Julissa Collazo López

This project focuses on the processes of gendering and production of colonial subjects through the participation of women in the early Spanish towns of Puerto Real (1503-1578), Haiti, and Spanish St. Augustine (1565-1763), Florida. Documentary sources spanning the occupation of these settlements will be critically compared with archaeological evidence associated with excavated artifact collections to investigate the role and experiences women had in and out of traditionally domestic spaces. Methodologically, the study draws on archival research on Puerto Real and Spanish St. Augustine sites and the re-study and reanalysis of previously excavated archaeological assemblages now housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida. A stylistic and technological study of archaeological collections from early Spanish sites will be carried out to explore the gendered dimensions of life and gender boundaries in colonial contexts. Specifically, the (re)creation and negotiation of orthodoxies were part of colonial discourse and had material expressions (DiPaolo Loren 2001). This project makes it possible to reevaluate long-standing assumptions about the nature of gender, household organization, and early Spanish colonial culture within the Western gender binary framework.