "Al quale subgiunse una lodula, dicendo, in una
terra di Grecia (dela quale yo ora non so il nome) essere il fonte
di Cupidine, del quale chiunche beve, depone subitamente ognie
suo amore."
The expedient of the magic water, to which Cervantes refers once
more in the Coloquio de los Perros (see vol. viii. of the present
edition (Glasgow, 1902), p. 163), seems to be as old as most
things in literature. Scherillo, in his valuable commentary to the
Arcadia cites a parallel from Pliny, Naturalis Historia, lib. xxxi.,
cap. 16: "Cyzici fons Cupidinis vocatur, ex quo potantes amorem
deponere Mucianus credit."
[52] It is just possible, however, that Cervantes may have omitted
the Habidas deliberately; for though Ticknor (op. cit., vol. iii., p.
99, n. 18), on the authority of Gayangos, quotes the book as
"among the earliest imitations of the Diana," so excellent a
scholar as Professor Rennert (op. cit., p. 111) inclines to think
"that it is rather a 'Novela Caballeresca.'"
[53] This seems to follow from the references in the Viaje del
Parnaso:

El fiero general de la atrevida

Gente, que trae un cuervo en su estandarte,
Es ARBOLANCHES, muso por la vida (cap. vii., ter. 81).
And

En esto, del tamaño de un breviario

Volando un libro por el aire vino.
De prosa y verso que arrojó el contrario.
De verso y prosa el puro desatino
Nos dió á entender que de ARBOLANCHES eran
Las Avidas pesadas de contino (cap. vii., ter. 60-61).

These sallies have brought down on Cervantes the displeasure of

implacable bibliographers. Salvá y Mallen (op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 19-
20, no. 1518) drily observes that, as the book is almost wholly in
verse, it does not at all correspond to Cervantes's description of
it, and he gives us to understand (what most readers have
realised for themselves) that, in criticism of his contemporaries,
Cervantes—like the rest of the world—is prone to err.
See also Cervantes vascófilo ó sea Cervantes vindicado de su
supuesto antivizcainismo por Julián Apráiz y Sáenz del Burgo,
Natural de Vitoria y vizcaino, alavés y guipuzcoano por todos sus
abolengos. Nueva edición considerablemente aumentada (Vitoria,
1895), pp. 270-274. In a note (p. 274) to his letter addressed
(April 23, 1884), to Sr. D. José Colá y Goiti, Dr. Apráiz—who
courageously sets himself to prove that Cervantes, so far from
disliking the Basques as has been generally supposed, had in fact
the highest opinion of them—points out that Los nueve libros de
las Habidas take no more space than a 16mo. volume. "Y una vez
leída la obra del poeta navarro insisto, tanto en que no hay más
prosa que brevísimos renglones del argumento de la obra, como
acerca del mérito que le reconocen Rosell, Gayangos y Vedia, y
Gallardo, mucho más habida cuenta de la temprana edad de 20
años que tenía el poeta al escribir su poema, según el mismo dice
al dirigirse á la señora (i.e. Doña Adriana de Egues y de
Biamonte), á quien lo dedica. Parece que había muerto 3 años
antes de la publicación de su poema."
If Arbolanche (or Arbolanches) really died in 1563, it is almost
impossible that Cervantes can have had—as has been insinuated
—any personal grudge against him. Perhaps he had read the
Habidas when he was a lad, was bored, and in his old age
exaggerated his impression, without remembering very clearly the
contents of the book. Or, it may be, as Dr. Apráiz suggests (op.
cit., pp. 273-274), that Cervantes mistook Arbolanche (or
Arbolanches) for the author of some dull pastoral whose name
escaped him. If this be so, it is exceedingly regrettable that he
should twice have made the same blunder: for the consequence
has been that the name of Arbolanche (or Arbolanches), a poet of
distinct merit, has become—among those who have not read him
and who follow Cervantes blindly—a synonym for a ridiculous
prose writer. Cp. the lines in the celebrated Sátira contra los
malos escritores de su tiempo by Jorge Pitillas (i.e. José Gerardo
de Hervás y Cobo de la Torre):—

De Arbolanches descubre el genio tonto,

Nombra á Pedrosa novelero infando
Y en criticar á entrambos está pronto.

[54] See cap. iii., ter. 81-89.

 Miren si puede en la galera hallarse
Algún poeta desdichado acaso,
Que á las fieras gargantas puede darse.—
Buscáronle, y hallaron á LOFRASO,
Poeta militar, sardo, que estaba
Desmayado á un rincón marchito y laso:
Que á sus diez libros de Fortuna andaba
Añadiendo otros diez, y el tiempo escoge,
Que más desocupado se mostraba.
Gritó la chusma toda: Al mar se arroje,
Vaya LOFRASO al mar sin resistencia.
—Por Dios, dijo Mercurio, que me enoje.
¿Cómo? ¿y no será cargo de conciencia,
Y grande, echar al mar tanta poesía,
Puesto que aquí nos hunda su inclemencia?
Viva Lofraso, en tanto que dé al día
Apolo luz, y en tanto que los hombres
Tengan discreta alegre fantasía.
Tocante á tí, o Lofraso, los renombres,
Y epítetos de agudo y de sincero,
Y gusto que mi cómitre te nombres.—
Esto dijo Mercurio al caballero,
El cual en la crujía en pie se puso
Con un rebenque despiadado y fiero.
Creo que de sus versos le compuso,
Y no sé cómo fué, que en un momento
Ó ya el cielo, ó Lofraso lo dispuso,
Salimos del estrecho á salvamento,
Sin arrojar al mar poeta alguno:
Tanto del sardo fué el merecimiento.

