55
Douglas D. Scott
Oral Tradition and Archaeology:
Conflict and Concordance
Examples from Two Indian
War Sites
ABSTRACT
The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the 1877 Nez Perce
War, Battle of the Big Hole, abound in oral tradition and
historical sources. Archaeological investigations at both
sites have yielded substantial numbers of battle-related
artifacts. The physical evidence supports and modifies the
historical record in both cases. The Big Hole battle’s oral
traditions were substantiated by the archaeological work as
well. However, the Sand Creek Massacre’s oral tradition of
the site location is in direct conflict with reanalysis of the
historic documents and the archaeological findings. The two
cases are contrasted to vividly point out how groups accept
or reject evidence gathered using the scientific method when
it either agrees or disagrees with their preconceived notions
of cultural truth.
Introduction
We all know the records and documents that
historical archaeologists utilize, especially first-
hand accounts of historical events, are tantamount
to eyewitness testimony. They provide the mate-
rial for generating hypotheses that can be tested
in the archaeological record. They also furnish
the basis by which archaeologically observed
patterns can be assigned historically meaningful
identities. The archaeological record contains
historical clues in the form of physical remains,
including artifacts, features, and their contextual
relationships. These material and spatial rela-
tionships, or patterns, can reveal a great deal
about the activities that occurred at a site. The
historical archaeologist continually compares both
sets of data as work progresses in order to best
explain the events under scrutiny. Sometimes the
insights of history and archaeology may be at
odds, necessitating, on occasion, significant revi-
sions in current perceptions of historical events.
Here, two separate events of the American
Indian wars of the 19th century are briefly
described and the different meanings each site
Historical Archaeology, 2003, 37(3):55–65.
Permission to reprint required.
has for its constituent group are considered.
How those meanings are either supported by
or contradicted by conclusions drawn from
archaeological findings will be discussed. The
two sites—the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864
involving the Cheyenne and Arapaho against
the Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, and the 1877
Battle of the Big Hole, which pitched Nez
Perce against the Seventh U.S. Infantry—have
achieved a sacredness to the descendants of
the native peoples who fought and died there.
That sacredness manifests itself in a number of
ways. Foremost is the overriding need to see
the sites as memorials to past injustices. There
is little conflict among today’s visitors to the
sites regarding such an interpretation of the past.
How other meanings manifest themselves is the
primary focus of this contribution.
The archaeological data collected and used in
this article is more fully reported in two publi-
cations by Douglas D. Scott (1994, 2000). The
primary data collection method employed was
metal detecting inventory. Full explanations
of the theory of battlefield archaeology and
method can be found in Scott and Richard Fox
(1987) and Scott et al. (1989), operating under
the umbrella model advocated by Fox and Scott
(1991) and the methods discussed by Melissa
Connor and Scott (1998).
Battle of the Big Hole, Montana—1877
The year 1877 was a tragic one for the Nez
Perce. Broken promises, misunderstood treaties,
and conservative factions on both sides resulted
in open warfare between the Nez Perce and the
United States government. In July the Nez Perce
fled Idaho, at first to find refuge in Montana with
the Crow. In a final desperate bid for freedom,
they attempted to reach Canada. This trek
became an epic event in American history. The
flight ended in October 1877, at Snake Creek
near Bear Paw, Montana, with the surrender of
most of the Nez Perce under the leadership of
Chief Joseph. The Nez Perce fought several
skirmishes and at least six pitched battles with
the army along the way, effectively winning all
but the last. A number of the battle sites along
the Nez Perce flight route are now preserved
56
and interpreted as memorials by various state
and federal agencies. One of those sites is Big
Hole National Battlefield in southwestern Mon-
tana. The site of the Battle of the Big Hole
is now ascribed a sacredness by the Nez Perce
for the events that occurred there on 9 and 10
August 1877. As a memorial, the site high-
lights the tragic outcome of hostile relationships
between two cultures.
An outline of the events leading to the Big
Hole battle and the sequence of the battle as
described in the primary sources (Howard 1881;
Shields 1889; Beal 1963; Brown 1982) as well
as from the synthetic work of Aubrey Haines
(1991) is presented here.
The Nez Perce had agreed in 1877 to a
reduced reservation area as a result of increased
Euro-American settlement of Idaho and Washing-
ton (Haines 1991). There was disagreement and
hard feelings among and between tribal bands and
individuals regarding the loss of ancestral lands.
Some bands, particularly Joseph’s were reluctant
to give up their lands, but they planned to do so.
Some Nez Perce bands requested an extension for
moving to the new reservation due to the need to
assemble all their members and associated stock.
The government denied the extension, thereby
exacerbating an already tense situation. As anxi-
ety built over preparations for leaving their home-
land, a taunt by one or more tribal members over
not revenging the death of his father at the hands
of a local rancher led a young warrior, Wah-Lit-its
to act (Howard 1881; Shields 1889; Beal 1963;
Brown 1982; Haines 1991). Wah-Lit-its and
two cousins went in search of the white settler
responsible for the death. Not finding the settler,
they raided a number of ranches and homesteads,
killing several people, in the Carson’s Prairie and
Salmon River, Idaho, area. This incident cre-
ated an unalterable cycle of events that led to
the open hostilities between the Nez Perce and
the U.S. Army. The Nez Perce fled the area
with the intent of finding sanctuary with their
Montana-based Crow friends. The flight of the
Nez Perce is an epic event in their history.
After fighting several pitched battles, the Nez
Perce made their way into Montana and contin-
ued on their trek to find the Crow. In the mean-
time, Colonel John Gibbon began to assemble his
scattered Seventh Infantry. Gibbon, commanding
the District of Montana, pulled his under-strength
companies from their scattered posts. They
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
reached Missoula 3 August and left for the field
the next day to find the Nez Perce (Brown 1982;
Haines 1991).
Gibbon’s column, less the wagons and a guard,
rode about 3.5 mi. from the battlefield and found
the Nez Perce camp late in the afternoon of 8
August. At eleven o’clock that night, the com-
mand of 17 officers, 132 enlisted men, and 34
volunteers started down the mountain toward the
village in the valley.
Gibbon moved his men along an old trail
down into the valley. Passing over a wooded
point of land (an old alluvial fan), Gibbon noted
it as a good defense point should a retrograde
movement become necessary. In hindsight,
it was a wise observation, as it would later
become known as the Siege Area. Gibbon
passed on north of the fan and deployed his
men along the trail that is situated on a steep
hillside above the swampy willow-covered land
west of the river. The Nez Perce village was
arrayed in a slightly V-shaped line along the
east side of the river in a camas meadow
(Howard 1881; Shields 1889; Haines 1991).
Gibbon’s plan was to charge the village at day-
light (Shields 1889). However, a lone Nez Perce
was seen coming out of the village just before
dawn, and he was fired upon by a volunteer.
This killing opened the battle. The command
fired volleys into the sleeping camp and then
charged across the river.
The Nez Perce were surprised and initially
confused (Haines 1991). Many men grabbed
their arms and (moving to the north, south, and
east) found refuge in the willows, along river
meanders, and on the terraces east of the camp.
Some Nez Perce, reportedly mostly women and
children, ran across the meadow to the terraces
to the east of the village. The warriors quickly
returned fire from their cover.
Although the attack was initially success-
ful in taking most of the village by surprise,
the soldiers were still under fire from the Nez
Perce. Gibbon committed his reserves (Haines
1991) and left his command position along the
western hillside to ride into the village. In order
to deprive the Nez Perce of shelter and other
amenities, the command attempted to burn the
tepees. The army’s assumption was that with-
out horses and shelter, the Nez Perce would be
destitute and would return to the reservation a
humbled group.
DOUGLAS D. SCOTT—Oral Tradition and Archaeology: Conflict and Examples from Two Indian War Sites
The Nez Perce were rallied by the exhorta-
tions of their leaders, like Looking Glass, and
they poured heavy fire into the village (Brown
1982). Within an hour, Gibbon realized his
position in the village was untenable. The
command was ordered to fall back across the
river and through the willows to the timber-
covered point of land he had noted earlier. As
the demoralized command began to retreat, the
Nez Perce warriors pressed the battle. The
soldiers bunched up, causing a halting retreat.
There was some hand-to-hand fighting along the
retreat, and several more soldiers were killed.
The retreat became somewhat chaotic.
As the command reached the old alluvial fan,
they were met by several Nez Perce who began
to fire upon them (Haines 1991). The soldiers
charged up the fan’s steep toe and pushed the
Nez Perce across the gulch that dissected the
fan and up the hills on either side of the fan.
Upon reaching the fan, Gibbon deployed his
men. As some men began dragging in logs to
form firing positions, the men of companies A
and I, who had trowel bayonets, began to dig
rifle pits. Others used knives and makeshift tools
to create cover. The Nez Perce, in the timber on
the south side of the fan as well as on the hill
slopes above the soldiers, continued their fire.
A well-known warrior, Five Wounds, was at
or near the Siege Area when he learned that his
war mate Rainbow had been killed. A pledge
to die on the same day had to be honored, and
Five Wounds took a partially loaded magazine
rifle and rushed up the mouth of Battle Gulch.
He nearly gained the lip of the gulch when he
was cut down in a hail of bullets. His body
was not recovered by the Nez Perce, and it was
later mutilated by General O. O. Howard’s Ban-
nock scouts (Howard 1881; Haines 1991).
The Nez Perce essentially surrounded the rifle
pits. They fired from the timber to the east and
west of the entrenchments as well as from the
hillsides to the north and west (Brown 1982;
Haines 1991). Some warriors in a stand of
pines south of the entrenchments and opposite
the mouth of Battle Gulch were able to direct
their fire very effectively. From the heights of
the hill to the north of the rifle pits, the war-
riors used trees as cover to fire at the soldiers
and volunteers.
While some warriors were engaged in fight-
ing the entrenched soldiers, other Nez Perce
57
returned to the village. The surviving women
and children also returned. The Nez Perce
began to mourn and bury their dead. Some
were apparently buried in camas ovens that had
been prepared for roasting the locally abundant
camas root. Others were buried along the riv-
erbank, and still others were carried away and
buried by their surviving families. As the dead
were buried, the Nez Perce attempted to salvage
what they could from the village.
During the night of 9 August, the Nez Perce
warriors continued to fire harassing shots at the
soldiers (Haines 1991). The main body in the
camp packed what belongings they could find and
prepared to depart. With the sunrise, most of the
people left the valley, departing to the east. A
few warriors, perhaps 15, were left behind to
keep the soldiers at bay. They did so until about
eleven o’clock the night of 10 August, when they
fired a departing volley and left.
These warriors joined their grieving families
on a trek that would take them on a route south
into Idaho and then east through Yellowstone
National Park, and two months later, to the final
battle on Snake Creek near Bear Paw, Montana.
There the majority of the surviving Nez Perce,
under the general leadership of Chief Joseph,
surrendered on 5 October, bringing to a close
the Nez Perce War.
Digging in and Fighting in the Siege Area:
The Archaeological Evidence
The physical evidence of the battle is extensive
(Scott 1994) (Figure 1). The entrenchments or
rifle pits dug by Gibbon’s men are clearly
evident in the Siege Area today (Scott 1994).
There are visible signs of at least 23 rifle pits
of different sizes in the Siege Area, arranged in
a roughly shaped rectangle (Figure 2). There
are several isolated pits, three along the sides
of Battle Gulch and one to the northeast of the
main group. An old prospectors pit, west of
Battle Gulch, was used by some of the volun-
teers during the fight (Haines 1991).
The Siege Area contains significant archaeo-
logical evidence (Scott 1994) of the combat
that occurred there. It is also an area that
has received the most intense post-battle use
and that has undoubtedly affected some of the
archaeological patterns related to the fight. At
one time, there was a U.S. Forest Service barn
58
FIGURE 1. Big Hole National Battlefield showing the
primary features of the park and the distribution of the
artifacts recovered during the archaeological investiga-
tions. (Courtesy of the National Park Service, Midwest
Archeological Center.)
FIGURE 2. Detail of the Big Hole Battlefield Siege Area
showing the rifle pits and the .45-caliber and .50-caliber
bullet distribution. Note the two bullet concentrations in
Battle Gulch near the Five Wounds death site. (Courtesy
of the National Park Service, Midwest Archeological
Center.)
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
and a museum building on the site as well as
associated water and electrical lines. The Forest
Service and, later, the National Park Service also
maintained residences and associated outbuild-
ings to the west of the site. In addition, there
was once a parking lot and a number of picnic
sites situated in or adjacent to the Siege Area.
Despite these impacts, the archaeological data has
survived surprisingly well.
