Hannah Grace Hoover

Negotiating difference is a fundamental challenge of all societies, variably producing conflict, cooperation, and/or multi-scalar change. I seek to understand the processes of these negotiations during group formation, a common way that Indigenous peoples navigated European colonialisms. My research is situated among the Yamasee, a broadly multiethnic Native community who lived in South Carolina, ca. 1695-1715. During this period, they became prominent British allies in the Indian slave trade while experiencing rapid community growth. I use the framework of coalescence’the process by which disparate communities merge’to emphasize this as a period of Yamasee nation-building in which Yamasee negotiated internal differences to ensure their homelands. Departing from traditional political-economic studies, I ask, how were the diverse peoples involved in Yamasee nation-building socially integrated? To answer this, I will compare household assemblages from the dual Yamasee primary towns of Pocotaligo and Altamaha. This will require (1) summer 2023 field research at Pocotaligo; (2) collections-based research with Altamaha remains; and (3) multi-scalar analyses, to build interpretations from household, to town, to polity. This work is anchored in a multivocal praxis, and it emphasizes how settler colonialism has shaped the archaeological record and claims of Yamasee identity today.