[55] Salvá y Mallen (op. cit., vol. ii., p. 143, no. 1817) states that
the Pastor de Fílida was reprinted at Lisbon in 1589. at Madrid in
1590, at Barcelona in 1613, and at Valencia in 1792: and there
may be other editions.
[56] Sannazaro's Arcadia was translated into French by Jean
Martin in 1644; see Heinrich Koerting, Geschichte des
französischen Romans im XVII Jahrhundert (Oppeln und Leipzig,
1891), vol. i., p. 64. Montemôr's Diana was translated into French
by N. Colin in 1579. Nicolas de Montreux, who used the anagram
of Olenix du Mont-Sacré, published the first volume of Les
Bergeries de Juliette in the same year as the Galatea (1585).
[57] Cp. an interesting passage in the Avant-propos to George
Sand's François le Champi (Paris, 1868), pp. 15-16:
—"Oui, oui, le monde naïf! dit-il, le monde inconnu,
fermé à notre art moderne, et que nulle étude ne te
fera exprimer à toi-même, paysan de nature, si tu veux
l'introduire dans le domaine de l'art civilisé, dans le
commerce intellectuel de la vie factice.
—Hélas! répondis-je, je me suis beaucoup préoccupé de
cela. J'ai vu et j'ai senti par moi-même, avec tous les
êtres civilisés, que la vie primitive était le rêve, l'idéal de
tous les hommes et de tous les temps. Depuis les
bergers de Longus jusqu'à ceux de Trianon, la vie
pastorale est un Éden parfumé où les âmes
tourmentées et lassées du tumulte du monde ont
essayé de se réfugier. L'art, ce grand flatteur, ce
chercheur complaisant de consolations pour les gens
trop heureux, a traversé une suite ininterrompue de
bergeries. Et sous ce titre: Histoire des bergeries, j'ai
souvent désiré de faire un livre d'érudition et de critique
où j'aurais passé en revue tous ces différents rêves
champêtres dont les hautes classes se sont nourries
avec passion.
J'aurais suivi dans leurs modifications toujours en
rapport inverse de la dépravation des mœurs, et se
faisant pures et sentimentales d'autant plus que la
société était corrompue et impudente. Ce serait un
traité d'art complet, car la musique, la peinture,
l'architecture, la littérature dans toutes ses formes:
théâtre, poëme, roman, églogue, chanson; les modes,
les jardins, les costumes même, tout a subi
l'engouement du rêve pastoral. Tous ces types de l'âge
d'or, ces bergères qui sont des nymphes et puis des
marquises, ces bergères de l'Astrée qui passent par le
Lignon de Florian, qui portent de poudre et du satin
sous Louis XV., et auxquels Sedaine commence, à la fin
de la monarchie, à donner des sabots, sont tous plus ou
moins faux, et aujourd'hui ils nous paraissent niais et
ridicules. Nous en avons fini avec eux, nous n'en voyons
plus guère que sous forme de fantômes à l'opéra, et
 pourtant ils ont régné sur les cours et ont fait les
délices des rois qui leur empruntaient la houlette et la
panetière."
[58] See his Apologie for Poetrie (Arber's reprint, London, 1869),
p. 63.
[59] See vol. iii. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1901), p. 8.
[60] See the discussion in book iv. of the Galatea.
[61] These borrowings have been pointed out by Sr. D. Marcelino
Menéndez y Pelayo in his Historia de las ideas estéticas en España
(Madrid, 1883-1891), tom. ii., vol i., p. 108-109: " ... el sentido de
esta controversia es enteramente platónico, y derivado de León
Hebreo, hasta en las palabras, de tal suerte, que podríamos
suprimirlas, á no ser por la reverencia debida á todas las que
salieron de la pluma de Cervantes, puesto que nada original se
descubre en ellas, y aun la forma no es por cierto tan opulenta y
pródiga de luz, como la de El Cortesano."
Sr. D. Adolfo y San Martín, in his Castilian translation of my
History of Spanish Literature (Madrid, 1901) which he has
enriched with many valuable notes, observes (p. 325) that
Cervantes, when writing the preface to the First Part of Don
Quixote in 1604, evidently did not know there were in existence
at least three Spanish renderings of the Dialoghi—one of them,
published at Madrid in 1590, being by the famous Inca, Garcilaso
de la Vega.
For León Hebreo (or Judas Abarbanel) see Solomon Munk,
Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1857), pp. 522-528
and Dr. B. Zimmels, Leo Hebraeus, ein jüdischer Philosoph der
Renaissance; sein Leben, seine Werke und seine Lehren (Breslau,
1886).
[62] Yet the obvious resemblances between the Arcadia and the
Galatea have been unaccountably overlooked by Francesco
Torraca in a monograph entitled Gl'imitatori stranieri di Jacopo
Sannazaro (Seconda edizione accresciuta, Roma, 1882). "Non mi
sembra, però, che la Galatea e l' Arcadia di Lope contengano
imitazioni dello scrittore napoletano." (p. 23).
[63] See cap. iii., ter. 49-51.
[64] See Scherillo, op. cit., pp. ccliii.-cclx. for an interesting and
striking enumeration (which might, as the commentator says, be
extended) of Cervantes's debts to Sannazaro. It is quaint and
significant to find that while Sannazaro in his Prosa duodecima
alludes apologetically, but with excellent reason, to il mio picciolo
Sebetho, Cervantes in his sixth book, with no reason of any sort,
introduces las frescuras del apacible Sebeto.
[65] Cervantes, as appears from a somewhat confused allusion
early in the seventh chapter of the First Book of Don Quixote,
seems to have been one of the few (besides the author) who
enjoyed Carlos famoso. Zapata himself complained with a comic
ruefulness that his forty thousand lines were not widely
appreciated, and that he was out of pocket in consequence: "Yo
pensé también que en haber hecho la historia del Emperador
Carlos V., nuestro señor, en verso, y dirigídola á su pio y
poderosísimo hijo, con tantas y tan verdaderas loas de ellos y
nuestros españoles, que había hecho algo. Costóme cuatrocientos
mil maravedís la ímpresión, y de ella no saqué sino saña y
alongamiento de mi voluntad." Zapata, however, consoles himself
with thinking that he is in good company and closes with a pious,
confident moral: "De Homero se dice que en su vida no se hizo
de él caso, et sua riderunt tempora Meonidem. Del autor del
famoso libro poético de Amadís no se sabe haste hoy el nombre,
honra de la nacion y lengua española, que en ninguna lengua hay
tal poesía ni tan loable.... De manera que podemos decir todos el
sic vos non vobis de Virgilio, por lo cual todos de paso y como
accesorio deben no poner su felicidad acá, donde no hay
ninguna, sino atender á aquello que Dios les ha prometido; que si
plantaren la viña de las buenas obras, gozarán perpétuamente del
fruto de ella y otro no se la vendimiará." See Zapata's Miscelánea
in the Memorial histórico español (Madrid, 1859), vol. xi., pp. 304-
305. It is interesting to note that Zapata hazards no guess as to
the authorship of Amadís de Gaula.
[66] Op. cit., pp. 60-61, n. 76.
[67] Sannazaro's latest and best editor, Signor Scherillo, is
properly sceptical (op. cit., pp. clxxvi.-ccviii.) as to many current
identifications of the personages in the Arcadia. It seems certain
that Barcinio is Chariteo of Barcelona, and that Summontio is
Pietro Summonto, the Neapolitan publisher of the book. It is
probable that Meliseo is Giovanni Pontani, and that Massilia is the
author's mother. It is possible that Sincero is Sannazaro. But, as
Signor Scherillo drily observes, it is not easy to follow those who
think that Sannazaro was Ergasto, Elpino, Clonico, Ophelia, and
Eugenio—not "three gentlemen at once," but five. Other writers
hold that Ophelia is Chariteo; that Pontano is Ergasto, Opico and
Montano; that Eleuco is the Great Captain; and that Arcadia
stands for France. These and similar absurdities are treated as
they deserve in Signor Scherillo's masterly introduction.
[68] The supposition that Tirsi, in the Pastor de Fílida, was
intended to represent Cervantes is noted by Navarrete (op. cit., p.
278), and on the authority of that biographer has been frequently
repeated. It is right to say that Navarrete simply mentions the
identification in passing, and that he is careful to throw all
responsibility for it on Juan Antonio Mayáns who was the first to
suggest the idea in the introduction to his reprint of the Pastor de
Fílida (Valencia, 1792), pp. xxxvii, lxxvii, and lxxx. The theory has
been disproved by Juan Antonio Pellicer (op. cit., p. cxxxiii.)
There can be no reasonable doubt that the Tirsi of the Pastor de
Fílida is Francisco de Figueroa. It is absolutely certain that the
Tirsi of the Galatea is Figueroa: for, in the Second Book,
Cervantes places it beyond question by ascribing to Tirsi two
sonnets and a canción by Figueroa. Cp. Poesías de Francisco de
Figueroa, llamado el Divino (Madrid, 1804).
( a)

¡Ay de quan ricas esperanzas vengo

Al deseo más pobre y encogido,
Que jamas encerró pecho herido
De llaga tan mortal, como yo tengo!
Ya de mi fe, ya de mi amor tan luengo,
Que Fili sabe bien quan firme ha sido,
Ya del fiero dolor con que he vivido,
Y en quien la vida á mi pesar sostengo;
Otro más dulce galardon no quiero,
Sino que Fili un poco alce los ojos
A ver lo que mi rostro le figura:
Que si le mira, y su color primero
No muda, y aun quizá moja sus ojos,
Bien serán más que piedra helada y dura. (p. 17)

(b)
 La amarillez y la flaqueza mia,
El comer poco y el dormir perdido,
La falta quasi entera del sentido
El débil paso, y la voz ronca y fría;
La vista incierta, y el más largo día
En suspiros y quejas repartido,
Alguno pensará que haya nacido
De la pasada trabajosa vía:
Y sabe bien amor, que otro tormento
Me tiene tal; y otra razón más grave
Mi antigua gloria en tal dolor convierte:
Amor solo lo sabe, y yo lo siento:
Si Fili lo supiese: ¡o mi suave
Tormento, o dolor dulce, o dulce muerte! (p. 15)

( c)

Sale la aurora de su fértil manto

Rosas suaves esparciendo y flores,
Pintando el cielo va de mil colores,
Y la tierra otro tanto,
Quando la dulce pastorcilla mía,
Lumbre y gloria del día,
No sin astucia y arte,
De su dichoso albergue alegre parte. (pp. 45-46).