Buttons, pieces of equipment, cartridge cases,
and bullets were found in the Siege Area (Scott
1994). Fifty-nine cartridge cases (.45–70 caliber)
were recovered in the area. These cases represent
26 individual Springfield firearms. The majority
of cases cross match with others. The .50–70-
caliber cartridge cases found in the Siege Area
entrenchments tend to concentrate in the western
rifle pits. This distribution is consistent with the
historically documented location of most of the
volunteers during the latter stages of the battle.
A single .44-caliber rimfire cartridge case fired in
a Model 1860 Colt Conversion was also found in
this area, as was a .50–70-caliber cartridge case
fired in a Remington Rolling Block rifle.
Bullets of various calibers were found in and
around the entrenchments as well as in the
areas historically identified as Nez Perce posi-
tions. The .45–70-caliber bullets were found
throughout the Siege Area. A few were found
among the entrenchments, but most were outside
the entrenchment proper. A large concentration
was noted on the northeastern edge of the fan,
and smaller concentrations to the south and up
the slope about 250 yd. to the west.
The other caliber bullets, those more likely
fired in Nez Perce guns have a similar distribu-
tion. However, more lead scraps (unidentified
bullets and bullet fragments) as well as .50–70-
caliber and .44-caliber bullets were found among
the entrenchments than the .45–70-caliber bullets.
Many of the other caliber bullets were found
embedded in the fan edge or to the northeast.
The fight in the Siege Area is exceptionally
well documented in the source materials (Howard
1881; Shields 1889; Haines 1991). Not only did
surviving soldiers and volunteers identify which
shelter pit they occupied, they also pointed out
trees and other areas where the Nez Perce took
shelter.
The Nez Perce also vividly recalled the names
of the warrior participants and which individual
DOUGLAS D. SCOTT—Oral Tradition and Archaeology: Conflict and Examples from Two Indian War Sites
trees they utilized for cover (McWhorter 1986;
1991). This makes the Siege Area one of the
most thoroughly documented battle sites in the
West. The archaeological evidence is somewhat
biased due to the intensity of post-battle occupa-
tion and site use, but the archaeological data con-
firms the historic documentation at a surprising
level of confidence (Scott 1994). The distribu-
tion of .45–70 cartridge cases demonstrates that
the army gained the Siege Area under fire and
then entrenched. There was little movement of
the soldiers and volunteers after that episode.
The Nez Perce cartridge case and bullet distri-
butions indicate that the soldiers were definitely
under fire from most directions during the
remainder of the battle. While extensive, the
Nez Perce fire appears to have originated from
a limited number of firearms. There may have
been four different .44-caliber rimfire Henry
or Model 1866 Winchesters used at the Siege
Area: one or more Sharps, a Spencer, captured
.45–70-caliber army weapons, and .50–70-caliber
Springfields as well as at least one Remington
Rolling Block rifle. While the army believed
they were under fire by numerous Nez Perce
during the latter part of 9 August and during 10
August, the Nez Perce indicated that less than 15
warriors kept the army at bay during 10 August
(McWhorter 1986; 1991). The cartridge case
evidence suggests at least eight firearms used
by the Nez Perce were employed against the
soldiers. This number represents about one-half
the number of Nez Perces identified by Yellow
Wolf (Haines 1991:99) and is certainly in agree-
ment with the Nez Perce accounts. It is also
consistent with the percentage of army firearms
represented in the archaeological recorded as
discussed previously.
One of the more dramatic accounts of the
battle, from either side, is the death of Path-
katos Owyeen (Five Wounds) during a suicide
charge up Battle Gulch (McWhorter 1986).
The specific site is commemorated today with
a wooden feather interpretive device. Two con-
centrations of .45–70-caliber bullets (containing
six and five, respectively) were found embedded
on eastern side of Battle Gulch. The group of
five is within 5 m of the feather interpretive
device, and the group of six is about 8 m from
the marker. Either group could be associated
with the death of Five Wounds or some other
59
episode in the battle. However, the proximity
of the bullet concentrations to the historically
documented location of Five Wounds death site
is another intriguing coincidence of archaeologi-
cal evidence and history converging.
The Five Wounds death site interpretive maker
is surrounded by Nez Perce offerings. Many
were placed by the family that frequently visits
the site. In fact, at the time the archaeological
investigations were undertaken, the great grand-
son of Five Wounds was employed as a park
interpreter. When the two clusters of .45–70-
caliber army bullets were discovered, the Five
Wounds descendent was present. In one of
the more poignant moments of my career, the
descendent sat down among the bullets and said
to me, “Thank you, Doug. I now know where
my great-grandfather died.”
A scientifically defensible and responsible inter-
pretation of those bullet clusters is simply that
the bullets’ distribution is evidence of close-range
fighting in the Siege Area and is consistent with
the oral tradition of the Nez Perce regarding the
death site of Five Wounds. On the other hand,
the Nez Perce people accept the bullet clusters as
definitive proof of their oral history, and archae-
ology has made this particular site even more
important and sacred because it is proven at a
level of reasonable scientific certainty. Regard-
less of how historical archaeologists see the data,
these bullets and their context have achieved
another level of meaning and importance to the
Nez Perce.
Sand Creek Massacre, Colorado—1864
The Sand Creek Massacre is one of the most
significant and tragic events in American history
(National Park Service 2000). On 29 November
1864 Colonel John M. Chivington led a group
of approximately 700 soldiers of the Colorado
First and Third Volunteers from old Fort Lyon
(near present-day Lamar, Colorado) to an Indian
village of more than 100 lodges on Sand Creek,
which was then also known as the “Big Sandy.”
Approximately 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indi-
ans under the general leadership of the Cheyenne
peace chief, Black Kettle, were camped at this
village, believing they were under U.S. Army
protection (Greene 2000). As instructed by
Colorado Governor John Evans, the Indians had
60
earlier presented themselves to the U.S. Army
at Fort Lyon, at which time they were told to
remain at their Sand Creek camp. The Indian
camp was at the edge of the Cheyenne and
Arapaho reservation that had been established
by the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise. Nevertheless,
volunteer troops led by Chivington, all eager to
take vengeance on any available Indians for dep-
redations to eastern Colorado settlers, launched
a surprise attack upon the village. The strike
began at dawn when the soldiers fired upon the
Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment with small
arms and cannon.
Many of the villagers who survived this ini-
tial attack fled to the north, upstream. Approxi-
mately one mile above the village, according to
most accounts of the massacre, the Indians shel-
tered themselves in hastily dug trenches along
the banks of the creek. This area, known as
the “sandpits,” was one of the areas of fiercest
fighting. The army troops brought at least two
12-pounder mountain howitzers into use there.
By day’s end, at least 150 Indians—mainly
women, children, and elderly people—had been
killed. On the army’s side, 10 soldiers died
and 38 were wounded. Although Chivington’s
troops returned to a heroes’ welcome in Denver,
the Sand Creek Massacre was soon recognized
for what it was—a national disgrace. It was
investigated and condemned by two congres-
sional committees and a military commission.
Chivington lost his command and territorial
Governor John Evans was forced to resign.
The event also loosed a pent-up anger among
the Cheyenne and Arapaho that erupted in near
full-scale war for several years.
Sand Creek remains to this day an impor-
tant sacred site to the Cheyenne and Arapaho
peoples. The site embodies disenfranchise-
ment and the loss of life they suffered due
to U.S. government policy toward them in
the 19th century. Through a series of rather
involved steps and actions, the Northern and
Southern Cheyenne Tribes and the Northern
and Southern Arapaho Tribes moved to have
the site acquired by the National Park Service
as a National Historic Site (National Park Ser-
vice 2000). In 1998 Senator Ben Nighthorse
Campbell introduced Senate Bill 1695. The
bill passed the Senate on 21 July 1998, passed
the House of Representatives on 18 September
1998, and was signed by President William
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
Clinton on 6 October 1998, as Public Law
105-243. Known as the Sand Creek Massacre
National Historic Site Study Act of 1998, the
legislation directed the National Park Service
in consultation with the State of Colorado, the
Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma,
the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, and the North-
ern Arapaho Tribe to “identify the location and
extent of the massacre area and the suitability
and feasibility of designating the site as a unit
of the National Park Service system.”
The primary research question to be answered
with the archaeological data was whether any
evidence of the village attacked by Chivington
existed in the study area. An archaeological
project was undertaken in May 1999 with great
success (Scott 2000). The artifacts, their dis-
tribution on the landscape (Figure 3), and the
context in which they were recovered provided
the answer.
The artifact analysis and description clearly
demonstrated the majority of recovered artifacts
do indeed date to the mid-19th century for origin
and use. While no individual artifact can be said
to have been made and exclusively used in 1864,
the composite assemblage is consistent with items
manufactured and used at that time period. The
majority of artifacts fall easily within the range
of use for 1864 (Scott 2000).
Artifacts of the 1864 period were found scat-
tered all along the Sand Creek drainage extend-
ing from the traditional location of the village
site (Figures 3 and 4) at the Dawson South Bend
and continuing northerly for several miles along
Sand Creek. There was only one significant
concentration of artifacts in that 3.5 mile length
of the creek, and that was on the eastern side of
the creek about one mile north of the traditional
village site.
The site traditionally identified as the village
site, the Dawson South Bend, yielded only about
a dozen 1864 period artifacts. While indicating
some activity or activities occurred in this bend
of Sand Creek about 1864, the artifacts did
constitute evidence of the campsite. The more
northerly areas along Sand Creek yielded only
a few artifacts of the 1864 era as well. That
evidence was found in the form of bullets and
a cannonball fragment. These combat-related
materials are widely scattered along either side of
the creek, and there is no definitive evidence of
camp debris of the 1864 period. However, the
DOUGLAS D. SCOTT—Oral Tradition and Archaeology: Conflict and Examples from Two Indian War Sites
FIGURE 3. The distribution of artifacts found at the Sand
Creek Massacre Site, Colorado. Contour interval is 100 ft.
(Courtesy of the National Park Service, Midwest Archeo-
logical Center.)
FIGURE 4. George Bent’s map of the Sand Creek vil-
lage site The numbers on the map correspond to the
handwritten legend: (1–6) the camp distribution, (7) the
bluff area, (8–9) the sandpits where some of the heaviest
fighting occurred after the village was abandoned, (10) the
soldiers’ deployment, (11) Colonel Chivington’s trail, (12)
the artillery placements, and (13) Sand Creek. (Courtesy
of the Oklahoma Historical Society.)
scattered period artifacts do indicate that these
lands played a role in the 1864 event.
The largest concentration of 1864-era artifacts
(about 400) was found on the eastern side of
Sand Creek about one mile north of the traditional
61
site. The artifact concentration, situated on an
eastern terrace above Sand Creek, is about 450
m long, trending southeasterly to northwesterly
and about 160 m wide. The artifacts found in
the concentration represent common 19th-century
Native American camp debris and include tin
cups, tin cans, horseshoes, horseshoe nails,
plates, bowls, knives, fork, spoons, barrel hoops,
a coffee grinder, a coffee pot, iron arrowheads
as well as combat items such as bullets and
cannonball fragments (Scott 2000).
The concentration includes artifacts that are
usually considered unique to Native American
sites of the 19th century. Besides the arrow-
heads, some of which are in an unfinished state,
there are a variety of iron objects modified for
Native American uses. These artifacts include
knives altered to awls, iron wire altered to awls,
fleshers or hide scrapers, strap iron altered by
filed serrations as hide preparation devices, and
several iron objects altered by filing to serve an
as-yet-unidentified cutting or scraping purpose.
The presence of a Native American campsite
with artifacts dating to about 1864 begs the ques-
tion: Is this the Cheyenne and Arapaho village
occupied by Black Kettle? Short of finding an
item with a known 1864 camp resident name
glyph scratched on it, other lines of evidence
must be used to make the identification. There
is a wealth of comparative data from Cheyenne
and Arapaho annuity requests, annuity lists, and
other correspondence that provides a set of com-
parative data (Scott 2000). The Cheyenne and
Arapaho were parties to several treaties with
the U.S. government, which obligated the gov-
ernment to supply the tribes with a variety of
goods. These annuity payments were made to
the tribes beginning in the 1850s and continued
until well after 1864.
The annuity lists, requests, and correspondence
were researched and clearly demonstrate that
most of the artifact types found are the same
types as listed for the Cheyenne and Arapaho.
Tin cups, bowls, plates, coffee grinders, coffee
pots, kettles, pans, knives, forks, spoons, fleshers,
axes, butcher knives, horse tack, guns, lead, and
bullets are consistently listed. These are the
durable goods, the ones that can be expected to
survive in the archaeological record and, indeed,
were found during the field investigations.
