1 Introduction
Consumption patterns are informed by context, so, when studying indigenous consumption of European items, it is necessary to consider how colonial contexts varied (Dietler 1998; Lightfoot and Simmons 1998; Oland 2014, 646). Much of what has been written about the indigenous consumption of European artifacts during the early period of Spanish colonialism of the Caribbean has focused on the patterns observed at colonial settler sites such as La Isabela (Deagan 1988; Deagan and Cruxent 2000a,b), Puerto Real (Deagan 1995), and Concepción de la Vega (Ortega and Fondeur 1978) on Hispaniola or encomienda sites such as El Chorro de Maíta on Cuba (Valcárcel Rojas 2016). At these sites, the indigenous occupants and the Spanish lived and worked in close proximity under colonial scrutiny in mines, workshops, fields, and households (Kulstad-González 2015; Valcárcel Rojas et al. 2013).
Indigenous sites located on the geographic and political frontiers of colonial settlements also offer insights about local consumption of European goods during the early period of Spanish colonization. These communities were not subject to the same level of regulation as those in the colonial centers and their autonomy offered different opportunities for indigenous agency (Lightfoot and Martinez 1995; Oland 2014). In some cases, local peoples did not have direct contact with the Spanish, but acquired European objects by way of down-the-line trade. Such was the case of El Cabo, an indigenous site in southeastern Dominican Republic, which did not experience direct colonial control during the early years of colonization of Hispaniola (Hofman et al. 2014; Samson 2010; Valcárcel Rojas et al. 2013).
The Bahama archipelago, home to the Lucayans, the indigenous occupants of these islands, offers another opportunity to view native consumption of European goods during the early period of Spanish colonization. The Spanish regarded the Bahama Islands as useless, referring to them as islas inútiles (Anderson-Córdova 2017, 131) and did not establish settler communities or institute the encomienda system here as they did elsewhere in the Antilles. With the decimation of many of its indigenous inhabitants and the formal establishment of the encomienda system on Hispaniola in 1503, the Spanish
Studies have shown that European objects were integrated differently and for a variety of different reasons into indigenous systems of use. In areas falling under Spanish colonial rule, indigenous people were selective in what European objects they incorporated, accepting them at varying rates or not at all (Charlton 1968; Cobb 2003; Rodríguez-Alegría 2008; Rodríguez-Alegría et al. 2015). The scarcity of Spanish objects at En Bas Saline, a Taíno site located adjacent to the early colonial site of Puerto Real, for example, has been attributed to native “indifference to and rejection” of Spanish culture (Deagan 2004).
In colonial contexts, indigenous and European items were often transformed physically and given new meanings and uses as they crossed cultural borders (sensuKopytoff 1986; Thomas 1991). Thomas (1991) and Cipolla (2017, 18) note, however, that such physical modification of European objects in indigenous contexts occurred infrequently. In his study of the Brothertown Indians of New England, Cipolla (2013, 2017, 18) observed no physical alterations of European-made artifacts. In the Caribbean, indigenous objects were changed occasionally to resemble European items, while some European objects were modified to look like native objects (Deagan 1988; Hofman et al. 2014; Rouse 1942). In short, there is limited evidence for such modifications. Cusick (1991, 452) has suggested that we begin to see significant “Europeanization” of or other changes in indigenous material culture only with the relocation of the Taíno (indigenous populations) to towns or encomiendas, contexts where cultures experienced major changes in social structure and cultural coherence. For example, native pottery did not show any evidence for the incorporation of Spanish elements at En Bas Saline (Cusick 1991). In contrast, the indigenous pottery at Puerto Real exhibited European attributes with the creation of the Spanish settlement (Deagan 1988, 214). Such hybrid forms retained traditional uses or were given new meanings or new uses. Keehnen’s chapter (this volume) adds to the database of these kinds of objects in Hispaniola. Other items remained unchanged physically, but given new purposes, and assigned new meanings, as Valcárcel Rojas (2016) observed at a number of sites in Cuba, such as El Chorro de Maíta. Finally, European items, such as glass beads, mirrors,
In addition to studying context, we are also interested in the length of time it took for European objects to be modified or assimilated into indigenous contexts in early colonial situations. In our study, we examine a time frame of less than 40 years (1492–1530). In this example, contact and interaction were brief and sporadic and did not result in the establishment of settlements where interaction was prolonged or continuous. By reframing our questions, reconsidering our assumptions, and reexamining the evidence, we present a new narrative of Lucayan acquisition and consumption of European items.