[69] Op. cit., p. 66.

[70] Juan Antonio Mayáns declares (op. cit., p. xxxvii) that
Damon is Figueroa; but, as previously stated (p. xxxi, n. 2), his
mistake is shown by Pellicer.
[71] This is not, however, the opinion of Eustaquio Fernández de
Navarrete (op. cit., p. xxxii): "Puede sospecharse que la primer
heroína de su novela no fué doña Catalina Palacios de Salazar,
con quien Cervantes casó á poco tiempo de publicar su libro, sino
que lo escribió en Portugal durante sus amores con una dama de
aquel país, á quien debió grandes obligaciones; y que después
cuando volvió a España, al trabar relaciones con doña Catalina,
retocó la obra y la acomodó al nuevo sugeto." This story of
Cervantes's relations with an anonymous Portuguese lady,
supposed to be the mother of his illegitimate daughter, was
generally accepted till 1895. It was never anything more than a
wild guess and, thanks to Dr. Pérez Pastor, we now know that
there is no truth in it.
On the other hand Sr. D. Ramón León Máinez, in his Vida de
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Cádiz, 1876), pronounces very
emphatically in favour of the current identifications as regards the
hero and the heroine: "En Elicio se ve con mucha perfección la
imagen de Cervantes. Galanteador, tímido, discreto, delicado,
sentidisimo, su amor es tan casto como los pensamientos de su
alma. Adora más que ama; venera más que pretende" (p. 69).
"Ningún otro personaje puede encubrir á Elicio sino Cervantes:
ninguna otra señora puede velarse bajo la figura de Galatea sino
Doña Catalina de Palacios. Son los retratos al natural de dos seres
privilegiados, de dos personas ilustres, de dos amantes que más
ó menos encubiertamente se tributaban el homenaje de su
adoracion." (p. 71.)
It will be observed that Sr. D. Ramón León Máinez takes things
very seriously.
[72] See p. 6 of the present volume.
[73] See the Dorotea, Act 2, sc. 2: "¿Qué mayor riqueza para una
mujer que verse eternizada? Porque la hermosura se acaba, y
nadie que la mire sin ella cree que la tuvo; y los versos de la
alabanza son eternos testigos que viven en su nombre. La Diana
de Montemayor fué una dama de Valencia de Don Juan, junto á
León, y Ezla, su rio, y ella serán eternos por su pluma. Así la
Fílida de Montalvo, y la Galatea de Cervantes, la Camila de
Garcilaso, la Violante de Camoes, la Silvia de Bernaldez, la Filis de
Figueroa, la Leonor de Corte-Real no eran damas imaginarias."
[74] It is conjectured, for instance, that Lenio was intended for
Pedro Liñán de Riaza, and that Daranio was meant for Diego
Durán. These are simple guesses.
[75] I do not profess to have counted the number, which I give
on the authority of Carlos Barroso: see his letter to Sr. Ramón
León Máinez, entitled Mais noticias Cervanticas, in the Crónica de
los Cervantistas (Cádiz, 1872), vol. i., pp. 166 et seqq.
[76] See L'Avthevr a la Bergere Astrée at the beginning of the
First Part of Astrée, I quote from vol. i. of the Paris edition of
1647.
[77] This, however, may be an unintentional slip into realism. But
it has all the effect of humour, and may fairly be bracketed with a
passage from the fourth book of Sidney's Arcadia, quoted by
Professor Rennert (op. cit., p. 11, n. 29): "O my dun-cow, I did
think some evil was towards me ever since the last day thou didst
run away from me, and held up thy tail so pitifully."
[78] See Francisco Martínez Marina's Ensayo histórico-crítico
sobre el origen y progresos de las lenguas: señaladamente del
romance castellano in the Memorias de la Real Academia de la
Historia (Madrid, 1805), vol. iv., pp. 61-62: "Los primeros que se
señalaron, á mi parecer, en esos vicios, que es en preferir su
gusto é ingenio á las reglas del arte antigua, y en consultar más
con su imaginación que con los modelos del excelente lenguaje, y
en pretender hacerse únicos y singulares en su clase por la
novedad de sus plumas, fueron, según yo pienso, y permítaseme
decir lo que ninguno ha dicho tan claramente hasta ahora, los
insignes Mariana y Cervantes.
¡Qué nuevo y extraño es el modo de hablar del primero. ¿En qué
se parece al de nuestros mejores escritores castellanos? ¡Quán
afectado su estilo! ¡artificiosas las arengas! ¡estudiados los
períodos y aun las palabras, y hasta la colocacion de ellas!... Pues
¡y Cervantes quanto ha latinizado! Véase la Galatea"....
[79] In the Second Book of the Galatea, Silveria is said to have
green eyes, Attentive readers will remember that Loaysa has
green eyes in El Celoso extremeño: see vol. viii. of the present
edition (Glasgow, 1902), p. 24. Green would seem to have been a
favourite colour with Cervantes: see a paper entitled Lo Verde,
published by a writer who uses the pseudonym of Doctor
Thebussem, in La España moderna (Madrid, March, 1894), vol.
lxiii., pp. 43-60.
[80] See vol. viii. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 163-
164.
[81] See vol. iii. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 52-
53.
[82] See the last paragraph of the Galatea: "El fin deste amoroso
cuento y historia, con los sucessos de Galercio, Lenio y Gelasia:
Arsindo y Maurisa; Grisaldo, Artandro y Rosaura: Marsilio y Belisa,
con otras cosas sucedidas á los pastores hasta aquí nombrados,
en la segunda parte desta historia se prometen. La qual, si con
apazibles voluntades esta primera viere rescebida, tendrá
atrevimiento de salir con brevedad a ser vista y juzgada de los
ojos y entendimientos de las gentes."
[83] Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 119.
[84] Sr. Asensio y Toledo has suggested (Cervantes y sus obras,
pp. 382-386) that Cervantes's reference in Don Quixote to
Bernardo González de Bobadilla's Nimphas y Pastores de Henares,
a pastoral published at Alcalá in 1587, denotes some irritation
against one whom he possibly regarded as a poacher. What really
happened was that, during the diverting and important scrutiny of
the Knight's library, the Barber came upon González de Bobadilla's
book, together with Bernardo de la Vega's Pastor de Iberia and
Bartolomé López de Enciso's Desengaño de los celos. The Priest
directed the Barber to "hand them over to the secular arm of the
housekeeper, and ask me not why, or we shall never have done."
On the strength of this, some genial contemporaries seem to
have charged Cervantes with being jealous of these obscure
writers. Cp. the passage in the Viaje del Parnaso:—

Ni llamado, ni escogido
Fué el gran pastor de Iberia, el gran BERNARDO
Que DE LA VEGA tiene el apellido.
Fuiste envidioso, descuidado y tardo,
Y á las ninfas de Henares y pastores,
Como á enemigo les tiraste un dardo.
Y tienes tu poetas tan peores
Que estos en tu rebaño, que imagino
Que han de sudar si quieren ser mejores.

(cap. iv. ter. 169-171.)

[85] As Cervantes intended to dedicate the new Don Quixote

(and, presumably, the new Galatea) to the Conde de Lemos, he
may very naturally have thought that it would be out of place to
mention either of these works in the dedication of the Viaje del
Parnaso to Rodrigo de Tapia. But the short address to the reader
gave him the opportunity which no one used more cleverly—when
he had any announcement to make. Moreover, he had another
excellent opening when he referred to the Galatea in the text of
the Viaje del Parnaso:
 Yo corté con mi ingenio aquel vestido
Con que al mundo la hermosa Galatea
Salió para librarse del olvido.