There are many more items of a perishable
nature, such as flour, sugar, salt, dresses, etc.,
62
that would leave only minor or no traces in the
archaeological record.
Ideally, there should be a list of goods cap-
tured and destroyed by the Colorado Volunteer
Cavalry at Sand Creek compiled after the attack
on the village. But, given the unit’s laxity of
military protocol on any number of fronts, per-
haps it is not surprising that no such list has
surfaced during the documentary research. The
closest to a list is a brief statement by cavalry-
man Morse Coffin describing the aftermath of the
attack, “and the other [tepees], together with the
many tons of Indian supplies which the village
contained, were piled and burned … . There
must have been tons of dried buffalo meat, and
large and numerous packages of coffee, sugar,
dried cherries, … saddles, bridles, and lariats,
robes, and skins, … numerous new axes, …
many well-filled medicine bags” (Wegman-French
and Whitacre 1999)
Other comparable sources were also consulted.
These included lists of captured and destroyed
goods from three other Cheyenne camps dating
to within five years of the Sand Creek event
(Afton 1997; Scott 2000). Two of those sites
(Pawnee Fork, Kansas, and the Washita battle-
field, Oklahoma) had also been archaeologically
studied. The lists and archaeological data show
a remarkable degree of correspondence and indi-
cate that the concentration of artifacts found at
Sand Creek are consistent with a Native Ameri-
can camp of the 1860s era.
Another issue addressed was whether or not
there is evidence in the archaeological record
that this is the village attacked by the Colo-
rado Volunteer Cavalry. Two lines of evidence
confirm that this was the village attacked and
destroyed by Colonel Chivington’s forces. First
is the evidence of arms and munitions (Scott
2000). The village site yielded bullets for vari-
ous calibers and types of firearms. Among the
ammunition components are bullets for the .52
Sharps rifle or carbine, .54-caliber Starr carbine,
the .54-caliber musket, .58-caliber musket, .36-
caliber revolver, and .44-caliber revolver. These
weapon types and calibers were used during the
American Civil War and can be readily dated
and identified. Lists of ordnance used by the
First and Third Colorado Volunteer Cavalry units
during late 1864 exist (Scott 2000). The concor-
dance of the archaeological munitions finds and
the list of weapons in the volunteers’ hands is
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
quite remarkable. Additional support comes from
some limited archaeological investigation at one
of the Colorado Volunteer campsites in eastern
Colorado at Russville (Masich n.d.). Among the
artifacts recovered at the site are numerous bul-
lets of the types known to fit the handguns and
shoulder arms of the First and Third Regiments.
The Russville archaeological collection and the
Sand Creek collection also show a very high
degree of similarity.
Perhaps the single most important artifact type
that can definitively identify this village as being
attacked are cannonball fragments (Scott 2000).
The Colorado Volunteers employed four 12-pound
Mountain Howitzers during their attack. Cannon-
ball fragments from 12-pound Mountain Howitzer
spherical case rounds were recovered in the vil-
lage and nearby. They are nearly unequivocal
evidence in their own right that this is the site
of the Sand Creek Massacre.
The firearms artifact distribution also adds
to the story. There are two concentrations of
firearms’ artifacts and several widely dispersed
bullets (Scott 2000). The first concentration
consists of bullets found in the village site.
These bullets are both fired and unfired items.
Almost all calibers associated with the Colorado
Volunteer units are present. The unfired rounds
quite probably represent bullets dropped or lost
by the soldiers as they moved around the camp.
Some rounds were probably dropped in the heat
of the attack; others may have simply fallen from
open cartridge boxes as the soldiers moved about.
Another possibility is that some of the rounds rep-
resent soldiers throwing away bullets after using
the powder as fire starters, either during the time
they camped in the abandoned village or while
trying to burn and destroy the camp contents. A
12-pound howitzer case fragment was also found
in the village. It provides mute testimony to the
fact the artillery shelled the camp.
The second concentration of firearms artifacts
was found on the west side of Sand Creek and
about 300 m directly opposite the village. The
firearms artifacts were found along a line about
300 m long. Sharps and Starr bullets were found
as were three 12-pound case fragments. These
bullets and cannonball fragments probably repre-
sent rounds that overshot their intended targets
in the camp or were simply ricochets from the
firing on the camp. Another possibility is that
the bullets and cannonball fragments represent
DOUGLAS D. SCOTT—Oral Tradition and Archaeology: Conflict and Examples from Two Indian War Sites
rounds fired at fleeing Cheyenne and Arapaho
tribesmen. However, the narrow linear distri-
bution more likely reflects overshot or ricochet
rounds falling to earth once their maximum range
was reached. This artifact distribution probably
reflects firing along nearly the entire length of
the camp and, as such, is another strong indica-
tor that the camp was attacked and fired upon
(Scott 2000).
The other widely dispersed firearms artifacts
are quite literally found east of the camp rang-
ing from 300 to 600 m and north of the camp
ranging from a few tens of meters to well over
2.5 mi. Among the bullets closest to the camp
are also mingled bits of village items, like the
coffee grinder, that may reflect attempts to sal-
vage a treasured item at the time the Cheyenne
and Arapaho fled the attack on the camp. The
distribution of these fired bullets and two pri-
vately collected cannonball fragments clearly
show the line of the flight for survival by the
fleeing villagers and the pursuit by the Colorado
troops (Scott 2000).
The firearms data is particularly striking in
one respect, and that is the absence of bullets
or other weaponry evidence of resistance in
the camp itself. Bullets representing weapon
types that can be reasonably associated with the
Cheyenne and Arapaho are singularly absent from
the artifact collection from the campsite. The
absence of definitive artifacts of resistance sup-
ports the Native American oral tradition that the
attack came as a complete surprise. Evidence of
combat or armed resistance by the Cheyenne and
Arapaho is not great but is present in the fire-
arms artifacts found along the flight for survival
route, suggesting some village survivors escaped
with their personal weapons (Scott 2000).
The final bit of evidence that identifies this
site as Black Kettle’s village is the condition of
the artifacts found in the camp. Every spoon,
the fork, all tin cups, plates, bowls, and con-
tainers (buckets, pots, and kettles) have all been
crushed and flattened. Even the tin cans are
crushed. The cast iron pieces (kettles, pots, and
skillet) are broken. The patterns of crushing and
breakage point to the intentional destruction of
the camp equipage so as to make it unserviceable
to its owners, as was standard military practice
of the era.
Through a multidisciplinary approach that
included historical research, tribal oral histories
63
and traditional methods (Roberts 2000), and
archaeological investigations, the National Park
Service Sand Creek Massacre Site Location
Study resulted in the definitive identification of
the massacre site. For the first time, there is
conclusive physical evidence of the Sand Creek
Massacre, as over 400 massacre-related artifacts
have been located and identified. In addition,
the Site Location Study brought together the
most comprehensive research to date regard-
ing the massacre’s location, including original
maps, diaries, congressional testimony, newspa-
per articles, interviews, and aerial photographic
analysis. Moreover, the project also resulted
in the recordation of numerous Cheyenne and
Arapaho oral histories on the Sand Creek Mas-
sacre (Scott 2000).
As with any historical event, our understand-
ing of the Sand Creek Massacre is still limited
and obscured through time. Thus, although the
length and extent of the Sand Creek Massacre
have been conclusively identified with physical
evidence, there are differing views regarding
some of the specifics of the massacre within that
boundary. As has been noted, the Sand Creek
Massacre Site Location Study was prepared by
the National Park Service in consultation with
the Colorado Historical Society, the Cheyenne
and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, the Northern
Cheyenne Tribe, and the Northern Arapaho Tribe.
All the groups concur on the massacre boundary.
They also believe that all the primary elements
of the massacre, including the Indian encamp-
ment and the sandpits, are within the boundary.
However, the groups have differing interpretations
of the meaning of the evidence regarding the
location of some of the specific elements.
The National Park Service, based on a prepon-
derance of evidence and conclusion of reasonable
scientific certainty, believes that the Indian village
that was attacked by Chivington’s troops on 29
November 1864 is definitely identified. A reas-
sessment of the historical record completed prior
to the archaeological study included an analysis
of an 1868 military map of the Sand Creek Mas-
sacre Site that had only recently been found in
the National Archives. The map indicated that
an area north of the traditional site, the Dawson
South Bend of Sand Creek, was more likely the
site of the encampment (Greene 2000). The
archaeological survey found approximately 400
artifacts concentrated in this same area.
64
The Northern Arapaho Tribe generally concurs
with the National Park Service on the location
of the village and sandpits. The other tribes
disagree with those conclusions. Those tribes
believe there are several lines of evidence that
support their oral history that the site was in
the Dawson South Bend of Sand Creek. George
Bent, a mixed-blood Cheyenne survivor of the
Sand Creek Massacre, had drawn several maps
at the turn of the 20th century that identified
the Sand Creek Massacre Site in the bend of the
creek (Figure 4) (Greene 2000; Roberts 2000).
Two of the maps show the village within the
crux of a 90-degree bend of Sand Creek. The
tribes believe Bent’s maps match the configura-
tion of the Dawson South Bend and are signifi-
cant evidence that the village was located in that
area. Three of 35 Cheyenne and Arapaho oral
histories indicate that the Dawson South Bend
was the village site (Roberts 2000). Moreover,
the Cheyenne Arrow Keeper, who is the tribe’s
highest spiritual leader, blessed the Dawson South
Bend as “Cheyenne Earth” in 1978, thereby des-
ignating it as the Sand Creek Massacre site. For
the Cheyenne, there is no more powerful evidence
that the Dawson South Bend is the Sand Creek
Massacre site than that designation bestowed upon
it by the Arrow Keeper. While the tribes accept
the study area as containing the massacre site,
the historical and archaeological identification of
the village site is rejected by most of the tribes
because the data do not fit neatly with their oral
tradition. Thus, for some of the tribes the power
of oral tradition takes precedent over historical and
archaeological data in this case.
Conclusions
These two case examples provide an interesting
juxtaposition on the cultural meaning ascribed to
place and the role of “objective” scientific study
of past events and places. On the one hand is
the Big Hole battle example. There we have an
ideal example of how archaeology, history, and
oral tradition support one another. At the Big
Hole battlefield, archaeological evidence melded
nicely with historical documentation and Nez
Perce oral tradition. There were few conflicts in
interpreting the data. In the Five Wounds death
site example, all lines of evidence converged to
add more immediacy to the Nez Perce meaning
of that particular spot. The National Park
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
Service uses this “new” information in some of
its interpretation. Certainly, the archaeological
data has added detail to the interpretation of
the event as it has clarified the location and
movements of several of the army elements, has
shown that the Nez Perce testimony and oral
tradition is more accurate than the Army after-
action reports, and has provided physical evidence
of the battle in the form of camp debris, firearms
and ammunition components, and personal items
that can be used for display purposes.
The Sand Creek case provides us with a jar-
ring example of another reality, that not every-
one shares the same cultural values nor ascribes
the same weight to disparate lines of evidence.
To those of us trained in scientific methods of
analysis, the answer seems simple. Three lines
of evidence, historical documentation, archaeo-
logical data, and oral tradition are evaluated and
a conclusion drawn. Where one part of one line
of evidence, oral tradition, diverges from the
others, we explain it as the failure of memory
to be passed accurately through three to five
generations. Thus we accept the preponderance
of scientific evidence and emerge with a reason-
able and scientifically defensible conclusion. In
the Sands Creek case, however, we have failed
to consider the deep-seated cultural values and
meanings placed on the traditional site by tra-
ditional Native American religious and cultural
practitioners. The National Park Service does not
yet own nor manage the Sand Creek Massacre
site. No formal interpretive agenda is planned
at present. The decision on how the site will be
interpreted is open, and one of the most vexing
issues will be the resolution of the historic and
archaeological evidence versus the oral traditions
of the Cheyenne and Arapaho.
The lesson to be drawn from these examples is
neither earthshaking nor a leap forward in theo-
retical explanation. Rather it is a reminder to
those of us trained in and practicing the scientific
method that not all people share our viewpoint
of the infallibility of the deductive method. We
must all remain aware and be sensitive to the
views and opinions of others. There, of course,
is nothing particularly insightful in that state-
ment. Rather it is more important to remember
that meaning is imposed by our cultural percep-
tions and background. When that meaning is
confirmed by another source, then all is good
and, in the Big Hole example, a greater trust is
DOUGLAS D. SCOTT—Oral Tradition and Archaeology: Conflict and Examples from Two Indian War Sites
developed between the parties. When that mean-
ing is contradicted, each party retreats to their
cultural belief system as a mainstay for support
of their position. Most historical archaeologists
are trained as anthropologists, and it is appropri-
ate that we are reminded from time to time that
not all peoples share the same values or beliefs.