2 Setting the Stage for Consumption
There were numerous documented ways that the Lucayans interacted with the Spanish and acquired and consumed European objects (Dunn and Kelley 1989). These included direct trade, exchange, and theft. Other possible means include securing items from shipwrecks or vessels that stopped on the islands for repair or careening. Intra- and inter-island distribution of European objects was likely to have occurred through indirect means such as down-the-line exchange (Gnivecki 1995, 2011; Keegan 1992).
The first known direct engagement between the Spanish and the Lucayans occurred in 1492 when Columbus and his men made landfall on the island of Guanahaní, known today as San Salvador (Dunn and Kelley 1989; Morison 1942). Here they participated in trade and exchange and the Spanish took six men captive. This was followed by visits to several other Lucayan islands where the Spanish traded and exchanged objects with the local peoples. Soon after, explorers, traders, and enslavers passed through the archipelago (Table 2.1).
Shipwrecks may have been significant sources of European goods (Turnbaugh 1993, 136) and in the Bahamas, as well as other coastal contexts, shipwrecked sailors offered opportunities for Spanish items to be traded, exchanged, or given as gifts, and grounded ships presented chances for items to be pilfered and scavenged (Gnivecki 1995, 2011). The numerous reefs and shoals of the archipelago and the destructive forces of hurricanes posed great challenges for fifteenth- and sixteenth-century seafaring, resulting in numerous shipwrecks (Sauer 1966). Although only two ships from that period, the Molasses Reef wreck (Keith et al. 1984) in 1499 and the Highbourn Cay wreck, one of the ships lost by Pinzón in 1500 (Smith et al. 1985) have been found, it is probable that many more went aground.
The acquisition of wood and water from the islands to provision ships offered occasions for Lucayan-Spanish exchanges. Stopping at islands for ship maintenance and repairs must have also brought Lucayans and Spanish in direct contact. Keegan (1992, 213) suggests that during late 1499 and early 1500 Vespucci may have established short-term encampments on several islands, in order to careen his vessel during his journey through the islands. (The trip included taking of Lucayan slaves, see below). These would have provided occasions for the introduction of European items. Spanish ships from this and other expeditions may also have moored close to shore as they passed through the islands and the Lucayans may have swum out to the boats to procure goods, as they did during Columbus’ voyage (Dunn and Kelley 1989). The ship captains may have sent their crew in small boats to shore, as well, to engage in trade and exchange.
Spanish maps from the early and middle 1500s suggest that considerable shipping traffic took place through the archipelago during this period (Granberry 1979, 1980, 1981). Numerous secret missions by unnamed European powers also likely occurred (Harisse 1961; Keegan 1992, 207). Items may have been lost, discarded, or traded during passage through the islands, as the sailors associated with these activities stopped to secure fresh water, make repairs, investigate the landscape, or take captives (Keegan 1992, 203). The appropriation of items from shipwrecks and/or shipwrecked sailors, the procurement of items that washed up on shore from shipwrecks, the seizure of items from careened ships, and trade and exchange with sailors on the many expeditions that passed through the Bahamas during this period are all means by which European items found their way into Lucayan hands.
Spanish removal of the Lucayans began in the early days of colonization, although we have no written records to that effect until 1499. There is
3 The Long Bay Site
The Long Bay site, located on the western side of San Salvador (Figure 2.1), has yielded the greatest number of Spanish artifacts of any site in the archipelago.
Map of the Bahamas and San Salvador Island
Map drawn by Perry L. Gnivecki
Green glass beads from the Long Bay Site, San Salvador Island
Photo courtesy of Kathy Doan Gerace
Three other excavated sites, the Three Dog site on San Salvador (Berman and Gnivecki 1995), MC-6 on Middle Caicos (Sullivan 1981), and CC-6 on Cotton Cay (Sinelli 2010), have each produced one or two Spanish objects. Surface finds of earthenware sherds have been found on Long Island, Little Exuma, Acklins Island, Conception Island, and Samana Cay (Keegan 1992), and Middle Caicos (Sinelli 2010). Some of these finds are associated with archaeological sites; others are isolated finds (Keegan 1992). Two shipwreck sites (Keith et al.