(cap. iv. ter. 5.)

[86] " ...luego yra el gran Persiles, y luego las semanas del jardín,
y luego la segunda parte de la Galatea, si tanta carga pueden
lleuar mis ancianos ombros."
[87] Lemos's liking for the Galatea is mentioned in the Letter
Dedicatory to Persiles y Sigismunda: "si a dicha, por buena
ventura mía, que ya no sería ventura, sino milagro, me diesse el
cielo vida, las (i.e. Semanas del Jardín y Bernardo) verá y con
ellas fin de la Galatea, de quien se està aficionado Vuessa
Excelencia...."
[88] See vol. iv. of the present edition (Glasgow, 1901), p. 8.
[89] See note (2) above.
[90] It may be convenient to point out that the Arcadia
mentioned in the text is a play published in the Trezena Parte de
las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio (Madrid, 1620) and should
not be confounded with Lope's pastoral novel, the Arcadia
(Madrid, 1598). This warning will appear unnecessary to Spanish
scholars. But the bibliography of Lope's works is so vast and
intricate that a slip may easily be made. For example, Mr. Henry
Edward Watts (Life of Miguel de Cervantes, London, 1891, p. 144)
at one time mistook Lope's Dorotea for the Arcadia, assuming the
former to be a pastoral novel. This very curious error is corrected
in the same writer's Miguel de Cervantes, his life & works
(London, 1895, p. 200, n.) with the remark that "if any blunder is
excusable in a writer it is that of not remembering the name of
one of Lope's multitudinous productions." In the same work we
are assured (p. 111) that of all Lope's plays "there are not half-a-
dozen whose names are remembered to-day out of Spain; nor
one character, scene or line which any one not a member of the
Spanish Royal Academy cares to recall." If ignorance has really
reached this point, the caution given in the opening words of this
note may be useful to the general reader.
[91] Sr. D. Ramón León Máinez, in an exuberant paragraph,
sketches out (op. cit., p. 71) the continuation as he believes
Cervantes to have conceived it: "Si más tarde hubiera cumplido
su promesa de estampar la segunda parte de aquella obra
bellísima, que indudablemente dejó escrita al morir, y fué una de
las producciones suyas inéditas que se perdieron; cuán deleitosa
y dulcemente hubiera hablado en ella de la prosecución de sus
amores, de la fina correspondencia en lo sucesivo para con él por
parte de su idolatrada doncella, del allanamiento de dificultades,
del progreso de sus aspiraciones y de la realización de sus
deseos! Allí nos hubiera descrito con la perfección, dulzura y
encanto que él sabíalo hacer, el regocijo de su alma, la felicidad
de su amada, el vencimiento de su contrario, los esmeros y
desvelos de los amigos, el beneplácito de sus deudos, y su bien
logrado casamiento con doncella tan ilustre, de tal hermosura y
virtud adornada. El relato de las bodas estaría hecho en la
segunda parte de Galatea con encantadora sencillez, y con
amenidad incomparable, como trabajo al fin de mano tan maestra
y acreditada."
This prophecy tends to allay one's regret for the non-appearance
of the Galatea; but it is exceedingly possible that Sr. Máinez
knows no more of Cervantes's intentions than the rest of us.
[92] For particulars, see Professor Rennert, op. cit., pp. 64-119.
[93] Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Cádiz, 1876): "La
Galatea de Cervantes á todas las producciones pastoriles
sobrepuja en las dotes inventivas. No mentemos esa
innumerabilidad de composiciones que aparecieron antes y
después de 1584. Comparar con ellas la concepción de Cervantes,
sería ofender la memoria de este autor esclarecido" (p. 67). "La
Galatea no sólo es una obra superior entre todas las pastorales
españolas, mirada en cuanto á la inventiva: es también mejor que
las que antes y después de su aparición se publicaron,
considerada bajo el punto de vista de la forma y de los méritos
literarios" (p. 79). Cp. also a passage on p. 65: "Tal vez ninguno
de los idiomas modernos pueda ofrecer tan preciadas
concepciones como en este género presentan las letras
castellanas." The biographer notes the weak points of Montemôr's
Diana, of Gil Polo's Diana enamorada, of Lope de Vega's Arcadia
(the novel, not the play), of Suárez de Figueroa's Constante
Amarilis, of Valbuena's Siglo de oro, and concludes (p. 68): "el
talento de Cervantes era tan grande, tan superior, tan de eximio y
delicado gusto, que supo evitar todos esos vicios, olvidarse de
todos los defectos, para imitar lo bueno, y ofrecer una obra, en lo
posible, perfecta. Vense en ella acción dramática, vitalidad,
episodios interesantísimos, escenas amenas, gracia, seducción,
hermosura. El ánimo se solaza y dulcemente se regocija al
presenciar tal conjunto de preciosidades."
Sr. Máinez praises (p. 80), as a model of style, a passage in the
First Book of the Galatea, beginning: "En las riberas de Betis,
caudalosísimo río que la gran Vandalia enriquece, nació Lisandro
(que éste es el nombre desdichado mío), y de tan nobles padres,
cual pluguiera al soberano Dios que en más baja fortuna fuera
engendrado." Scherillo points out, however (op. cit., p. cclv), that
this is modelled upon the opening of Sincero's story in the Prosa
settima of Sannazaro's Arcadia: "Napoli (sicome ciaschuno molte
volte può avere udito) è nela più fructifera et dilectevole parte de
Italia, al lito del mare posta, famosa et nobilissima città.... In
quella dunque nacqui io, ove non da oscuro sangue, ma (se dirlo
non mi si disconviene) secondo che per le più celebre parti di
essa città le insignie de' miey predecessori chiaramente
dimostrano: da antichissima et generosa prosapia disceso, era tra
gli altri miei coetanei forse non il minimo riputato."
[94] See August Wilhelm von Schlegel's Sämmtliche Werke
(Leipzig, 1846-1847), vol. i., p. 339 for a sonnet on the Galatea:—

Wie blauer Himmel glänzt auf Thales Grüne

Ein heller Strom fleusst lieblich auf und nieder
Von Berg und Wald verdeckt, erscheint er wieder,
Und spiegelt klar der Landschaft bunte Bühne.

Wer ist die Blonde dort mit sitt'ger Miene?

Wie tönen süss die Leid- und Liebes- Lieder!
Mit ihren Heerden nah'n die Hirtenbrüder,
Und jeder zeigt, wie er der Holden diene.

O Lust und Klang! o linde Aetherlüfte!

Im zarten Sinn sinnreich beschneider Liebe
So Himmlisches, doch Kindlichem Verwandtes.

Fremd wären uns die feinsten Blumendüfte,

Wenn Galatea nicht sie uns beschreibe,
Die Göttliche des göttlichsten Cervantes.