One should not be too surprised that there are
disparate points of view, particularly when one
is studying the anthropology of war.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my appreciation to Paul
Shackel for inviting me to present an earlier version
of this paper at the University of Maryland’s conference
on Landscapes of Conflict. Comments offered by
conference attendees and later by three anonymous
reviewers were very helpful in strengthening the points
made in the paper. The opinions expressed in this
paper are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of either the National Park Service
or the Department of the Interior.
REFERENCES
AFTON, JEAN, DAVID FRIDTJOF HALAAS, ANDREW W.
MASICH, WITH RICHARD N. ELLIS
1997 Cheyenne Dog Soldiers: A Ledgerbook History of
Coups and Combat. Colorado State Historical Society
and University of Colorado Press, Niwot.
BEAL, MERRILL D.
1963 “I Will Fight No More Forever.” University of
Washington Press, Seattle.
BROWN, MARK H.
1982 The Flight of the Nez Perce. Bison Books, Lincoln,
NE.
CONNOR, MELISSA, AND DOUGLAS D. SCOTT
1998 Metal Detector Use in Archaeology: An Introduction.
Historical Archaeology, 32(4):73–82.
FOX, RICHARD A., JR., AND DOUGLAS D. SCOTT
1991 The Post-Civil War Battlefield Pattern. Historical
Archaeology, 25(2):92–103.
GREENE, JEROME A.
2000 Report on the Historical Documentation of the Location
and Extent of the Sand Creek Massacre Site. Sand
Creek Massacre Site Location Study, Intermountain
Regional Office, National Park Service, Denver, CO.
HAINES, AUBREY
1991 An Elusive Victory: The Battle of the Big Hole. Glacier
Natural History Association, West Glacier, MT.
HOWARD, O. O.
1881 Nez Perce Joseph. Reprinted in 1972 by DaCapra
Press, New York, NY.
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MASICH, ANDREW E.
n.d. Russville Archaeology Project: A Preliminary Report
on Ammunition and Ammunition Components.
Manuscript, Office of the State Archaeologist, Colorado
Historical Society, Denver.
MCWHORTER, L. V.
1986 Hear Me My Chiefs! Nez Perce History and Legend,
Ruth Bordin, editor. Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID.
1991 Yellow Wolf: His Own Story. Caxton Printers, Caldwell,
ID.
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
2000 Sand Creek Massacre Site Location Study.
Intermountain Regional Office, National Park Service,
Denver, CO.
ROBERTS, ALEXA
2000 Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Oral Histories and
Traditional Tribal Methods Regarding the Location
of the Sand Creek Massacre. Sand Creek Massacre
Site Location Study, Intermountain Regional Office,
National Park Service, Denver, CO.
SCOTT, DOUGLAS D.
1994 A Sharp Little Affair: The Archeology of the Big Hole
Battlefield. Reprints in Anthropology, Volume 45. J
and L Reprint, Lincoln, NE.
2000 Identifying the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre Site through
Archeological Reconnaissance. Sand Creek Massacre
Site Location Study, Intermountain Regional Office,
National Park Service, Denver, CO.
SCOTT, DOUGLAS D., AND RICHARD A. FOX, JR.
1987 Archaeological Insights into the Custer Battle.
University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
SCOTT, DOUGLAS D., RICHARD A. FOX, JR., MELISSA A.
CONNOR, AND DICK HARMON
1989 Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little
Bighorn. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
SHIELDS, GEORGE O.
1889 Battle of the Big Hole. Rand McNally Co., Chicago.
WEGMAN-FRENCH, LYSA, AND CHRISTINE WHITACRE
1999 Interim Report No. 2, Historical Research on
the Location of the Sand Creek Massacre Site.
Intermountain Regional Office, National Park Service,
Denver, CO.
WOODRUFF, C. A.
1910 The Battle of the Big Hole. Contributions to the
Historical Society of Montana, 7:97–116.
DOUGLAS D. SCOTT
GREAT PLAINS TEAM LEADER
MIDWEST ARCHEOLOGICAL CENTER
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
LINCOLN, NE 68508
66
Mark Walker
The Ludlow Massacre:
Class, Warfare, and Historical
Memory in Southern Colorado
ABSTRACT
Because battlefields can be potent symbols in the construction
of historical memory, they can remain sites of struggle for
as long as that memory is important. History professionals,
such as archaeologists, participate fully in these struggles. The
commemoration of the Ludlow Massacre Site, a battlefield in
the industrial wars of the early-20th century is discussed. The
commemoration of Ludlow highlights the role of class interest
in the construction of historical memory. Doing archaeology
at Ludlow entails acknowledging these interests, both ours, as
archaeologists, and those of the working class people who
guard the memory of Ludlow.
Introduction
One is not permitted to speak of one’s wartime remi-
niscences today, nor is one under any impulse to do so.
It is an area of general reticence: an unmentionable
subject among younger friends, and perhaps of mild
ridicule among those of radical opinions. All this is
understood. And one understands also why it is so.
It is so, in part, because Chapman Pincher and his like
have made an uncontested take-over of all the moral
assets of that period; have coined the war into Holly-
wood blockbusters and spooky paper-backs and televi-
sion media; have attributed all the value of that moment
to the mythic virtues of an authoritarian Right which is
now, supposedly the proper inheritor and guardian of the
present nation’s interests.
I walk in my garden, or stand cooking at the stove, and
muse on how this came about. My memories of that
war are very different (Thompson 1980).
This passage, published 35 years after World
War II, illustrates the fragility of and the role
of power in the construction of social memory.
Although Thompson’s memories remain alive,
they are exiled from public airing and discussion,
confined to a private realm. This is a familiar
pattern. As the present becomes the past, people
impose narrative structure where before there
was none. Their confusing, contradictory, and
disparate memories and experiences are filtered,
Historical Archaeology, 2003, 37(3):66–80.
Permission to reprint required.
ordered, and disciplined to create coherent and
meaningful narratives. Some narratives dominate
and flourish, while others are stifled, driven out
of the public realm and into extinction or at
least in to their proponents’ homes. These
latter become the property of cranks and special
interest groups, at best interesting sidelights to
the central “real” story, no longer quite history
but memory or tradition. While exiled to the
margins of mainstream memory, these alterna-
tive visions can still maintain a living presence,
private and local but, nonetheless, vital. And
as political-economic conditions and alliances
shift, these submerged histories may re-emerge
or provide the seeds for changes in the domi-
nant histories.
Submerged histories are not static fossil forms
existing in isolation from the dominant historical
narratives. Like the dominant forms, they are
bound up with contemporary issues and struggles
(Popular Memory Group 1982). The reason they
survive is that they are important, and they are
useful in the present. The histories of conflict
highlight this process. That “history is written
by the victors” is a truism. In battles and wars,
it is a given that there are going to be at least
two sets of interpretations. To follow from
Thompson’s World War II example, the military
personnel on Axis and Allied sides will have two
different sets of recollections. But it is more
than simply a case of victors and vanquished.
Privates will have very different recollections
from generals, and soldiers from civilians.
Those who were civilians in Rotterdam, Dresden,
or Nagasaki will not remember the war in the
same way as those in New York, nor in the same
way as the pilots and bombardiers in the planes
that flew overhead (McGuire 1992; Linenthal and
Engelhardt 1996).
Many of the papers in this volume deal
with battles and how these are commemorated
or remembered on the landscape, particularly
through archaeology. In this article, a rather
different kind of battle in a different kind of
war is discussed. It was sparked by work on
a multiyear archaeological project, the Colorado
Coalfield War Archaeology Project, in which sites
associated with a particularly brutal labor strike
in Southern Colorado are being investigated
MARK WALKER—The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado 67

(Ludlow Collective 2000; Walker 2000). The Colorado’s coal by 1892. CF&I was acquired
defining moment of this strike in popular by the Rockefeller and Gould interests in 1903
consciousness was the Ludlow Massacre, in (Scamehorn 1992). In 1906, The Engineer-
which the Colorado National Guard killed more ing and Mining Journal estimated that 10% of
than 20 people in an attack on a tent colony Colorado’s population depended on CF&I for
of striking coal miners. You won’t read about their livelihoods (Whiteside 1990:8–9).
Ludlow in military history. In fact, you’re rather Obviously, CF&I wielded formidable political
unusual if you have read about it in any history. clout in early 20th-century Colorado. Its control
This is because the conflict was an industrial one, over the political life of Las Animas and Huer-
between corporations and a state government on fano Counties was nearly total. The Colorado
one hand and striking workers and their families mines themselves were notoriously unsafe, second
on the other. This article centers on the silencing only to Utah as the most dangerous in the nation.
of labor conflict in American public history and Miners died in Colorado coal mines at more than
how workers in southern Colorado struggle to twice the national average (McGovern and Gut-
keep the memory of one such conflict alive. tridge 1972:66; Whiteside 1990:74–75). In 95
Archaeology can play a creative and important coal mine deaths from 1904–1914 in Huerfano
role in this struggle. County, hand-picked coroner’s juries absolved
the coal companies of responsibility in every
The Colorado Coal War and its Aftermath case except one (Whiteside 1990:22).
The coal mines in the Southern Coalfield were
The Colorado Coal Strike of 1913–1914 was located up canyons where the coal seams were
one of the most violent strikes in United States exposed by erosion. Most of the miners lived in
history. Although they were ultimately defeated, these canyons in company towns, in company
the coal miners in this strike held out for 14
months in makeshift tent colonies on the Colo-
rado prairie. Although the miners lost the Colo-
rado strike, it was and still is seen as a victory
in a broad sense for the union, the United Mine
Workers of America (UMWA) (Foner 1980; Fox
1990). The Coal War was a shocking event, one
that galvanized U.S. public opinion, turned John
D. Rockefeller, Jr., into a national villain, and
eventually came to symbolize the wave of indus-
trial violence that led to the “progressive” era
reforms in labor relations (Adams 1966; Gitelman
1988; Crawford 1995). Coal mineFrs in Colo-
rado did ultimately see some material gains.
The center of the strike was in Las Animas
and Huerfano counties in the Southern Coalfield
of Colorado (Figure 1). The coal seams occur in
the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The Southern Coalfield supplied high-grade bitu-
minous coal, primarily used for coking coal for
the steel industry, which supplied rails for the
expanding western rail network. Because of the
interest of the railroads in maintaining a steady
supply of coking coal, the southern field was
heavily industrialized, dominated by a few large-
scale corporate operations. The largest of these
operations was the Rockefeller-owned Colorado FIGURE 1. Map of the 1913–1914 strike zone showing the
Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I). Founded in main coal camps and approximate location of the known
1880 by John Osgood, CF&I produced 75% of strike camps.
68
houses, and bought food and equipment at
company stores and alcohol at company saloons.
The doctors, priests, schoolteachers, and law
enforcement, such as it was, were all company
employees. The entries to the camps were gated
and guarded by deputized armed guards (Beshoar
1957:2; McGovern and Guttridge 1972:23; Foner
1980:196–198; Papanikolas 1982:39–40).
The workforce itself was largely immigrant
labor from southern and eastern Europe, who
had been brought in as strikebreakers in 1903
(Beshoar 1957:1; McGovern and Guttridge 1972:
50; Papanikolas 1982:40). Before the strike,
the UMWA counted 24 distinct languages in the
Southern Coalfield camps. In 1912, 61% of the
Colorado’s coal miners were of “non-Western
European origin” (Whiteside 1990:48). This
obviously had consequences for organizing the
miners and maintaining discipline among them
during the strike. It also resulted in the strike
and its violence being popularly seen as a result
of Greek and Balkan culture, rather than the
conditions in the coalfields.
In 1903, the UMWA led a strike in the Colo-
rado coalfields. This strike was successful in
the Northern Coalfield of Colorado, but failed
in the Southern. In 1910, the Northern opera-
tors refused to renew the contract, and the miners
struck for the next three years. In September
1913 the UMWA, which had been secretly
organizing the Southern Coalfield, announced a
strike there when the operators would not meet a
list of seven demands (McGovern and Guttridge
1972:102):
1. Recognition of the union.
2. A 10 percent increase in wages on the tonnage
rates. Each miner was paid by the ton of coal he
mined, not by the hour.
3. An eight-hour work day.
4. Payment for “dead work.” Since miners were only
paid for the coal they mined, work such as shoring,
timbering, and laying track was not paid work.
5. The right to elect their own check-weighmen.
Miners suspected, generally with good reason, that
they were being cheated at the scales that weighed
their coal. They wanted a miner to check the
scales.