The Long Bay Site is considered one of the earliest sites of contact between the Lucayans and the Spanish in the Bahama archipelago, although it is not known whether the European items made their way to the site through direct intercultural encounter or indirect means. The archaeologist Charles Hoffman, who excavated a portion of it between 1983–1992, sought to demonstrate that it was the Columbus landing site and theatre for direct contact between the
The Long Bay site inhabitants’ lifeways resembled those described for other Lucayan settlements from this time period (Berman et al. 2013). They were fisher-horticulturalist-shellfish collectors who fished and collected from nearby reefs and intertidal habitats (Newsom and Wing 2004), grew root and seed crops (Berman and Pearsall 2008, 2018), and gathered and possibly managed some wild plants, including palms and fruit trees (Berman and Pearsall 2018). Food procurement, processing, and preparation implements, ceramics, woodworking tools, body adornments, and ceremonial items were manufactured from local and non-local materials. The residents engaged in down-the-line or direct trade and exchange with other Lucayans and people from islands outside the Bahama archipelago, as the site yielded a number of imported items including ceramics and stone tools. One sherd has been sourced to northern Cuba (Winter and Gilstrap 1991). Non-local indigenous (i.e., Antillean) ceramics made up 3.2 per cent and Spanish ceramics constituted 3.1 per cent of the ceramic assemblage (Bate 2011, 216).
Only a portion of the site was excavated. No discrete house structure(s) could be inferred from the postholes, which were located to the northeast and southwest of where the excavations were concentrated. Similarly, neither middens nor distinct activity areas have yet to be discerned from the artifact patterning. The Spanish objects, which cluster in the northeastern part of the site, were found at a depth of 10–40 cm below the surface intermixed with a typical Late Lucayan domestic assemblage. The assemblage included Lucayan ceramics (plain ware and red-slipped Palmetto ware sherds, Palmetto ware basketry-impressed sherds, and a handful of Palmetto ware incised or appliqué sherds) (Bate 2011), shell beads, and shell bead débitage; food debris from local sources, such as fish (e.g., parrotfish and other reef fish) (Newsom and Wing 2004) and whole shells and shellfish fragments (e.g., Lobatus gigas, Codakia orbicularis, Nerita sp., Cittarium pica), procured from in-shore and rocky intertidal areas. Non-local ceramic sherds and stone objects (e.g., greenstone fragments, including jadeite, quartz microliths and cores) were also recovered. We interpret the
The excavated European objects include six or more green glass beads and three glass bead fragments, one amber glass bead, 38 melado sherds, two majolica (Columbia Plain) sherds, unglazed earthenware sherds, one reconstructed half of an early-style olive jar, 10 planking nails (ship spikes), two metal hooks, four metal knife blade fragments, a bronze “D”-ring, a bronze belt buckle, a copper grommet, a blanca (coin), a metal button, metal fragments, and fragments of green glass (Bate 2011; Hoffman 1987a, 1987b, 241–242). The translucent green glass beads are known as abalorios, wire-wound beads that held little value to the Spanish (Deagan 1987, 157). Glazed and unglazed sherds of Spanish origin including melado and majolica wares are scattered on the surface, particularly in the southern sector of the site (Berman and Gnivecki 2000). Hoffman reconstructed part of an early-style Spanish olive jar from sherds recovered from the southeastern part of the site, adjacent to a low-lying depression that fills up with water during the rainy season (Bate 2011). During the summer of 2017, we determined that the button and green glass shards were of later origin and that Hoffman recovered more Spanish objects during the later years of his excavations (post 1987).
Chemical analyses of some of the European artifacts, conducted by the Corning Museum of Glass (Brill et al. 1987), point to their origins in the Iberian Peninsula, matching particular source areas in Portugal and Spain. Several have been keyed to specific workshops in Spain. Descriptions and the chemical analyses of the beads, “D”-ring, belt buckle, and sherds are summarized in Table 2.2.
Reconstructed Spanish olive jar from the Long Bay Site, San Salvador Island
Columbus’ diary and other historic accounts of his first voyage serve as useful sources of information about how exchange was negotiated with indigenous peoples at this time. From them – particularly the diary – we learn what items Columbus and his men gave the Lucayans. Many of these items have also been
While it is tempting to believe that the Long Bay site was the first example of Spanish-Lucayan contact due to the congruence of the European artifacts with those mentioned in the Columbus diary, it would be foolhardy to jump at such a conclusion. The Lucayans may have gained possession of such items in other ways and the historic record presents many situations where Spanish-Lucayan interactions in the Bahama archipelago might have occurred.