Friedrich von Schlegel is no less rapturous in prose. See his

corybantics in the periodical entitled Athenaeum (Berlin, 1799),
vol. ii., pp. 325-326. After referring to Cervantes as the author of
Don Quixote, Schlegel continues: "der aber doch auch noch andre
ganz ehr-und achtbare Werke erfunden und gebildet hat, die
dereinst wohl ihre Stelle im Allerheiligsten der romantischen Kunst
finden werden. Ich meyne die liebliche und sinnreiche Galatea,
wo das Spiel des menschlichen Lebens sich mit beschneidner
Kunst und leiser Symmetrie zu einem künstlich schönen Gewebe
ewiger Musik und zarter Sehnsucht ordnet, indem es flieht. Es ist
der Blüthekranz der Unschuld und der frühsten noch schücternen
Jugend." He repeated his enthusiastic appreciation in the
following year (Athenaeum, Berlin, 1800, vol. iii., p. 80): "Da
Cervantes zuerst die Feder statt des Degens ergriff, den er nicht
mehr führen konnte, dichtete er die Galatea, eine wunderbar
grosse Composition von ewiger Musik der Fantasie und der Liebe,
den zartesten und lieblichsten aller Romane." ...
[95] See William H. Prescott, Biographical and Critical Miscellanies
(London, 1845), p. 114.
[96] See Miguel de Cervantes, his life & works by Henry Edward
Watts. (London, 1895), p. 88.
[97] See vol. iii., p. xxvi, and vol. vii., p. xiv, n. 2 of the present
edition (Glasgow, 1901-1902). Cp. M. Alfred Morel-Fatio's
interesting monograph, Ambrosio de Salazar et l'étude de
l'espagnol sous Louis XIII. (Paris and Toulouse, 1901).
[98] It may be interesting to read the address A los estudiosos y
amadores de las lenguas estrangeras at the beginning of his
reprint: "Llevome la curiosidad a España el año passado, y
mouiome la misma estando allí, a que yo buscasse libros de gusto
y entretenimiento, y que fuessen de mayor prouecho, y
conformes a lo que es de mi profession, y también para poder
contentar a otros curiosos. Ya yo sabia de algunos que otras
vezes auian sido traydos por acá, pero como tuuiesse
principalmente en mi memoria a este de la Galatea, libro
ciertamente digno (en su género) de ser acogido y leydo de los
estudiosos de la lengua que habla, tanto por su eloquente y claro
estilo, como por la sutil inuencion, y lindo entretenimiento, de
entricadas auenturas y apazibles historias que contiene. De más
desto por ser del author que inuento y escriuio, aquel libro, no sin
razón, intitulado El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote. Busquelo casi
por toda Castilla y aun por otras partes, sin poderle hallar, hasta
que passando a Portugal, y llegando a vna ciudad fuera de
camino llamada Euora, tope con algunos pocos exemplares:
compre vno dellos, mas leyendole vi que la impression, que era
de Lisboa, tenía muchas erratas, no solo en los caracteres, pero
aun faltauan algunos versos y renglones de prosa enteros.
Corregilo y remendelo, lo mejor que supe; también lo he visto en
la presente impression, para que saliesse vn poco más limpio y
correcto que antes. Ruego os pues lo recibays con tan buena
voluntad, como es la que tuue siempre de seruiros, hasta que y
donde yo pueda. C. Oudin."
[99] The following statement occurs in Miguel de Cervantes, his
life & works by Henry Edward Watts (London, 1895), p. 179, n. 1:
"This French ambassador, called by the Spanish commentators
the Duque de Umena, must have been the Duc de Mayenne, who
was sent by the Regent Anne of Austria, to conclude the double
marriage of the Prince of Asturias (afterwards Philip IV.) with
Isabelle de Bourbon, and of Louis XIII. of France with the Infanta
Ana, eldest daughter of Philip III."
The familiar formula—"must have been"—is out of place here.
The necessity does not exist. It seems unlikely that Márquez
Torres can have met the members of Mayenne's suite on February
25, 1615; for Mayenne's mission ended two and a half years
previously. Mayenne and his attachés left Madrid on August 31,
1612: see Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las cosas
sucedidas en la Córte de España, desde 1599 hasta 1614 (Madrid,
1857), p. 493, and François-Tommy Perrens, Les Mariages
espagnols sous le règne de Henri IV. et la régence de Marie de
Médicis, 1602-1615 (Paris, 1869), pp. 403 and 416-417. "Umena"
is, as everybody knows, the old Spanish form of Mayenne's title;
but no Spaniard ever dreamed of applying this title to the
ambassador of whom Márquez Torres speaks. As appears from a
letter (dated February 18, 1615) to "old Æsop Gondomar," the
special envoy to whom Márquez Torres refers was known as "Mr.
de Silier": see Navarrete, op. cit., pp. 493-494. Mr. de Silier was
the brother of Nicolas Brûlart, Marquis de Sillery, Grand
Chancellor of France from September, 1607, to May, 1616. The
special envoy figures in French history as the Commandeur Noel
Brûlart de Sillery: he and his suite reached Madrid on February
15, 1615 (Navarrete, op. cit., p. 493), and they left that city on
March 19, 1615 (Perrens, op. cit., p. 519). One might have hoped
that, as M. de Sillery founded the mission of Sillery near Quebec,
his name would be known to all educated Englishmen. His death
on September 26, 1640, is mentioned by his confessor, St.
Vincent de Paul, in a letter to M. Codoing, dated November 15,
1640. See Lettres de S. Vincent de Paul (Paris, 1882), vol. i., p.
100.
I do not know who the above-mentioned "Regent Anne of
Austria" is supposed to be. The French Regent who sent Mayenne
and Sillery to Spain was Marie de Médicis, mother of Louis XIII.
Her regency ended in 1615. In 1615 Anne of Austria, sister of
Philip IV., became the wife of Louis XIII. Her regency began in
1643. It would almost seem as though the earlier French Queen-
Regent had been mistaken for her future Spanish daughter-in-
law, or, as though the writer were unaware of the fact that the
"Regent Anne of Austria" and the "Infanta Ana" were really one
and the same person. But the whole passage indicates great
confusion of thought, as well as strange misunderstanding of
Navarrete's words and of the document printed by him.
An old anecdote, concerning Cervantes and a French Minister at
the Spanish Court, is inaccurately reproduced in Camoens: his
Life and Lusiads. A Commentary by Richard F. Burton (London,
1881), vol. i., p. 71: "Cervantes, who had been excommunicated,
whispered to M. de Boulay, French Ambassador, Madrid, 'Had it
not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book much
more amusing.'" Sir Richard Burton evidently quoted from
memory, and, as his version is incorrect, it may be advisable to
give the idle tale as it appeared originally in Segraisiana ou
Mélange d'histoire et de littérature. Recueilli des Entretiens de
Monsieur de Segrais de l'Académie Françoise (La Haye, 1722), p.
83: "Monsieur du Boulay avoit accompagné Monsieur * * * dans
son Ambassade d'Espagne dans le tems que Cervantes qui
mourut en 1618 vivoit encore: il m'a dit que Monsieur
l'Ambassadeur fit un jour compliment à Cervantes sur la grande
réputation qu'il s'étoit acquise par son Dom Quixotte, au de-là des
monts: & que Cervantes dit à l'oreille à Monsieur l'Ambassadeur,
sans l'Inquisition j'aurois fait mon Livre beaucoup plus
divertissant."
It will be observed that M. du Boulay was not Ambassador; that
he does not pretend to have heard Cervantes's remark; that he
merely repeats the rumour of what Cervantes was alleged to have
whispered to M. * * * (who may, or may not, be M. de Sillery);
and that he does not mention the Ambassador as his authority for
the story. Moreover, Jean Regnauld de Segrais was born in 1624,
and died in 1701. Assuming that he was no more than thirty
when he met M. du Boulay, this would mean that the story was
told nearly forty years after the event. If the volume entitled
Segraisiana was compiled towards the end of Segrais' life, we are
at a distance of some eighty years from the occurrence. In either
case, there is an ample margin for errors of every kind.
[100] Gregorio Mayáns y Siscar suggests (op. cit., vol. i., pp. 28-
29) that the Aprobación, though signed by Márquez Torres, was
really written by Cervantes himself: "57 ... Pensarà el Letor que
quien dijo èsto, fué el Licenciado Màrquez Torres; no fué sino el