6. The right to trade in any store, to choose their
own boarding places, and to choose their own
doctors.
7. Enforcement of Colorado mining laws and abolition
of the company guard system.
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
The crucial demand was recognition of the
union.
Approximately 90% of the workforce struck,
10–12,000 miners plus their families (McGovern
and Guttridge 1972:107). Those who lived in
the camps were evicted, and on 23 September
the striker families hauled their possessions
through rain and snow out of the canyons to
about a dozen sites rented in advance by the
UMWA to house them. The UMWA supplied
tents and ovens and organized the strikers into
the tent colonies. The colonies were located
at strategic spots covering the entrances to
the canyons in order to intercept strikebreak-
ers (Figure 1). Ludlow, with about 200 tents
holding 1,200 miners and their families, was
the largest of these colonies (Reed 1955:94–95;
McGovern and Guttridge 1972:106; Papanikolas
1982:79–81).
The operators reacted quickly, bringing in
strikebreakers. Like the strikers’ tents, which
were fresh from the Paint and Cabin Creek
Strike in West Virginia, the operators brought
in the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which
specialized in breaking coal-mining strikes.
The detective agency and the coal operators
initiated a campaign of harassment against the
strikers. The harassment took the form of high-
powered searchlights playing over the colonies
at night, murders, beatings, and the use of the
“death special,” an improvised armored car
that would periodically spray selected colonies
with machine-gun fire. The purpose of this
harassment was to goad the strikers into vio-
lent action, which would provide a pretext for
the Colorado governor to call out the National
Guard, thus shifting a considerable financial
burden from the operators to the state. Amid
steadily escalating violence in the coalfields and
pressure from the operators, Governor Ammons
duly called out the National Guard, which arrived
in the coalfields in October 1913 (Reed 1955:
103–105; McGovern and Guttridge 1972:120–134;
Papanikolas 1982:79–105).
After a brief honeymoon, the Militia commander
General Chase, a Denver opthalmologist who
had been involved in breaking the 1904 Cripple
Creek Strike, essentially declared martial law in
the strike zone. Highlights of this period of
unofficial martial law included the suspension
of habeas corpus, mass jailings of strikers, a
cavalry charge on a demonstration by miners’
MARK WALKER—The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado
wives and children, the torture and beating
of prisoners, and the demolition of one of the
tent colonies at Forbes. Chase also enlisted a
considerable number of mine guards as militiamen
(Reed 1955:107; McGovern and Guttridge 1972:
135–148; Sunsieri 1972; Papanikolas 1982:
107–123; Long 1985).
As the cost of supporting a force of 695
enlisted men and 397 officers in the field
bankrupted the state, all but two of the militia
companies were withdrawn after six months.
The militia companies that remained were
made up primarily of mine guards. At about
9:00 A.M. on 20 April, the day after the miners
at Ludlow had celebrated Greek Easter, gunfire
broke out at the colony. The exact circumstances
are uncertain. Those miners who were armed
(how many, isn’t known) took positions in a
railroad cut and in prepared foxholes to draw
fire away from the colony. The militia sprayed
FIGURE 2. Ludlow shortly after the massacre. The wrecked stoves on the prairie still serve as an icon of Ludlow. (Denver
Public Library, Western History and Genealogy Division.)
69
the tent colony with machine-gun and rifle fire.
By the end of the day, the force facing the
miners consisted of 177 militia, including two
machine guns. In the evening, the arrival of
a train between the militia and the tent colony
permitted most of the people to escape. By 7:
00 P.M. the tent colony was in flames and was
being looted by the militia (Figure 2). The
leader of the colony, Louis Tikas, was captured
by the militia and summarily executed, along
with two other miners. Casualty figures vary,
sometimes wildly, but a good estimate is 25
fatalities by the end of the day, including three
militiamen, one uninvolved passerby, and 12
children. During the battle, 4 women and 11
children took refuge in a pit dug beneath a
tent. All but two, Mary Petrucci and Alcarita
Pedregone, suffocated when the tent above them
was burned. The dead included Petrucci’s three
children and Pedregone’s two children. This pit
70
has been preserved and is now known as the
Death Pit (Reed 1955; McGovern and Guttridge
1972:210–231; Foner 1980; Papanikolas 1982:
207–237; Long 1989).
When news of Ludlow spread, the striking
miners at the other colonies went to war. For
10 days they attacked and destroyed mines,
fighting pitched battles with mine guards and
militia along the 40 miles from Trinidad to
Walsenberg. The fighting ceased when the
desperate governor of Colorado asked for fed-
eral intervention. After Ludlow and the 10-Day
War, the strike dragged on for another seven
months, ending in defeat for the UMWA in
December 1914 (McGovern and Guttridge 1972:
232–249; Papanikolas 1982:239–255).
After the strike ended, mass arrests were made
of the miners, 408 in total, with 332 being
indicted for murder, including the main strike
leader, John Lawson. These trials dragged on
until 1920. All arrests were eventually quashed
with most cases never coming to trial, prob-
ably due to Rockefeller’s influence, as he was
anxious to see an end to the fallout from the
strike. In contrast, 10 officers and 12 enlisted
men were court-martialed for actions in Ludlow
by the Colorado National Guard and exonerated
(McGovern and Guttridge 1972:269–292).
Although it ended in the defeat of the union,
the Ludlow Massacre focused national attention
on the conditions in the Colorado coal camps
and in labor conditions throughout the U.S.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was singled out and
excoriated in the press and in a spectacular
series of public hearings before the Commission
on Industrial Relations (Adams 1966; McGovern
and Guttridge 1972:312–332). The strike did
lead to some significant changes, including a
general shift on the part of corporate managers
from violent confrontation with organized labor
to a policy more of co-optation. It is also
generally accepted wisdom that company town
conditions improved throughout the U.S. as a
result of the Coal War (Gitelman 1988; Roth
1992; Crawford 1995).
For the UMWA, Ludlow came to serve as
an icon of industrial conflict. It was felt to
mark a turning point in the struggle for union
recognition. As a result of the increasing labor
violence at the turn of the century, there was a
growing belief among all classes of American
society that the industrial system was in need
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
of, if not fundamental reform, some reform to
stave off class warfare (Adams 1966).
The Construction of Memory
Archaeology is an inherently political enter-
prise, bound up in, for example, ideologies
of nationalism and colonialism (Trigger 1984,
1989; Gathercole and Lowenthal 1989; Layton
1989; Leone and Preucel 1992; Kohl and Faw-
cett 1995a; Schmidt and Patterson 1995; Kohl
1998), of gender (Conkey 1991; Gero and
Conkey 1991; Wylie 1992; Spector 1993), race
(Leone 1995; McDavid and Babson 1997), and
class (Leone et al. 1987; Duke and Saitta 1998;
McGuire and Walker 1999; Patterson 1999).
Archaeologists, drawn largely from the middle
class, have tended to draw on interpretive
models that reflect the interests and concerns
of that class, models that ignore conflict and
contradiction within the social order, empha-
sizing instead its homogeneity, continuity, and
the harmonious functioning of its various parts
(Shanks and Tilley 1987; Paynter and McGuire
1991; McGuire 1992; Funari, this volume).
But archaeology can emancipate as well as
legitimate or oppress. Through the archaeol-
ogy project at Ludlow, an emancipatory and
class-based archaeology was sought, “develop-
ing an archaeology of, and for, the working
class” (Duke and Saitta 1998). As a goal of
the Ludlow project is to create an archaeology
that is relevant for the working classes, one that
extends beyond the middle-class orientation of
archaeology, members of the project are part of a
growing movement in archaeology that seeks dia-
logues with groups that fall outside archaeology’s
traditional audience (Leone 1995; McDavid and
Babson 1997; Logan 1998).
However, doing an archaeology like this is
easier said than done, especially if there is
mistrust or simply polite bewilderment about what
you are trying to do. The Ludlow project deals
with a very different audience than archaeology’s
traditional one. The United Archaeological Field
Technicians aside, archaeology and organized
labor have not often crossed paths. Those
working on the Ludlow project have been
confronted with the fact that many of the people
who have the greatest interest in the site, for
whom the memory of Ludlow is most important,
are people who really don’t have much use for
MARK WALKER—The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado
archaeology, at least not archaeology as usual.
Reaction among the mineworkers to the proposed
work was at best cautious, generally ranging
from polite bewilderment to outright antagonism.
The antagonism is probably due to the doubt that
academic professionals could contribute anything
worth knowing to the story of Ludlow, although
the actual expression of this reservation was
somewhat earthier (Duke and Saitta 1998).
There is a very real awareness of the politics
of history on the part of the miners. It is not
every archaeology project where an important
first step is convincing the landowner that you
are not a Republican. The need for this was
explained to the researchers as “History can
be written a lot of ways and Ludlow is sacred
ground for the mineworkers.” Ludlow is sacred
ground and has been ever since the massacre.
The interest of the mineworkers in Ludlow is not
an abstract or neutral one, for that would render
Ludlow and its memory meaningless.
The important point here is that the histories
of Ludlow are not simply lying in the ground
waiting for archaeologists to dig them up. They
precede our arrival on the scene and are rooted
in different interests from ours. For the project
to be at all meaningful to the local community,
archaeologists must understand and engage these
histories and interests (Brecher 1986; Duggan
1986; Green 1986; Leone 1986; Shopes 1986;
Bishir 1989; Leone and Preucel 1992; Shanks
and McGuire 1996; Potter 1998). Research-
ers moved from the study of history to that of
memory and history making, leaving the familiar
practices and attitudes of academic professionals
and entering a terrain where the past is intimate,
explicitly useful, and its meanings are jealously
guarded (Popular Memory Group 1982; Thelen
1990; Portelli 1991; Hamilton 1994; Rosenzweig
and Thelen 1998).
Unsurprisingly, discussions of memory mirror
some of the debates over the nature of ideology.
Much of the debate has been framed in terms
of dichotomies that revolve around the opposi-
tion between dominant and submerged sets of
narratives and practices—official vs. vernacular,
public vs. private, national vs. local, or history
vs. memory. These dichotomies do highlight
the existence of real underlying processes of
power and domination (Hamilton 1994:12) and
are useful for some projects (Bodnar 1992).
However, they are inadequate when researchers
71
wish to look at the histories of these narratives
or consider them in any detail. People do not
contain within themselves different historical
consciousnesses deriving from different forms
of historical narrative that run along on sepa-
rate but parallel tracks. Rather, these sources
or narratives are pulled together, interpreted, and
made coherent through preexisting understand-
ings and experiences.
This coherent individual understanding of his-
tory, where personal experience and formal his-
torical narratives are integrated into a practical
historical consciousness, is historical memory. It
is a relation constructed through the interaction
of a diverse set of historical sources, narratives,
and practices (Figure 3), both public and private
or informal, and through political-economic inter-
ests, such as class, race, or gender.
The active negotiation of these sets of
interests and narratives creates a personal but
socially embedded understanding of the past that
structures and provides both practical (action-
oriented) understandings of identity and agency
and also guidance in planning and anticipating
the present and future (Rosenzweig and Thelen
1998:18). Historical memory is not an imposed
dominant ideology, although dominant concep-
tions through the historical public sphere do
play a role in constructing it. The incorporation
of these different narratives is not uncritical or
passive. People do absorb and retain elements
and narratives from official or dominant sources
and may even do so in an unquestioning manner
(Frisch 1990), but they interpret these narratives
and assign meaning to them through their own
FIGURE 3. The construction of historical memory.
72
interests and experiences (Rosenzweig and Thelen
1998:22–32).
Archaeology is part of the historical public
sphere, a constellation of media and institutions
that serve to create national historical memory;
institutions such as schools, historical sites,
television programs, commemorative activities,
and museums (Habermas 1991; Bodnar 1992:15,
19). These institutions act together, although
not necessarily in concert, to create and com-
municate the heritage that largely defines the
nation (Bommes and Wright 1982:260). This
historical public sphere is an arena with a set
of rules within which public historical argumen-
tation and, thus, political and social argumenta-
tion take place through the creation of historical
memory (Bommes and Wright 1982; Popular
Memory Group 1982). The past becomes a
theater for the enactment of dramas, presenting
a primordial unity that denies social and political
contradictions in the present. Within historical
archaeology, for example, certain sites represent
the nation, being our heritage, our history, and
our past, while others represent the heritage of
special interest groups within the nation.
The historical public sphere is an arena for
debate but debates that are often structured
by inequalities (Bodnar 1992:15–19). These
structuring inequalities can be as crass as flows
of money or interlocking directorates between
corporate and historical boards and as subtle as
the attitudes of the middle-class professionals
who largely referee the debates (Bodnar 1992:
15; Beik 1998). There are broad similarities in
the narratives that tend to dominate in the end.
