Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies

This slim volume can be likened to an archaeological sandwich. The meat is a cross-cultural and longitudinal study of two generationally separated Mohawk settlement families and two Irish settlement families in southern [End Page 413] Ontario in the nineteenth century. Using archaeological and historical data, Matthew A. Beaudoin spins a story for each of these four families during a period of colonial settlement and what anthropologists used to call culture contact. The bread wrapped around these stories is an argument against the traditional dichotomization by historical archaeologists into "Euro-Canadian" and "Indigenous" or "First Nations" peoples. Still more damning is his charge that historical archaeologists, rather than being the handmaidens to history, are the whores (my choice of word) to global capitalism and the reification of the rise of that capitalism as the story worth telling, to the exclusion of any other. Beaudoin intentionally oversimplifies conventional storytelling to make his point: "the homogenous white European was a capitalist animal who strived to obtain objects to better his/her social standing, and successfully imposed that value system on all others" (25). The introduction and chapter 1 present the theoretical underpinnings of the book and a dissection and critique of the archaeology of colonialism.

Chapter 2 tells the stories of the Mohawks in southeastern Ontario through two places, the Davisville Settlement and Mohawk Village. The Davisville Settlement was a Methodist Mohawk community established between 1785 and 1822 on the north side of the Grand River in Ontario. It was established in response to the town of Mohawk Village and the latter's embrace of alcohol and social changes. Established in 1784 by Joseph Brant, Mohawk Village was a settlement for the Six Nations Iroquois. Thomas Davis, a highly regarded Mohawk chief (and the cousin of Joseph Brant), became the village leader.

Archaeological work at Davisville revealed two distinct components, an earlier occupation dating 1800—1830 and a later one dating 1830—1860. Analysis of the components focused on ceramics and faunal remains. Ceramic analysis divided vessels into plates, bowls, and cups reflecting solid meals, liquid meals, and teas respectively. Each meal style reflected differing dining etiquettes. Faunal analysis revealed assemblages between domesticated and wild mammals. Pig, chicken, cow, and sheep largely represented domesticated species, and white-tailed deer dominated wild species.

Mohawk Village was on an oxbow of the Grand River three miles downstream from Davisville. The residence of Joseph Brant, it was an administrative center for the Six Nations. As with Davisville, archeologists identified two components, also 1800—1830 and 1830—1860, but representing two generations of the indigenous Powless family. Artifactual analyses also considered foodways through ceramics and faunal remains. Beaudoin noted [End Page 414] differences between the two indigenous communities, notably the presence of a Mohawk elite at Mohawk Village versus an apparent rejection of that kind of status by residents at Davisville. This rejection may have been tempered by the Methodist approach to living at Davisville.

Chapter 3 completes the four stories by studying the McKinney family at the Covenanter and McKinney sites, and the Odlum family at the Odlum Site, both technically Irish immigrants, both in southern Ontario but northeast from the Grand River. Alexander McKinney, the Protestant patriarch of the family, emigrated from Ireland in the 1830s and settled in Ontario by 1834 as a non-elite farmer. The components at the two McKinney family sites date between 1834 and 1887, when the son of the patriarch, Alexander McKinney II, died. Archaeologists analyzed the artifacts in the same manner as the Mohawk assemblages, with a focus on meal styles for ceramics, and diet through faunal analysis. The Odlum family emigrated from Protestant Ireland in the late 1820s, settling in Peel County, Ontario, by 1831. The Odlum site was the home of two generations with most of the assemblage bracketed between 1830 and the late 1850s. Unlike the McKinneys, the Odlums were British elites. The patriarch, Abraham Odlum, was born to a prosperous farming family in Tullamore and later served as a British naval officer. Between the two families with Irish connections, their engagement with their Irish identity, as reflected in ceramic choices, varied over time and by degree. Interestingly, Beaudoin demonstrates a shift in the Odlum family from British to Irish over time, conjecturing that by the 1850s elite status could be separate from British colonial designations and blended with the emerging Canadian society. Being Irish by that point would not perhaps have been a social "problem." The non-elite McKinneys stayed (Protestant) Irish, although bias against Catholic Irish earlier on kept the McKinneys more subdued in their heritage at the beginning.