mismo Miguèl de Cervantes Saavedra: porque el estilo del
Licenciado Màrquez Torres, es metaforico, afectadillo, i
pedantesco; como lo manifiestan los Discursos Consolatorios que
escriviò a Don Christoval de Sandoval i Rojas, Duque de Uceda en
la Muerte de Don Bernardo de Sandoval i Rojas, su hijo, primer
Marquès de Belmonte; i al contrario el estilo de la Aprovacion, es
puro, natural, i cortesano, i tan parecido en todo al de Cervantes,
que no ai cosa en él que le dístinga. El Licenciado Màrquez era
Capellán, i Maestro de Pages de Don Bernardo Sandoval i Rojas,
Cardenal, Arzobispo de Toledo, Inquisidor General; Cervantes era
mui favorecido del mismo. Con que ciertamente eran entrambos
amigos.
"58. Supuesta la amistad, no era mucho, que usase Cervantes de
semejante libertad. Contèntese pues el Licenciado Màrquez
Torres, con que Cervantes le hizo partícipe de la gloria de su
estilo. I veamos que moviò a Cervantes a querer hablar, como
dicen, por boca de ganso. No fué otro su designio, sino
manifestar la idea de su Obra, la estimacion de ella, i de su Autor
en las Naciones estrañas, i su desvalimiento en la propia."
Navarrete protests (op. cit., pp. 491-493) against the theory put
forward by Mayáns, notes that Márquez Torres published his
Discursos in 1626 when culteranismo was in full vogue, and
contends that he may have written in much better style eleven
years earlier.
It would be imprudent to give great importance to arguments
based solely on alleged differences of style. That Márquez Torres
was in holy orders, and that he was appointed chaplain to a
prelate so virtuous and clear-sighted as the Cardinal-Archbishop
of Toledo are strong presumptions in his favour. Nothing that is
known of him tends to discredit his testimony. It would be most
unjustifiable to assume of any one in his responsible position that
he was capable of inventing an elaborate story from beginning to
end, and of publishing a tissue of falsehoods to the world. Nor
can we lightly suppose that Cervantes would lend himself to such
trickery. The probability surely is that there is some good
foundation for the anecdote, though perhaps the tale may have
lost nothing in the telling.
Still, the history of literature furnishes analogous examples of
persons who tampered with preliminary matter—dedications and
the like—and stuffed these pages with praises of themselves. Le
Sage evidently refers to a recent incident in real life when he
interpolates the following passage into the revised text of Le
Diable boiteux (Rouen, 1728), pp. 37-38: "A propos d'Epîtres
Dédicatoires, ajoûta le Démon, il faut que je vous raporte un trait
assez singulier. Une femme de la Cour aiant permis qu'on lui
dédiât un ouvrage, en voulut voir la Dédicace avant qu'on
l'imprimât, & ne s'y trouvant pas assez bien loüée à son gré, elle
prit la peine d'en composer une de sa façon & de l'envoier à
l'Auteur pour la mettre à la tête de son ouvrage."
A somewhat similar instance is afforded by La Rochefoucauld,
who asked Madame de Sablé to review his Pensées in the Journal
des Savants. The lady thoughtfully submitted the manuscript of
her article to the author, and the result is recorded by Hippolyte
Cocheris, Table méthodique et analytique des articles du Journal
des Savants depuis sa réorganisation en 1816 jusqu'en 1858
inclusivement précédée d'une notice historique sur ce journal
depuis sa fondation jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, 1860), pp. vi.-vii.
"Larochefoucauld prit au mot Mme de Sablé; il usa très-librement
de son article, il supprima les critiques, garda les éloges, et le fit
insérer dans le Journal des Savants (1665, p. 116 et suiv.), ainsi
amendé et pur de toute prétention à l'impartialité."
[101] The full title of d'Urfé's book is L'Astrée, où par plusieurs
histoires et sous personnes de bergers et d'autres sont déduits les
divers effects de l'Honneste Amitié. The date of publication has
long been doubtful; it is now, apparently, established that the
First Part, consisting of twelve books, was originally issued in
1607. Only one copy of this edition is known to exist. For a
description of this unique volume, discovered by M. Edwin Trossat
at Augsburg in 1869, see the Catalogue des livres du baron
James de Rothschild (Paris, 1887), vol. ii. p. 197, no. 1527.
D'Urfé had been preceded by Nicolas de Montreux who, under the
anagrammatic pseudonym of Olenix du Mont-Sacré, had
published the five volumes entitled Les Bergeries de Juliette at
Paris between 1585 and 1598: see Heinrich Koerting, Geschichte
des französichen Romans im XVII. Jahrhundert (Oppeln und
Leipzig), vol. i., pp. 66-68. But, though Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac
declares (Œuvres complètes, Paris, 1665, vol. ii. p. 634) that Les
Bergeries de Juliette was long preferred to Astrée by French
provincials during the seventeenth century, Montreux found so
little favour in Paris, that he abandoned pastoralism, and took to
writing a history of the Turks instead: see Émile Roy, La Vie et les
œuvres de Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny, 1602-1674 (Paris,
1891), pp. 115-116. It was d'Urfé who made the pastoral
fashionable. Part of his immediate vogue may be attributed to the
fact that his Euric, Galatée, Alcidon and Daphnide were supposed
to represent Henri IV., Marguerite de Valois, the Duc de
Bellegarde, and the Princesse de Conti. These dubious
identifications, however, would not explain the enthusiasm of
readers so different in taste and character, and so far apart in
point of time, as St. François de Sales, Madame de Sévigné,
Prévost (the author of Manon Lescaut), and Rousseau. There is
no accounting for tastes, and perhaps Márquez Torres's polite
Frenchman sincerely admired the Galatea; but indeed he had left
a far better pastoral at home. Astrée greatly exceeds the Galatea
in achievement, importance, and significance. M. Paul Morillot is
within the mark in saying: "L'Astrée de d'Urfé est vraiment notre
premier roman; elle est l'ancêtre, la source de tous les autres" (Le
Roman en France, p. 1). He perhaps grants too much by his
admission (p. 27) that "de nos jours L'Astrée est tout à fait
oubliée." A useful Index de "L'Astrée" by Saint-Marc Girardin
proves that the book has had passionate admirers down to our
time: see the Revue d'Histoire littéraire de la France (Paris, 1898),
vol. v., pp. 458-483 and 629-646. The Index has an interesting
prefatory note by M. Paul Bonnefon.
[102] Besides (1) the princeps, published at Alcalá de Henares by
Juan Gracián in 1585 there are the following editions of the
Galatea: (2) Lixboa, Impressa con licencia de la Sancta
Inquisición, 1590; (3) Paris, Gilles Robinot, 1611; (4) Valladolid,
Francisco Fernández de Cordona, 1617; (5) Baeza, Juan Bautista
Montoya, 1617; (6) Lisboa, Antonio Álvarez, 1618; (7) Barcelona,
Sebastián de Cormellas, 1618; (8) Madrid, Juan de Zúñiga
(Francisco Manuel de Mena), 1736; (9) Madrid, la Viuda de
Manuel Fernández, 1772; (10) Madrid, Antonio de Sancha, 1784;
(11) Madrid, Imprenta de Vega, 1805; (12) Madrid, los hijos de
Da. Catalina Piñuela, 1829; (13) Paris, Baudry, 1835; (14) Paris,
Baudry, 1841; (15) Madrid, Rivadeneyra, 1846; (16) Madrid,
Rivadeneyra, 1863; (17) Madrid, Gaspar y Roig, 1866; (18)
Madrid, Álvarez hermanos, 1875; (19) Madrid, Nicolás Moya,
1883.
It may be well to state that in Nos. (12), (13), (14), (15), (16)
and (17) the Galatea is not printed separately, but forms part of
collections of Cervantes's works.
It has hitherto been uncertain whether No. (5) really existed or
not. It is noted by Nicolás Antonio (op. cit., vol. ii., p. 105). This
Baeza edition is also mentioned under the heading of Romans
historiques by Gordon de Percel who, in all likelihood, simply
copied the note from Antonio: see De l'usage des romans où l'on
fait voir leur utilité & leurs differens caracteres avec une
Bibliothèque des romans, accompagnée de remarques critiques
sur leur choix et leurs éditions (Amsterdam, 1734), vol. ii., p. 108.
Despite the imprint on the title-page, this work was actually
issued at Rouen: see a valuable article in the Revue d'Histoire