These narratives are nationalistic and patriotic,
emphasizing citizen duties over citizen rights.
They emphasize social unity, the continuity of
the social order, and gloss over periods of trans-
formation and rupture (Bodnar 1992:13–19).
Public memory is still the result of negotia-
tion and debate, albeit between opponents who
are often mismatched. The domination of official
histories is not total. The same historical event
will be experienced, perceived, and interpreted in
many ways, generating pasts as contradictory and
heterogeneous as the social relations that ulti-
mately spawned them (McGuire 1992: 816–817).
Some of these pasts flourish, propagating through
official commemorations and interpretations,
school textbooks, and the mass media (Trouillot
1995). But the other pasts do not necessarily
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
disappear. The past is remembered through many
means—photo albums, family conversations, and
local commemorations of histories that have been
excluded or marginalized within official history
(Popular Memory Group 1982; Bodnar 1992;
Funari 1993; Rosenzweig and Thelen 1998).
Remembering Ludlow
As early as 1916, letters, editorials, and
cartoons in the United Mine Workers Journal
were expressing the not unjustified concern that
Ludlow would be erased from public memory.
The memory of Ludlow became a battleground
almost immediately after the massacre. In addi-
tion to Ludlow’s seminal role in labor history,
Rockefeller’s campaign to rehabilitate his image
afterwards and to control the public perception of
Ludlow led to its gaining a special place in U.S.
history as a birthplace of professional public rela-
tions (Gitelman 1988; Cockburn 1996; Martinson
1996). The response of the mine workers was
immediate and effective. The pamphlet they put
out in 1914 (Fink 1914) fixed the name as the
“Ludlow Massacre,” rather than the “Battle of
Ludlow,” or the “Ludlow Incident.” At the time,
defending the idea that Ludlow was an atroc-
ity committed by people as opposed to a battle
between evenly matched sides or an unfortunate
accident that just happened was not a difficult
argument.
The UMWA bought the 40 acres surround-
ing the site of the Ludlow colony before 1916
(Hayes 1916). John White, the president of the
UMWA, officially proposed a memorial for the
site at the 1916 UMWA convention (White 1916:
35). The convention passed the proposal. Later
that year several hundred coalminers met at the
site of Ludlow and joined the union (United
Mine Workers Journal [UMWJ] 1916). Regular
commemorations seem to have been held at the
site thereafter. The monument was finally dedi-
cated 30 May 1918 (UMWJ 1918b) (Figure 4).
The Death Pit was also preserved and consists
of a concrete-lined pit into which people can
still descend.
In subsequent strikes in Southern Colorado,
the memory of Ludlow was invoked in mass
meetings at the site. For one thing, being
owned by the UMWA made it safe ground for
miners to meet during strikes. During a strike in
1921, the UMWA erected four tents on the site
MARK WALKER—The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado
FIGURE 4. The Ludlow Massacre Memorial. Dedicated
30 May 1918.
of Ludlow in symbolic defiance of an order by
the Colorado Rangers not to erect tent colonies
(Pogliano 1921). The Rangers were aware of
the inflammatory symbolism of the tent colony.
The International Workers of the World (the
IWW or Wobblies), a rival union to the UMWA,
also legitimated a major strike in 1927 by hold-
ing a meeting at the site of Ludlow (Whiteside
1990:129).
In the time work has been done at Ludlow,
the United Steelworkers have been participating
in the UMWA annual memorial service at
Ludlow. They are currently on strike at the
CF&I (now Oregon Steel) plant in Pueblo. The
steelworkers obviously delight in the historical
parallels between the strike of 1913 and today’s.
In 1998 and 1999 about 400 of them marched
to Ludlow carrying a banner listing all the
strikers killed there. In 1999 they also held
a week-long series of community educational
events prior to the memorial service, with
speakers, exhibits, and labor-related movies.
73
The memory of Ludlow remains an important
one to working-class people and organized labor
and is still annually commemorated.
But Ludlow is vulnerable to forgetting for pre-
cisely the reason that its memory is important to
organized labor. It flies in the face of dominant
middle-class conceptions of American society.
Many of the cover illustrations and the corre-
spondence from the United Mine Workers Journal
after the Ludlow Massacre revolve around the
contradiction between what happened at Ludlow
and dominant conceptions of U.S. society.
For example, the cartoon in Figure 5 critiques
the idea of the U.S. as a classless society. The
heading on this cartoon, “Oh yes, we are part-
ners,” refers to one of the reforms that came
out of the massacre and its aftermath. Under
the influence of his advisor, Mackenzie King
(who later became Prime Minister of Canada),
Rockefeller argued that labor and capital were,
in fact, equal partners in industrial enterprises
and should cooperate, an argument that still
has resonance today, even among the leadership
of some unions. He established the Colorado
Industrial Plan, which was one of the first com-
pany unions (Gitelman 1988). This cartoon is
making the point that the partnership is, in fact,
FIGURE 5. “Oh! Yes, We are Partners.” For many middle-
class Americans, Ludlow was the first hint that the rhetoric
and reality of life in industrial America did not mesh (United
Mine Workers Journal, 1 October 1914).
74
unequal—in living conditions, the profits from
the enterprise, and the right to organize and form
associations.
While the UMWA’s memorialization of Ludlow
was an effort to maintain a history in danger of
being submerged, this effort was itself the prod-
uct of power struggles and differentials within the
union, which highlights the difficulty in pigeon-
holing dominant and submerged histories. Union
politics and the residue of bitterness between the
UMWA International Executive and the miners of
Southern Colorado, who felt that they had been
abandoned, led to two of the 1913 strike leaders,
John Lawson and Ed Doyle, forming a separate
and rival union in Southern Colorado (Hayes et
al. 1918a, 1918b; UMWJ 1918a, 1918c). The
dedication of the Ludlow Monument by the
UMWA in 1918 (UMWJ 1918b) took place in
the midst of this controversy. The monument
and the dedication permitted the UMWA Interna-
tional to lay claim to the history of Ludlow and
prevents its use by the dual unionists. There are
submerged histories within submerged histories.
This part of the history of Ludlow has, other
than archival traces, all but disappeared.
Forgetting Ludlow
Labor struggle and the life of labor is promi-
nent, if that is the word, among those events
and sites that are silenced in the historical
public sphere, being instead commemorated by
labor unions and working people themselves
(Foote 1997:296). Given the sorts of interests
that tend to drive and dominate public history,
the silencing of labor struggle is unsurpris-
ing. In the dominant mythology, the U.S. is
a classless society—“we are all middle class.”
Events that bear a resemblance to class warfare
or that even point to the presence of class are
not easily incorporated with this mythology. A
second factor for the silencing is that labor
struggle lacks a resolution or, to put it another
way, historical distance (Foote 1997:300). Labor
struggles continue today. They cannot be effec-
tively quarantined in the past and “antiquarian-
ized.” The problems that gave rise to them
have not been resolved, and unions remain an
uneasy and ambiguous presence on the fringes of
middle-class consciousness.
The silencing of labor struggle can also have
more obviously economic underpinnings. In
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
Southern Colorado, the remembered past needs
to be considered in the context of deindustri-
alization, the decline of coal mining, and local
attempts to re-create the economic base of the
area through heritage tourism. The dominant
history of the area is that of the Old West.
Trinidad, the largest town near Ludlow, is on
the Santa Fe Trail. Its history is replete with
cowboys, pioneers, Indian attacks, and figures
such as Kit Carson, Dick Wootten, Black Jack
Ketchum, and Bat Masterson. The attraction of
this history is powerful. It provides a link not
only to national histories of westward expansion
and growth but to a mythology that, through
Hollywood, has a truly global appeal. The his-
tories of coal mining, company towns, and labor
struggle pale in comparison (Papanikolas 1995:
73–90; McGuire and Reckner 1998).
But these histories are not erased totally. They
are too big a part of the past and the landscape,
evident in the giant slack heaps and graveyards
throughout the region. Although the last mine
closed in 1996, coal mining is still a significant
part of the experience of the local community,
and its commemoration is increasingly prominent.
In 1998 a coal miners’ memorial was erected in
Trinidad’s historic district. The monument was
erected by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
and the ceremony was strikingly pro-union (Bee
1997). Compared to similar such monuments,
it appears to have been relatively uncontrover-
sial. For example, a miners’ memorial in Harlan
County, Kentucky, was the site of considerable,
although covert, political tensions (Scott 1995)
and was ultimately demolished by civic authori-
ties. This was also the case with a 1997 miners’
memorial designed to commemorate those who
had died in local mines in Windber, Pennsylvania
(Beik 1999).
As coal mining and coal miners recede into
history, it becomes likely that there will be
more official interpretation of this history and a
softening of this history, a trend that we can see
in other deindustrializing regions of the United
States, such as the coal mining and steel towns
of Pennsylvania (Abrams 1994; Mondale 1994;
Staub 1994; Brant 1996; Stewart 1997). As
industries leave the United States for overseas
plants or become economically unfeasible, their
histories are often sanitized, romanticized, and
redefined as “heritage” (Lowenthal 1996; Karaim
1997; Brooke 1998), a trend that one journalist
MARK WALKER—The Ludlow Massacre: Class, Warfare, and Historical Memory in Southern Colorado
aptly characterized as “Unemployment: The
Theme Park” (Brant 1996). There is generally
little room for labor history or the interpretation
of labor struggle in this heritage of technological
progress, entrepreneurs, and impressive, but,
nonetheless, fetishized industrial artifacts and
processes.
Archaeology and Memory
While many archaeologists may appreciate it
theoretically, the political nature of the past is
something that archaeologists have been dragged
into in real life—generally reluctantly. Archae-
ologists have found themselves embroiled with
communities that, rather than being passive con-
sumers of the pasts that archaeologists produce,
challenged the right of archaeologists to produce
those pasts without the involvement of the com-
munity or even their right to produce these pasts
at all (Condori 1989; Zimmerman 1989; McGuire
1992; Epperson 1997; LaRoche and Blakey 1997;
Patten 1997).
As archaeologists, we know history matters,
but it also matters to people outside the guild,
people who may have different interests from
ours—interests often rooted in some familiar
issues such as ethnicity, race, gender, and class.
Our findings and interpretations are sometimes
used or rejected in unexpected ways and for
unexpected reasons. Our audience is not homo-
geneous. There are segments of this audience
that are interested in the same things professional
archaeologists are interested in and are content to
accept our findings. But, as we are increasingly
finding, there are other segments that, while they
may be vitally interested in the past, may find
our research questions irrelevant or even offen-
sive (LaRoche and Blakey 1997).
Archaeologists and their audiences are pre-
dominantly white and middle class. It doesn’t
take intricate or obscure textual analyses to see
this orientation in a lot of historical archaeol-
ogy—for example, the celebrations of consumer-
ism, the melting pot models of acculturation, or
the discomfort with the idea of class (Wurst and
Fitts 1999). The issue is not whether archaeol-
ogy should be made political or relevant. It
already is political and relevant. The question
is for whom?
In the work at Ludlow, an audience was chosen
and some decisions were made. Public interpre-
75
tive responsibilities at this site lie with organized
labor, not only because the United Mine Workers
owns the site of Ludlow and researchers work
there at their pleasure but because of our own
theoretical and practical concerns. Archaeology
possesses considerable public appeal, although for
exactly which public and why is open to inves-
tigation. We can use the appeal of archaeology
to reach audiences who are largely unfamiliar
with labor history and, conversely, by making
ourselves useful to organized labor, broaden the
awareness of archaeology.
It is by making ourselves useful, not by
displaying the intrinsic “objective” worth of
archaeology, that the initial suspicion has been
overcome and a dialogue with organized labor
has been established. Of major interest to
organized labor in Southern Colorado was simply
raising public awareness of the massacre. This
has been done through on-site tours, newspaper
articles, talks and lectures, and a traveling
exhibit. Members of the project spoke and
maintained an exhibit at a series of community
events on the Ludlow Massacre held by the
United Steelworkers of America in Pueblo who
were, and at the time of writing still are, on
strike against Colorado Fuel & Iron. Kim
Manajek, a student in the University of Denver’s
Museum Studies program, designed and installed
an interpretive kiosk at the site (Manajek 1999).
The UMWA Local Women’s Auxiliary, which
was largely responsible for the maintenance of
the monument, reviewed the design of the kiosk.