Establishing when the Long Bay site was established and abandoned and pinpointing the year or years of Spanish contact, either direct or indirect, proves to be challenging, due to the wide berth of time that both the Lucayan and Spanish artifacts found at the site were manufactured and consumed. Radiocarbon assays yielded contemporary dates, giving us no radiochronometic clues. The indigenous assemblage of artifacts (ceramics, shell beads, coral artifacts, stone tools) is typical for the latter part of the Late Lucayan period, which lasted from ad 1100 into the early to mid-sixteenth century (Berman et al. 2013). A few pieces of Lucayan pottery show design affinities with late Chicoid pottery, similar to that manufactured in Hispaniola during the Late Ceramic Age and early colonial period. The Spanish objects were manufactured and circulated over several decades during the late fifteenth and early to mid-sixteenth centuries.
The use of the early-style Spanish olive jar to date the period of Spanish contact at the Long Bay site fails to provide the tight chronological definition we are seeking, but its presence at other sites in the insular Caribbean is instructive. The initial manufacture of Spanish olive jars in Spain occurred as early as 1490;
Although only small amounts were manufactured during the sixteenth century (Deagan 1987, 160), green glass beads (abalorios) are believed to be a secure temporal indicator for the first half of the sixteenth century (Deagan 1987, 169; Smith 1983, 148). Like Spanish olive jars, they were not found at En Bas Saline or La Isabela. The earliest documented evidence for green glass beads (abalorio) is from Nueva Cádiz, Venezuela (Smith and Good 1982), which was established in 1500.
Both the historic and archaeological record suggest that the early-style Spanish olive jar and wire-wound green glass beads were present in the Caribbean in 1500. This suggests that Spanish goods were incorporated into the Long Bay site at 1500 or afterwards up to the mid-sixteenth century. Of course, all of this would be contradicted if it were found that the European items at the Long Bay site predate 1500.
The historic record suggests that the Long Bay site already may have been abandoned by the first quarter of the sixteenth century. In 1513 Ponce de León docked on San Salvador for 9–12 days to conduct ship repairs (Kelley 1991; Ober 1908), but found few people on the island. Those he observed hid from the Spanish and there are no accounts of trade and exchange between them and the indigenous inhabitants (Ober 1908, 178). In this scenario, the Lucayans would have acquired the Spanish items found at the Long Bay site sometime between 1500 and 1513.
4 Consumption and Indigenous Agency
As Lightfoot (1995), Torrence and Clarke (2000), and others have argued, prior intercultural interactions and patterns of artifact consumption provide
4.1 Trade and Exchange
The Lucayans participated in long-distance inter-island trade and exchange, as indigenous non-local items are found throughout the whole Lucayan occupational span (Berman 2011; Keegan 1992). Chert artifacts (Berman et al. 1999), non-local pottery, and a variety of artifacts made from igneous and metamorphic materials (e.g., jadeite, diorite, basalt, green schist, quartzite, and quartz crystal) are present at nearly all Lucayan sites (Berman 2011). From Columbus’ diary we determine that the Lucayans were knowledgeable of the geography and peoples of neighboring islands including Cuba and Hispaniola (Anderson-Córdova 2017; Berman 2011). Additionally, Columbus observed large canoes holding as many as 40–45 people (Dunn and Kelley 1989, 69), which are believed to have been used for long-distance travel (Keegan 1992). The Lucayans themselves alluded to their trading relationships with people of the Greater Antilles. Columbus noted that the Lucayans told him “there are many and very large ships and many traders” and “great commerce” (Dunn and Kelley 1989, 109, 113). Of course, the reference to the magnitude of the trade may have been an exaggeration on Columbus’ part to impress his investors and supporters; nevertheless, the archaeological record attests to the procurement of non-local objects.
The Lucayans also disseminated local and non-local objects among themselves. Only a short time after Columbus left San Salvador, he encountered an individual who was traveling to (Fernandina) Long Island with objects obtained from San Salvador. His canoe held glass beads and two blancas, and items believe to be of local origin: bread, a calabash of water, red powder, and dried leaves (Dunn and Kelley 1989, 85).
The Lucayans were knowledgeable, too, of metals, which circulated throughout the Caribbean prior to the entry of the Spanish (Martinón-Torres et al. 2012; Valcárcel Rojas and Martinón-Torres 2013; Valcárcel Rojas et al. 2010). Two small unworked copper fragments were found at the North Storr’s Lake site, a Late Lucayan settlement located on the eastern side of San Salvador (Shaklee
4.2 Raiding
Raiding and captive-taking were common practices in small-scale societies (Cameron 2008, 2011; Santos-Granero 2009) and it appears that the Lucayans were subject to regular attacks by people from the northwest, “who came to fight them many times” (Dunn and Kelley 1989, 71) and people from nearby islands who “tried to take them” (Dunn and Kelley 1989, 67). We do not know whether these were other Lucayans or unrelated or distantly related peoples from Florida or the Antilles. While on San Salvador, Columbus and his crew took on board six male captives (Dunn and Kelley 1989, 69). Keegan (2015) notes that the likelihood for hostilities exists in all social interactions and suggests that taking captives was a corollary expression of trade and exchange (see also Cameron 2008; Keeley 1996). The Lucayans, therefore, were no strangers to foreign intrusion and seizure. Due to their familiarity with such behavior, the appropriation of captives may have been viewed as another form of trade (in this sense) with non-local peoples.