littéraire de la France (Paris, 1900, vol. vii., pp. 546-589) by M.
Paul Bonnefon who describes Gordon de Percel—the pseudonym
of the Abbé Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy—as an odious example of
an odious type, carrying on the métier d'espion sous couleur
d'érudit.
There can now, apparently, be no doubt that an edition of the
Galatea was printed at Baeza in 1617, for Rius (op. cit., vol. i., p.
104) states that he possesses a letter from the Marqués de Jerez,
dated September 14, 1890, in which the writer explicitly says a
copy of this edition was stolen from him at Irún. I do not at all
understand what Rius can mean by the oracular sentence which
immediately precedes this statement: "No tengo noticia de
ejemplar alguno, ni sé que nadie la (i.e. la edición) haya visto."
It has been remarked in the text of this Introduction (p. xxxv)
that Cervantes applies the word discreta with distressing
frequency to his heroine and her sister shepherdesses. The
repetition of this adjective appears to have produced a
considerable impression on the Lisbon publisher, Antonio Álvarez,
for his edition—No. (6) in the above list—is entitled La discreta
Galatea. No. (5) is also said to be entitled La discreta Galatea. But
on this point no one, save the Marqués de Jerez de los
Caballeros, can speak with any certainty.
[103] Koerting (op. cit., vol. i., p. 65) states that d'Audignier
translated the Galatea into French in 1618. This is a mistake.
Koerting was probably thinking of the Novelas exemplares. Six of
these (La Española inglesa, Las dos Doncellas, La Señora
Cornelia, La Ilustre fregona, El Casamiento engañoso, and the
Coloquio de los perros) were translated by d'Audignier in 1618,
the remaining tales being rendered by Rosset.
[104] Now best remembered, perhaps, by Giovanni Martini's
setting of the romance—
Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment—
which, sung by that incomparable artist, Madame Pauline Viardot-
Garcia (sister of Malibran, and wife of the well-known Spanish
scholar, Louis Viardot), delighted our fathers and mothers. It may
be worth noting that the song is assigned to the goatherd in
Célestine: Nouvelle Espagnole. Readers of contemporary literature
will remember the adaptation of the opening words by the Baron
Desforges in M. Paul Bourget's Mensonges.
[105] Causeries du lundi (Troisième édition, Paris), vol. iii., p. 236.
Joubert's appreciation of Florian's talent is practically the same as
Sainte-Beuve's. In his Pensées (titre xxiv., art. xxxi.), he expresses
himself thus, concerning Florian's extremely free rendering of Don
Quixote, first published in 1799: "Cervantes a, dans son livre, une
bonhomie bourgeoise et familière, à laquelle l'élégance de Florian
est antipathique. En traduisant Don Quichotte, Florian a changé le
mouvement de l'air, la clef de la musique de l'auteur original. Il a
appliqué aux épanchements d'une veine abondante et riche les
sautillements et les murmures d'un ruisseau: petits bruits, petits
mouvements, très-agréables sans doute quand il s'agit d'un filet
d'eau resserré qui roule sur des cailloux, mais allure insupportable
et fausse quand on l'attribue à une eau large qui coule à plein
canal sur un sable très-fin."
[106] Causeries du lundi (Troisième Edition, Paris), vol. iii., p. 238.
See also M. Anatole France, La Vie littéraire (Paris, 1889), p. 194.
"Longtemps, longtemps après la mort de Florian, Rose Gontier,
devenue la bonne mère Gontier, amusait ses nouvelles camarades
comme une figure d'un autre âge. Fort dévote, elle n'entrait
jamais en scène sans faire deux ou trois fois dans la coulisse le
signe de la croix. Toutes les jeunes actrices se donnaient le plaisir
de lutiner celle qui jouait si au naturel Ma tante Aurore; elles
l'entouraient au foyer et lui refaisaient bien souvent la même
question malicieuse:
—Mais est-ce bien possible, grand'maman Gontier, est-il bien vrai
que M. de Florian vous battait?
Et, pour toute réponse et explication, toute retenue qu'elle était,
la bonne maman Gontier leur disait dans sa langue du dix-
huitième siècle:
—C'est, voyez-vous, mes enfants, que celui-là ne payait pas."
[107] Rius (op. cit., vol. ii., 319) mentions three editions of
Pellicer's translation, the latest being dated 1830. A reprint is said
to have been issued at Paris in 1841. On p. xvii of the 1814
edition—the only one within my reach—Casiano Pellicer suggests
that Cervantes introduced Diego Durán into the Galatea under the
name of Daranio: "Puedese presumir que el Daranio, cuyas bodas
refiere tan menudamente, sea Diego Durán, á quien supone
natural de Toledo ó de su tierra, y alaba también en su canto de
Calíope de gran poeta."
[108] The title of this arrangement is Los Enamorados ó Galatea y
sus bodas. Historia pastoral comenzada por Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra, Abreviada después, y continuada y últimamente
concluida por D. Cándido María Trigueros (Madrid, 1798).
[109] The only translations of the Galatea are the following:—
English (by Gordon Willoughby James Gyll), London,
1867, 1892.
German (by F. Sigismund), Zwickau, 1830; (by A. Keller
and F. Notter), Stuttgart, 1840; (by F. M. Duttenhofer),
Stuttgart, 1841.
[110] Gyll's name is very naturally omitted from the Dictionary of
National Biography. His publications, so far as I can trace them,
are as follows:
(1) The Genealogy of the family of Gylle, or Gill, of Hertfordshire,
Essex and Kent, illustrated by wills and other documents (London,
1842). This pamphlet is an enlarged reprint of a contribution to
Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vol. viii.
(2) A Tractate on Language (London, 1859): a second revised
edition appeared in 1860.
(3) History of the Parish of Wraysbury, Ankerwycke Priory, and
Magna Charta Island; with the History of Horton, and the Town of
Colnbrook, Bucks. (London, 1862.)
(4) Galatea: A pastoral romance. By Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra. Literally translated from the Spanish (London, 1867). A
posthumous reprint was issued in 1892.
(5) The Voyage to Parnassus: Numantia, a Tragedy; The
Commerce of Algiers, by Cervantes. Translated from the
Spanish.... (London, 1870).
Concerning the writer I have gathered the following particulars:
they are to some extent derived from statements scattered up
and down his works. For the references to Notes and Queries I
am particularly indebted to Mr. W. R. Morfill, the distinguished
Reader in Slavonic at the University of Oxford.
Our Gyll was born on August 1, 1803 (History of Wraysbury, p.
100), being the third son of William Gill (at one time an officer in
the army), and the grandson of a City alderman. William Gill, the
elder, was a partner in the firm of Wright, Gill, and Dalton,
wholesale stationers in Abchurch Lane, London. He was elected
alderman in 1781, served as Sheriff in 1781-1782, was appointed
Treasurer of Christ's Hospital in 1784-1785, and in due course
became Lord Mayor for 1788-1789. He died in the Treasurer's
house at Christ's Hospital on March 26, 1798, being then seventy-
four years of age: his brother-in-law and partner, Thomas Wright,
died on April 9, 1798. An obituary note in The Gentleman's
Magazine (vol. lxviii., p. 264) states that the elder William Gill
"was a respectable tradesman and died immensely rich." The
younger William Gill died on February 16, 1806, at the age of
thirty-one. I do not know to what school Gordon Willoughby
James Gill was sent. He speaks of himself as "a member of the
University of Oxford" (A Tractate on Language, First Edition, p.
iii.). This is confirmed by the appended note in the Matricula
Book, which am enabled to print through the kindness of my
friend Mr. H. Butler Clarke:—
"From the Register of Matriculations of the University of Oxford.
1822 Jan. 15. Coll. Pemb. Gordon Willoughby Jacobus Gill, 18,
Gulielmi, de par. S. Mariæ bonæ Arm. fil. 3ius.
A true extract, made 30 Jany., 1903 by T. Vere Bayne, Keeper of
the Archives."
Unfortunately, this entry is not an autograph: all the other entries
on the page which contains it are, as the Keeper of the Archives
informs me, in the same handwriting. The Oxford University