Their suggestions centered on strengthening the
connection between the Ludlow Massacre and
contemporary labor struggles in the area, thus
ensuring that Ludlow was not consigned to
a dead past—something the very presence of
archaeologists may tend to suggest. In addition,
Dean Saitta designed and organized a K–12
Teachers’ Institute in order to try to bring labor
history into the school curriculum.
Interpreting the Ludlow Massacre to people
who have little or no awareness of labor his-
tory is not an unexpected benefit of the proj-
ect to organized labor. The exhibit and the
archaeological work have also been a way for
unions to educate their members about their his-
tory and about the sacrifices of union members.
The exhibit was shown at the UMWA Ludlow
Memorial Services in 1999 and 2000 and, as
the project is covered in the national labor press
76
(Green 1999; UMWJ 1999), there has been recent
interest in taking the exhibit to union halls.
Conclusion
Ludlow is very recent for an archaeologi-
cal study, for many archaeologists shockingly
so. But Ludlow does confront us with a site
where archaeologists are forced to engage with
audiences, audiences who will take our findings
quite seriously. Ludlow highlights the political
nature of history and archaeology. It is obvious
that just looking at a site like this is a politi-
cal statement. But what is less obvious is that
it is just as much a political statement to not
look at sites like this. The silencing of labor
history sites and events, such as Ludlow, Blair
Mountain, Lattimer, and Homestead, as well as
their commemoration is bound up with histori-
cal struggles and class interests. Histories are
themselves historical, changing as struggles and
alliances between interest groups shift as they
change and are changed by the social terrain on
which their struggles take place. The erasing or
trivialization of labor struggle within the histori-
cal public sphere involves a number of related
processes and interests at local and national
scales, from the conscious public relations cam-
paigns of wealthy capitalists to middle-class atti-
tudes towards labor and labor unions, from the
disciplinary practices of academic professionals
to the anxiousness of civic leaders anticipating
tourist interests and desires.
Archaeology is an act of commemoration. It
participates in the creation of historical memory,
creating visions of the past that are rooted in
present-day interests: not just our interests
but also those of our audiences (Shanks and
McGuire 1996). Engaging in dialogues with
those outside the guild enriches archaeological
and historical discourse by making us aware of
the silences in the pasts we have been creating;
thus, we open up new directions of research.
This is not to deny the existence of a real past.
Ludlow did happen. And as archaeologists, the
skills and specialized knowledge we bring will
provide important information on what happened
at Ludlow. But the carefully mapped, expended
bullets scattered among the charcoal staining,
broken plates, toys, and buttons touch us in
ways that go beyond the evidence. Knowing
the importance of the past lies in knowing what
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
these “ways” are and why they came to be. As
Michel-Rolph Trouillot notes, the authenticity
of the past lies in the struggles of the pres-
ent. An authentic past is one that engages us
as witnesses, actors, and commentators (Trouillot
1995:150–151).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article is product of many people’s work. In
looking after the children, Ginette Walker worked
harder on this article than I did. I wish to thank Randy
McGuire, Dean Saitta, and Phil Duke for allowing me to
participate in this project. I also wish to thank them,
Pedro Funari, and two anonymous reviewers for their
insightful comments on this article. Conversations
with many others have contributed to my thoughts,
prominent among them the staff and students of the
University of Denver Summer Field Schools at Ludlow
and Berwind. I am grateful to Paul Shackel for the
opportunity to participate in the Commemoration,
Conflict, and the American Landscape Conference
at the University of Maryland in 1999. We work at
Ludlow with the gracious permission of District 22
and Local Union 9856 of the United Mine Workers
of America. They have kept the memory of Ludlow
alive. The Colorado Coalfield War Archaeology Project
is funded by the Colorado Historical Society, State
Historical Fund.
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Pedro Paulo A. Funari
Conflict and the Interpretation
of Palmares, a Brazilian
Runaway Polity
ABSTRACT
In recent years, historical archaeologists have become increas-
ingly interested in exploring how to use material culture to
study conflict and how the interpretation of their sites is
affected by modern perception. Grounded in a dialectical
epistemology, the experience of past peoples is considered
part of an ongoing social confrontation between social actors.
Archaeologists tend to consider cultures as neatly bounded
homogeneous entities. The holistic, monolithic nature of
cultures has been put into question by several empirical and
theoretical studies. In northeastern Brazil, a large maroon
kingdom called Palmares developed in the 17th century, and
people have often interpreted it in two ways. Some prefer
to stress the African character of the polity, while others
emphasize the diversity within the community. Archaeologi-
cal research at Palmares produced evidence of a heterogeneous
society, an interpretive model that does not follow dominant
epistemological schemes and prejudices.
Introduction
In recent years historical archaeologists have
become increasingly interested in exploring how
to use material culture to study conflicts and
struggles. They have also become interested
in how interpretation of the past is affected
by modern perceptions. For instance, in 1999
volume 3 of the International Journal of
Historical Archaeology dealt with “Archaeologies
of Resistance in Britain and Ireland” and volume
33 (1) of Historical Archaeology was concerned
with “Confronting Class.” A bit earlier, modern
perceptions were the subject in Historical
Archaeology 31 (1) in “In the Real of Politics:
Prospects for Public Participation in African-
American and Plantation Archaeology” and
in “Archaeologists as Storytellers” (Historical
Archaeology 32, 1). Both subjects are also
at the heart of several chapters of an edited
volume on historical archaeology (Funari et
al. 1999), with contributions from all over the
world. The same issues are also behind the
initiative of a new scholarly archaeological
Historical Archaeology, 2003, 37(3):81-92.
Permission to reprint required.
81
journal, Public Archaeology, spearheaded by
the Institute of Archaeology (University College
London). Conflicts in the past and conflicts in
the interpretation of the past are thus a growing
concern in the discipline.
Society is always characterized by conflict and
grounded in a dialectical epistemology; the expe-
rience of past peoples is considered as part of an
ongoing social confrontation among social actors
(McGuire and Saitta 1996:198–204). Historical
archaeology, in particular, deals with societies
split by class divisions, whereby the producers of
surplus labor are distinct from the appropriators.
Exploitation generates a continuous, open conflict
and inner contradictions in society (Saitta 1992),
and the forces of domination and resistance are
ever-present (Frazer 1999:5). The interpretation
of these conflicts is malleable and subjective
(Rao 1994:154). Historical archaeologists can
view the past as a set of complex texts, inter-
twined to form a discourse (M. Hall 1994:168).
If conflict and subjectivity are part of both evi-
dence and the interpretation of evidence, a variety
of views are inevitable, and archaeologists cannot
avoid taking a position. There are different ways
of knowing the past, and historical archaeologists
must address the question of who is entitled to
know—who can participate in the process of
giving meaning to the past (Mueller 1991:613).
In this context, this article deals with academic
and lay interpretations of a 17th-century maroon
kingdom in Brazil (Palmares) and explores the
different approaches to its past. Archaeology
can be a powerful tool for uncovering subaltern
histories (Franklin 1997:800) and for empowering
people. The struggles over the interpretation of
the runaway settlement provide a good example
of archaeological relevance to society at large.
As is usual with archaeological research, this
paper probably poses as many questions as it
answers (Delle 1999:32), but rather than propos-
ing a supposedly correct interpretation, this paper
fosters a pluralist discussion of the subject.
Documents, Archaeology, and Conflicts
Attempting to describe and interpret what
occurred in past cultures requires the incorpora-
tion of texts and artifacts (McKay 1976:95; Orser
82
1987:131; Ober 1995:111). The documentary and
archaeological data may be thought of as interde-
pendent, complementary, and contradictory, at the
same time (Little 1992:4). It is often the case
that many scholars are not aware of the existence
of thousands of unpublished documents, most of
them in vernacular languages. Many of them are
in Latin, the lingua franca of the modern world
until the very recent past (Lee and Markman
1977:57). To cope with the task of interpret-
ing conflict within society, a multidisciplinary
approach is necessary in order to combine textual
analysis with such disciplines as sociology and
anthropology, among others (Small 1995:15).
Traditionally, conflict has been interpreted
by the dominant groups in a society (Moly-
neaux 1994:3). Until 40 years ago, historical
archaeologists directed their attention almost
exclusively toward the wealthy and the famous,
contributing to the maintenance and reinforce-
ment of conservative ideologies (Orser 1998b:
662). Gradually, archaeologists began to follow
their colleagues in the humanities and the social
sciences in turning their attention to subordi-
nate groups (Orser 1998a:65). Examining the
material evidence of subordinate groups offered
the opportunity to have a more comprehensive
access to traditionally underrepresented groups
(Guimarães 1990; Funari 1993). Even though
some scholars not well acquainted with mate-
rial culture studies openly questioning historical
archaeology’s ability to contribute to the under-
standing of the past (Burke 1991), several books
and papers published in recent years confirmed
that material evidence is particularly important
to the understanding of the intricacies of con-
flicts in society (Fitts 1996:69).
How to interpret conflict in society depends
directly on how we understand society itself.
Traditionally, archaeologists considered that cul-
tures are neatly bounded homogeneous entities
(Mullins 1999:32). This idea comes from the
well-known (and by now classic) definition cre-
ated by Childe (1935:198): “Culture is a social
heritage; it corresponds to a community sharing
common institutions and a common way of life
[emphasis added].” This definition implies har-
mony and unity within society, a commonality of
interest, and thus a lack of conflict (Jones 1997a:
15–26). The roots of this understanding of social
life lie, on the one hand, with Aristotle and his
definition of society as a koinonia, that is, as a
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
partnership (Aristotle Politica1252a7).). Sharing
values in a homogeneous culture means accepting
generalizing features and common traits shared
by everybody (Aristotle 1328a21).
Homogeneity is a concept informed by capi-
talist nationalist movements (Handler 1988) and
in direct opposition to an internationalist, pro-
letarian Marxist approach, so clearly explained
in the Communist Manifesto: Proletarier aller
Länder, vereignt euch! (“Proletarians of all coun-
tries, unite”) (Marx and Engels 1954). Cultures
and nations were seen by bourgeois ideology as
bounded, unified entities, and history was con-
ceived as the product of the actions and events
associated with such homogeneous entities. This
bourgeois search for national solidarity was criti-
cized time and again by Marx and Engels (Marx
1970), a point emphasized by several commenta-
tors in recent studies commemorating the 150th
anniversary of the Communist Manifesto (Funari
1998; Löwy 1998).
In this context, the concept of archaeological
culture can be understood. Bounded material
complexes are assumed to be a product of past
ethnic groups because, it is said, people within
such groups shared a set of prescriptive norms
of behavior that were learned at an early age,
and, therefore, they produced a common cul-
ture. The very notion of early-age indoctrina-
tion is inspired by the use of schools for forging
nationalist identities in a bourgeois perspective,
as was most notable in the case of France after
the French Revolution. Archaeological entities
are interpreted in the same light as organic units
equivalent to bourgeois nations. Contradictions
and struggle in society are only epistemologically
possible if society is heterogeneous, and the dia-
lectic between homogeneity and heterogeneity in
society can be seen in this light (Hobsbawm
and Ranger 1983; Hobsbawm 1992; Confino
1993; Penrose 1995).
In this context, generalizing implies homog-
enizing, and there is a growing dissatisfaction
with using this normative approach to interpret
social life (Skidmore 1993:382). The holistic,
monolithic nature of cultures and societies has
been questioned by several empirical and theo-
retical studies in the last decades (Bentley 1987;
Jones 1997a). Homogeneity, order, and bound-
edness have been associated with the a priori
assumption that stability characterizes societies,
rather than conflict, a clear conservative Weltan-
PEDRO PAULO A. FUNARI—Conflict and the Interpretation of Palmares, a Brazilian Runaway Polity
schauung (worldview). It is also a nonhistorical
approach, implying that all Catholics are, were,
and will be superstitious, or that all the Africans
are, were, and will be gregarious. However, a
growing body of evidence and critical scrutiny
of social thought has challenged this traditional
view, considering society as heterogeneous, with
often-conflicting constructions of cultural iden-
tity. The theory of contradictions at the root of
Marxist dialectics is the key for criticizing both
bourgeois individualism and artificial homoge-
neous communities.
Heterogeneity, fluidity, and continuous change
imply also that there are multiple entities that
often change within society. Archaeology has
a long tradition of identifying ethnic identities
through material evidence, equating material
culture, race, and language (Funari 1999a). This
identification is grounded on a normative and
homogeneous understanding of culture, being
thus challenged by different studies. Ethno-
archaeological research has shown that cultural
traits, artifacts, or attributes are often poor indi-
cators of ethnicity (DeCorse 1989:138), and the
whole notion that a fixed, one-to-one relationship
persisted between specific types of material cul-
ture and a particular identity has been criticized
(Jones 1997b:63). Material culture cannot thus
be considered as a straightforward indicator of an
ethnic group (Vansina 1995). It is in this over-
all theoretical context that this paper deals with
a unique African-Brazilian runaway settlement
known as Palmares. The concept of a “Palmares
archaeological culture” implies the runaway
inhabitants shared a set of prescriptive norms of
behavior that were learned at an early age and,
therefore, they produced a common culture. When
archaeologists reconstruct culture histories on the
basis of material culture’s supposed homogene-
ity, they are producing a representation of the
maroon, which is suited to a nationalist perspec-
tive, underplaying conflicts within Palmares itself.