4.3 Symbolic Meanings
Objects are endowed with meaning according to local cultural logics (Sahlins 1994) and European items possessed physical properties that were metaphorically connected to Lucayan cosmology. As Dietler (2005, 63) has noted, “foreign objects must be understood not only for what they represent in the society of origin, but for the culturally specific meaning and perceived utility in the context of consumption.” Objects or materials that exhibited shininess, brilliance, or luminescence were (and still are) desired among the native peoples of the Americas (Quilter and Hoopes 2003; Saunders 2003) and the Taíno (Oliver 2000) and Lucayans (Berman 2011), who were closely related to and descended from the Taíno, valued such items. For numerous Amerindians, brightness signified life-giving energies (Saunders 1999, 2003). By virtue of their shininess, translucence, and or light-giving elements, most of the non-local or unusual materials or objects found at Antillean sites exemplify the “aesthetic of brilliance,” a concept that epitomizes the “spiritual and creative power of light” (Saunders 2003, 15). The Taíno (Keehnen 2011) and Lucayans (Bate 2011) welcomed shiny items presented to them by the Europeans. Such objects had special resonance for the Lucayans, for like the Taíno (Ostapkowicz 2018), they fit innately into their symbolic calculus.
Olfactory, auditory, and tactile experiences play significant roles in the ways of knowing, living, and meaning-making among non-Western peoples;
Colors, too, served as visual metaphors. The colors of many of the European objects corresponded to hues in the Lucayan spectrum and objects displaying those colors may have been accepted, even sought, on that basis, as has been observed among other Amerindians (Miller and Hamell 1986). Green, red, and yellow Spanish beads, textiles, and metal objects were most likely considered equivalent to guanín (Oliver 2000). They were also the colors of the parrots (considered to be a form of guanín) (Oliver 2000), which the Lucayans presented to the Spanish during their encounter with Columbus (Dunn and Kelley 1989). Ostapkowicz (2018, 166) argues that green glass beads, by virtue of their color, size, and physical characteristics held special significance for the Taíno and fit into a prior system of bead manufacture. According to her, the color green was associated with jadeite, which was regarded as possessing exotic status. This can be argued for the Lucayans, too, since jadeite and other greenstones do not occur naturally in the Bahama archipelago. The Lucayans obtained jadeite from distant, non-local sources, accessed only via water transport. Moreover, the size and shape of the beads lie in the range of Lucayan shell beads found throughout the Lucayan sequence (Gnivecki 2006). In sum, the materials, colors, smells, and other properties of indigenous non-local items and the European goods were associated with and served as metaphors for remoteness and distant locales (sensuHelms 1988), which the Spanish and their objects represented. The notion of foreignness was a routinized part of the Lucayan belief system and something that was appreciated, not feared.
4.4 Artifact Modification
As we have proposed, the Lucayans classified European objects in the same categories as indigenous non-local items. While most of the objects at the Long Bay site appear to have been unmodified, Brill et al. (1987, 256) found that the blanca was scratched and possibly hammered. They suggest that these modifications might represent attempts at perforation, so that the object could have been worn as a bead or pendant. The “D”-ring and belt buckle had the potential to be worn as pendants or other kinds of ornaments, as well. Silliman (2009)
Through the lens of artifact discard patterns, we see that European objects were treated the same way as indigenous local and non-local objects. At the Long Bay site, the European items were found intermingled with local and non-local (i.e., Antillean) artifacts. As another example, several melado sherds were found on a limestone shelf in close association with a greenstone petaloid axe and a few sherds of Lucayan pottery suggesting that the non-local artifacts, no matter their origin, were regarded in similar ways. Because they were consumed in a like manner, we suggest the items were recontextualized, i.e., transformed into Lucayan objects in use and meaning (sensuSilliman 2009). Samson (2010), Valcárcel Rojas, Samson, and Hoogland (2013, 29) and Hofman et al. (2014) have suggested that the occupants of El Cabo regarded European goods similarly, for they, too, were found interspersed in house sweepings with local items and food waste.