In chapter 4, Beaudoin brings all analyses together to demonstrate that despite an attempt by archaeologists to divide colonizers and colonized into clusters based on their artifact assemblages it's complicated. All households used plates, bowls, and teas within their meal conventions, so there is a certain commonality to all of them (98). Furthermore, the variation within the indigenous and settler categories was as large as the variation between, leaving the ability to create such clusters "wanting" (99). When the identities of the individuals who occupied these sites are known and the contexts established, the stories told can be nuanced and enriched. Without those contexts, the archaeologist can merrily assume what they will about the [End Page 415] households and reify and flatten the stories about these differing groups. Ultimately, Beaudoin argues that to go beyond "White colonizer, Black enslaved, Indigenous acculturated or erased, and Other absent" we need to deconstruct these categories by looking at both the heterogeneous experiences and our own research biases (119).

As to the bread of the sandwich, no one would accuse the book of being an easy read, and some of the polemic is trying. Many of my peers might be amused to know that they are "tools of the colonial nation-state whose default is to maintain the status quo" (7) and whose professional qualifications, research priorities, and even what constitutes a site are controlled by state administrators rather than practicing archaeologists (6). As one of those former state administrators in Pennsylvania, I gave instructions to let every archaeological site have a chance at being important and worthy of protection. The process of discovery and interpretation was intentionally conservative, meaning that the worry was always over whether important information or even any information was at risk of being lost or overlooked.

It might be easy to dismiss Beaudoin's postcolonial arguments, except the analysis and interpretation of the Mohawk and Irish archaeological record that form the core of the book expose a weakness in historical and archaeological research in Pennsylvania and likely elsewhere. When you look at Beaudoin's example of the material culture of both Mohawk and Irish settler sites from the nineteenth century, there is more overlap than distinction. Unless you have the solid historical evidence of who the people are, deriving conclusions from material remains alone could be more than a little problematic. Often in archaeological work the historical documentation can be limited, fragmented, contradictory, or altogether missing. When all you have are stones and bones or, in the case of historical sites, bones, metal, glass, and ceramics, there is only so much of a face you can put on the inhabitants. If your default face is white, that is the palette you tend to paint with, whether there is a basis in fact or not.

Does this matter? Throughout the eighteenth century, from east to west, contact by settlers and colonists with indigenous populations appears to have resulted in their systematic removal to Ohio Country and points west. By the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the 1788 Fort Harmar Treaty, authorities extirpated Native Americans from the commonwealth.¹ All historical archaeology thereafter within Pennsylvania, with the exception of the Cornplanter Tract, could have reasonably been considered Euro-American, or some equivalent. [End Page 416]

This is actually unlikely. It is highly improbable that all indigenous peoples left the commonwealth. Some communities recessed into the back woods, striving to be left alone. Some households emerged as white or freed Black to the larger colonial (in Beaudoin's usage for colonialism) populace, masking their heritage in order to integrate into the larger economy. To the archaeologist wandering around a homestead or village site, it may appear to be another white colonial occupation and, given Beaudoin's analysis, it is certainly possible that the artifact assemblage could reflect that assessment. Unless good historical documentation is present, why would anyone think otherwise? Frankly, most archaeologists I know would give their eye-teeth to work on a postcontact non—Euro-American site. Recent studies of a freed Black community at Pandenarium in Mercer County has generated a lot of excitement in the archaeological community.² Existence of a Muslim charm at Fort Shirley has also generated much discussion.³

Telling a richer and deeper story of culture conflict and adaptation and, dare we say, agency, in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Pennsylvania is within our abilities. With the exception of Barry Kent's excellent work on the Susquehannocks on the lower Susquehanna River, there has been little archaeology done on historic indigenous sites.⁴ The vast majority of work in the last one hundred years has been on French and Indian War "forts" and other evidence supporting the colonial presence on the frontier, while known and recorded indigenous villages receive a state historical marker and little else. So much for setting the research agenda, per Beaudoin. Telling the history of Pennsylvania has also likely been skewed. It is researchers like Daniel Richter, Angela Jaillet-Wentling, Samantha Taylor, and Jonathan Burns who are pushing off the well-traveled road to see what lays beyond. Beaudoin's little book might be able to point the way. [End Page 417]