Calendar for 1823 gives (p. 275) our author's names in this form
and sequence: James Willoughby Gordon Gill. This form and
order are repeated in the Oxford University Calendar for the years
1824 and 1825. In the alphabetical index to the Calendar for
1823-1824-1825 this Pembroke undergraduate is entered as: Gill,
James G. W. As the editors of the semi-official Calendar derive
their information from the College authorities, we may take it
that, from 1822 to 1825 inclusive, the future author passed as
James Gill at Pembroke, and amongst those who knew him best.
It cannot be supposed that the Master and Fellows of Pembroke
made a wrong return for three consecutive years, nor that they
wilfully reversed the order of Gill's Christian names with the
express object of annoying him. Had they done either of these
things, Gill was the very man to protest energetically: his conduct
in later years snows that he was punctilious in these matters.
However, it is right to bear in mind that the Matricula Book gives
Gill's Christian names in the same order as they appear on his
title-pages. I have failed to obtain any details of his career at
Pembroke. Mr. Wood, the present Librarian at Pembroke, states
that there is "no proper record" of the Commoners at that College
in Gill's time. On this point I have only to say that the poet
Thomas Lovell Beddoes was in residence at Pembroke with Gill,
and that information concerning Beddoes's undergraduate days is
apparently not lacking. Possibly more careful research might
discover some trace of Gill at Oxford. He seems to have taken no
degree, and to have left no memory or tradition at Pembroke. He
himself tells us (A Tractate on Language, First Edition, p. iii) that
when at Oxford "he formed an acquaintance with a gentleman of
considerable erudition, but not of either University, who had made
the English tongue his peculiar care." To this association we owe
A Tractate on Language, and, perhaps, the peculiarities of style
which Gill afterwards developed. But, in the latter respect, a
serious responsibility may attach to Milton; for, in his Tractate, Gill
refers to the poet and laments (p. 224) that, at the period of
which he speaks, "the Allegro and Penseroso were confined to the
closets of the judicious." The inference is that Gill modelled his
diction on both these poems.
His name disappears from the Oxford University Calendar in 1826.
He visited Mexico in 1832 (History of Wraysbury, p. 49), and
perhaps during this journey he picked up a queer smattering of
Spanish. On August 29, 1839, he married "Anne Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Edward Bowyer-Smijth, Bt.," and this seems to
have given a new direction to what he calls his "studious
tendencies."
The founder of his wife's family was plain William Smith, who died
in 1626; this William Smith's son developed into Thomas Smyth,
and died a baronet in 1668; Sir Thomas Smyth's great-great-
grandson, the seventh baronet, was known as Sir William Smijth,
and died in 1823. Gill's father-in-law,—Vicar of Camberwell and
Chaplain to George IV.—was the ninth baronet. On June 10, 1839,
he assumed the name of Bowyer by royal license, and was styled
Sir Edward Bowyer-Smijth. In this the Vicar was practically
following the lead of his younger brother, a captain in the 10th
Hussars, who assumed the name of Windham by royal license at
Toulouse on May 22, 1823, and thenceforth signed himself Joseph
Smijth-Windham. The contagion infected Gill.
After his marriage to Miss Bowyer-Smijth, third daughter of the
ninth baronet, Gill became a diligent student of genealogy,
heraldry and county-history. It might be excessive to say that he
was attacked by the folie des grandeurs; but he does appear to
have felt that, since the Smiths had blossomed into Bowyer-
Smijths and Smijth-Windhams, a man of his ability was bound to
do something of the same kind for the ancient house of Gill. And
something was done: a great deal, in fact. The first-fruits of Gill's
enterprise are garnered in The genealogy of the family of Gylle,
or Gill, of Hertfordshire, Essex and Kent, illustrated by wills and
other documents which he printed in 1842. At this first stage he
acted with praiseworthy caution, signing his pamphlet with the
initials G. G. If he was ever known by so vulgar a name as James
—the name of the patron-saint of Spain—he had evidently got rid
of it by 1842. At Pembroke in 1823 his initials were J. G. W. G.,
according to the Oxford University Calendar: nineteen years later
they were G. G. This advancement passed unnoticed, and the
delighted investigator continued his researches. These were so
successful that, according to Gill's shy confession wrung from him
long afterwards, "as the old annals, parish registers, tombs, wills.
&c., wrote our name Gyll, we, by sign manual, returned to that
orthography in 1844": (see Notes and Queries, March 24, 1866,
vol. ix., p. 250). The English of this avowal is bad, but the
meaning is clear. Henceforward Gill is transfigured into Gyll.
These easy victories led him to enlarge his plan of campaign, and
thus we find in the 1846 edition of Burke's Landed Gentry the
pedigree of the family of Gyll of Wyrardisbury, which contains the
statement that on October 13, 1794, the head of the house (of
the Gylls of Wyrardisbury), "William Gyll, Esquire, Captain 2nd
Regiment Life Guards, and Equerry to H. R. H. the Duke of
Sussex" married "Lady Harriet Flemyng, only child of the Right
Hon. Hamilton Flemyng, last Earl of Wigtoun, and had issue" our
author, and other children with whom we are not concerned here.
According to George Lipscomb's History and Antiquities of the
County of Buckingham (London, 1847, vol. iv., p. 605, n. 1.), it
was on December 17, 1844, that "Her Majesty was pleased ... to
permit the family of Gyll of Wyrardisbury, to resume the ancient
orthography of their name." The enthusiastic Gyll (as we must
now call him) interpreted the privilege in a generous fashion. It
galled the patrician to think that his grandfather had been a lowly
alderman, and to know that this lamentable fact was on record at
Wraysbury. There were epitaphs in Wraysbury Church describing
his grandfather as "Alderman of the City of London"; describing
his father as "only son of Alderman Gill"; describing his aunt, Mrs.
Paxton, as "daughter of William Gill, Esq., Alderman of the City of
London." Our Gyll had all these odious references to the
aldermanship removed; in their stead he introduced more high-
sounding phrases; he interpolated the statement that his
grandfather was "of the family of Gyll of Wyddial, Herts"; and on
all three monuments he took it upon himself to change Gill into
Gyll. The changes were made clumsily and unintelligently, but one
cannot have everything. Gordon Gyll was indefatigable in his
pious work, and, within three years, he somehow induced
Lipscomb (op. cit., vol. iv., p. 604) to insert a pedigree connecting
the family of "Gyll of Buckland and Wyddial Hall, co. Herts,
Yeoveny Hall, co. Middlesex, and Wyrardisbury Hall, co. Bucks,"
with certain Gylls established in Cambridgeshire during the reign
of Edward I. It is impossible not to admire the calm courage with
which the still, strong man swept facts, tombstones, epitaphs,
and obstacle's of all kinds from the path of his nobility.
His proceedings passed unnoticed during fourteen happy years.
At last attention was drawn to them in Notes and Queries (May
11, 1861, p. 365) by a correspondent who signed himself "A
Stationer." "A Stationer" remarked sarcastically on the erasure of
all references to the aldermanship from the monuments in
Wraysbury Church, noted that the dead Gills had been glorified
into Gylls, deplored Gordon Gyll's ingratitude towards the
ancestors to whom he owed everything, censured Gyll's conduct
as "silly," and protested against such tampering as improper. The
editor of Notes and Queries supported "A Stationer's" view on the
ground that monuments had hitherto been accepted as testimony
in suits at law, and that their evidential value would be completely
destroyed if Gyll's example were generally followed. Gyll put on
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