5 Discussion
The Lucayans secured European items through a variety of pathways. These, along with indigenous taste (sensuStahl 2002) and past practice influenced the manner in which the objects were perceived and how they were socialized into local contexts. Some objects may never have entered Lucayan systems, such as those misplaced or discarded by the Spanish. Moreover, they may have become to be regarded suspiciously once the Lucayans recognized Spanish intentions to remove the Lucayans from their homelands. The low volume of recovered objects may be linked to a variety of factors including their rapid insertion into native exchange systems, their assignment to special curated contexts, and to recovery techniques, which, with the exception of the Long Bay site excavations, may not have been sufficiently fine-grained to retain tiny items.
Lucayan consumption of European items was motivated by indigenous economic and political practices driven by symbolic-ideological factors. The archaeological evidence demonstrates that non-local items were a regular feature of Lucayan household and most likely political economies (not examined here), and that acquisition through trade, exchange, and gift-giving with non-local peoples and inter-island down-the-line trade and exchange with indigenous peoples occurred regularly. Interacting with foreigners – even those who took them captives – was commonplace. Accustomed to non-local items and peoples, the Lucayans embraced Spanish goods because they possessed
Thomas (1991) has noted that in spite of the distinctiveness and newness of European objects in the eyes of indigenous peoples, such objects often preserve a “prior order” and are modified to resemble preexisting objects. The attempted perforation of the blanca is just such an example of altering a foreign object to fit a preexisting template (should it, in fact have been performed by a Lucayan). The Lucayans do not appear to have modified the other European objects found at the Long Bay site, however. Similarly, we have no evidence that European goods were embedded into the fabric of Lucayan objects, but, due to the perishable nature of much of material Lucayan culture, these may have not survived the archaeological record or may have been curated in inaccessible locations.
6 Conclusions
The Lucayans interacted with European items in an indigenous colonial space that differed geographically and politically from the Greater Antilles. The absence of close or sustained interaction between the Europeans and the Lucayans due to the geographical distance of the Bahama islands from the colonial heartland, the lack of direct colonial control, the varied, brief, intermittent nature of Lucayan-Spanish contact, and ultimately the violent conditions under which they interacted did not encourage the creation of a large body of reworked, repurposed, or hybridized items. While the European objects presented novel shapes, colors, forms, and materials, the Lucayans found the items to be analogous to materials they knew and understood symbolically and thus there may have been less desire to physically modify them. This is not to deny Lucayan agency, but is suggested as a means to explore why little to no modification is observed on the European articles found at the Long Bay site. While the biographies of European objects found in Lucayan contexts share some similarities with those from other early colonial contexts, there are differences between them. These can be attributed to historical factors. And, while it was objects that first facilitated Spanish-indigenous relations, in the end, it was the indigenous peoples, not exclusively the objects that were recontextualized, redefined, and physically reworked as commodities.
This article could not have been achieved without the support of numerous people. In particular, the authors thank Mrs. Kathy Doan Gerace and the late Dr. Donald T. Gerace for their interest in and encouragement of our research, which has allowed us a panoramic grasp of the Lucayans from their earliest peopling of the Bahama archipelago to their final days on the islands. We want to especially thank Kathy for providing the photograph of the glass beads and for helping to locate more of Charles Hoffman’s field records. They revealed much more about the Long Bay site than what has appeared in publications and these findings have done much to enhance this article. We recognize and thank, too, the support provided by the staff of the Gerace Research Centre, University of the Bahamas, who have always welcomed us to San Salvador Island and gone out of their way to provide a comfortable working context. Dr. Michael Pateman, Director of the Turks & Caicos National Museum Foundation, Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos Islands has championed our research and analyses. For this, we are profoundly appreciative. We would be remiss if we did not honor the late Dr. Charles Hoffman who excavated the Long Bay site. Without his work and that of his legions of students and volunteers, the Spanish presence in the Bahamas would have continued to remain buried as a footnote in history books. Berman would like to thank Miami University’s College of Arts and Science, which granted her a spring 2017 assigned research leave; this gave her the time and space to read and think through the many issues reflected in this work. Additionally, we are grateful to Eric Johnson, Miami University Numeric and Spatial Data Services Librarian, who transformed 35 year old slides into the digital images presented here. And, finally, we thank the citizens of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, who have welcomed us for three decades. We hope that they will find our discoveries and interpretations meaningful and worthy of their generous hospitality.
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