In this chapter, I look at how several identities
were being formed through the selective use, by
conflicting social groups, of particular aspects of
the material world.
African-Brazilian Resistance: Palmares
Slavery was prevalent and accepted in the
Christian and Islamic medieval world. Those
who followed the customs of classical Antiquity
83
during the Renaissance also reinforced the
institution of slavery. They all believed that
the leisure provided by enslaved labor to an
elite allowed civilization to flower (Wood
1989; Martínez 1995:86). In Africa, conquerors
would enslave defeated enemies and neighbors
(Thomas 1997). In Europe, bondage was
widespread; serfdom being referred to in the
learned documents of the period by the same
word used to refer to slaves: servitus, serfdom
and slavery at once (Verlinden 1974). Slavery
was also widespread in Africa, and its growth
and development were largely independent of
the Atlantic trade (Thornton 1992:74). Slavery
was introduced in Brazil in this overall context.
The Portuguese colonizers first used native
inhabitants and later introduced Africans to work
on plantations and elsewhere in the colony.
The Portuguese developed sugar plantations in
Brazil early in their colonial history, and by 1570
there were already several estates combining
African and Native South American slave
workforces. These Portuguese plantations were
in the northeast of the South American colony,
while sugar processing and financing was in the
hands of the Dutch who managed to occupy
Pernambuco in 1629, in the Northeast of Brazil,
staying there until 1654. At the beginning
of the 17th century, runaway slaves settled in
the hilly forest area. The scattered hideouts,
consisting of several villages, developed in the
foothills from 45 to 75 mi. inland from the
coastal plantations, stretching more than 100 mi.,
running roughly parallel to the coast (Figure 1).
During its initial years, Palmares (palm groves
FIGURE 1. Map of Palmares settlements in the State of
Alagaos, Brazil (Orser 1992b:13).
84 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)

in Portuguese) derived its name from the many

palmetto trees (Allen 1999:144).
The first expedition against Palmares in 1612
attests to the importance of the kingdom, already
in its first years of development. The polity
continued to grow, and the Dutch considered
Palmares a serious danger, attacking it several
times. In the mid-1640s, Palmares already was
comprised of nine separate villages: Andalaqui-
tuche, Macaco, Subupira, Aqualtene, Dambra-
banga, Zumbi, Tabocas, Arotirene, and Amaro
(Figure 2). Two place names are Amerindian
(Subupira and Tabocas); one is Portuguese
(Amaro); and the other six are Bantu (Funari
1999b:322). Macaco, the capital, was also
known as Potbelly Hill (Oiteiro da Barriga or
Serra da Barriga). After the Dutch left Brazil,
the Portuguese carried out several expeditions
against Palmares with a systematic campaign
to destroy it, beginning in the 1670s (Funari
1999b). Between 1670 and 1687 under the
rule of Ganga Zumba (great lord), there seems
FIGURE 2. Map of Palmares villages (Orser 1992b:12).
to have been an active trade between Palmares
and coast settlers (Rowlands 1999:333). From
the late 1670s a new ruler of the polity, King
Zumbi (spirit in Bantu) was in charge of the In the 1980s Serra da Barriga (Potbelly
defense of the maroon. Hill) was declared a National Heritage Site
It is difficult to estimate the number of fugi- and archaeological fieldwork was carried out
tives living in the maroon polity. Josiah Baro by an international team. Recognition of the
carried out a Dutch attack on the kingdom in importance of Palmares and the shortcomings
1644 and claimed that there were 6,000 people of biased documents, written by the enemies
living in the main settlement alone. This settle- of the rebel polity, prompted the formation of
ment, at the Potbelly Hill, was described as a the Palmares Archaeological Project in 1992 by
village, one-half-mile long (0.8 km), surrounded Charles E. Orser, Jr., and Pedro Paulo A. Funari
by a double-stake fence with two entrances and (Orser 1992). Michael Rowlands (1999) has also
agricultural fields. Out of 31 maroon people cap- worked on Palmares, and Scott Allen (1999) has
tured by Baro, seven were described as Amerin- continued the fieldwork, using it as the subject of
dians with some mulatto children. The accounts his master’s and PhD research (Figure 3).
suggest that some 20% of the maroon settlement
population could be native in the mid century.
In 1645 Jürgens Reijembach described the settle-
ment of “Old Palmares” as a village with 1,500
people in 220 dwellings (Funari 1999b). In
1675 Manoel Lopes referred to 2,000 dwellings
(Funari 1999b). None of these figures are reli-
able, but between 10,000 to 20,000 people lived
in the nine villages, a significant population for
17th-century Brazil. Pioneers from the south of
Brazil, known as Paulistas or bandeirantes (flag
holders), destroyed Macaco (the capital of Pal-
mares) in 1694 and the following year executed FIGURE 3. The location of sites found at the Serra da
its leaders, including Zumbi. Barriga (Orser 1993:4).
PEDRO PAULO A. FUNARI—Conflict and the Interpretation of Palmares, a Brazilian Runaway Polity
Scholars interpret the social history of Palmares
in two different ways. For several maroon
experts, runaway slaves formed communities
where they could keep their original African
cultures alive (Escalante 1979:74). Palmares
can be viewed as an African settlement, since
many of the place names and institutions were
of Bantu origin (Kent 1979:180–181; criticism in
Funari 1999b). Colonial documents have been
used to substantiate the claim that residents of
Palmares lived in the same way as they did in
Angola (Boxer 1973:140; Edwards 1979:239).
This belief became ingrained in the histories of
the place by the 19th century. For instance, the
German historian Heinrich Handelmann (1987)
wrote in 1860: “die innere Organisation des
Quilombos, sowiet wir sie aus den spärlichen
Nachrichten der Portugiesen erkennen können,
erinnert durchaus an ein afrikanisches Sta-
astwesen” (“the internal organization of the
runaway polity, as far as the few references
from the Portuguese allow us to know, betrays
its complete African polity character” [empha-
sis added]) (Moura 1990:141–182). The same
assumption continued to be used in the last years
of the 19th century by Nina Rodrigues (1976:77)
who describes their state as “uncultivated as in
Africa today.” Recently, several other scholars
have also advocated the African character of
Palmares (Santos 1991).
Another perspective emphasizes the heteroge-
neous nature of Palmares. Several authors stress
that African mores and traditions were suppressed
in Palmares (Russel-Wood 1974:573), and that
racism affected not only Africans (Skidmore
1993:31) but also Native Brazilians, Jews, Moors,
and people of mixed heritage. Anthropologists
studying religions of African origin in Brazil
notice the synergetic nature of those religions,
and maroon culture has been described as having
a combination of African, European, and Amer-
indian elements (Genovese 1981:53; Schwartz
1987:69). Native Brazilians were enslaved and
worked side by side with Africans (Curtin 1990:
103). Runaways, both Africans and natives,
interacted with Indians living in the backlands
(Price 1995:57; Cròs 1997:80). Those that ran
from colonial society included Africans, Indians,
and members of other oppressed groups excluded
from the colonial order (Moura 1988:164), such
as people accused of being Jewish, Moors, Her-
etics, Sodomites, and witches.
85
Historians have found that at Rio de Janeiro,
in the period from 1680 to 1729, Indians com-
prised 97.9% of the workers in the first decade
and remained 41.5% of the workforce in the last
decade (45.9% being Africans and 12.6% mixed)
(Marcondes 1998:148). Other studies have shown
similarities between Portuguese and Angolan Welt-
anschauungen: in the words of John Thornton
(1981:188), “in most respects Kongo and Portu-
gal were of the same world.” The construction
of distinctly African-American mores and commu-
nities is the result of the struggle of the exploited
to build autonomous institutions (Glassman 1991:
278). The archaeological material from the Serra
da Barriga also produced evidence of a variety
of cultural influences in the maroon settlement
(Orser 1992, 1994; Allen 1999; Funari 1999b;
Rowlands 1999). How can interpretive models
and archaeology contribute to discussing conflict
and heterogeneity at Palmares?
Heterogeneity and Conflict
in Society in Palmares
Iberians, Portuguese, and Spanish were keen
to Christianize the souls of new subjects (Hanke
1974:137) and enforce compliance with the
Roman Catholic philosophy. Despite the efforts
of the colonists to homogenize society, several
European cultures coexisted in Brazil with dif-
ferent cultural mores. Marvin Harris (1972:216),
accepting that the forces of homogeneity were
overwhelming, imagines that enslaved people
were trained to be apathetic, while the elite
stayed in otiose consumption. However, slaves
were not “socially dead”; they did not necessarily
internalize their master’s opinion that they were
“brute beasts” (Glassman 1995:140).
In Africa, too, diversity was prevalent (Baland-
ier 1970:61). Linguists argue that there were, for
more than 3,000 years, several Bantu populations’
movements (Vansina 1995:18). Therefore, Bantu
dialects are not mutually intelligible. In America,
Africans and their descendants spoke, a fortiori,
European languages (Tardieu 1989:323; Lipski
1997:159), albeit significantly changed by the
users in the New World.
Because Africans themselves were active par-
ticipants in the slave trade and because slavery
was widespread in Africa, African societies were
not without conflict themselves (Thornton 1992:
6, 74). These tensions carried over to the New
86
World, as some Brazilian freedmen were slave
owners in their own right (Klein and Paiva 1996:
932), just as there was a slave-owning elite in
Angola (Ferreira 1995:69). In this context, at
least one historian believes that there was a
ruling elite in Palmares that had many privileges
(Reis 1995:17).
Archaeological research at Palmares revealed a
significant amount of pottery, including Native,
European, and mixed style pottery. Native pot-
tery is handmade, using the coil technique with
a sand temper. The pottery may be undecorated
and, if decorated, carving, brushing and incising
are the techniques most often used. The most
frequently used colors for painted vessels are
brown and red. Allen (1999:151) has identified
four ceramic wares as Tupiguarani. European-
style pottery consists of four varieties of lead-
glazed earthenware. These glazed ceramics have
a distinctive kind of opaque glaze containing tin
oxide (Figure 4). This kind of maiolica was
commonly used in the Iberian Peninsula since the
reconquest (Reconquista in both Portuguese and
Spanish) of southern areas of the peninsula from
the Moors. The Moors had originally introduced
glazed ceramics, and the conquering Christians
adopted this glazed earthenware. Maiolica is
found in most sites in the Iberian colonial world.
However, at Palmares there was not fine maiolica
but utilitarian, ordinary glazed wares. Perhaps
FIGURE 4. Banded maiolica found at the Serra da Barriga
(Orser 1992b:37).
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
they were produced in the coast of Brazil or
even in Europe, but they were not intended for
elite use, considering they are crudely made.
The third kind of pottery was locally made
Palmares ware (Figure 5). It is not a known
European type, and it is quite different from
native wares. In 1645 Reijembach recorded
that Palmares inhabitants manufactured pots
(Carneiro 1988). The ware is wheel-thrown and
low fired, and the vessels are small, shallow, flat-
based bowls. Palmarino pottery does not have
temper, and it is finger smoothed on the inside,
resembling some colonowares found at slave
quarters in the Old South of the United States
(Ferguson 1992). Some large storage vessels
found at the Serra da Barriga are not dissimilar
to Tupinambá Native pottery, but it could also
equally be related to storing jars used by the
Ovimbundu in Angola (Rowlands 1999:336).
There is a prevalence of African, native, colo-
nial, and imported wares at Palmares. If fluid-
ity is ubiquitous, as recent anthropological and
archaeological literature implies, then instead
of searching for Tupinambá, Ovimbundu, or
FIGURE 5. Wheeled-turned pottery from the Serra da
Barriga (Orser 1992b:35).
PEDRO PAULO A. FUNARI—Conflict and the Interpretation of Palmares, a Brazilian Runaway Polity
tout court “African” traits in pottery, it is more
reasonable to discuss Palmares pottery. Glazed
and unglazed maiolica and wheel-turned wares
were found throughout Palmares. They were
not Portuguese or Dutch imports but, rather,
locally made wares used by ordinary people
in the Portuguese colony. Hierarchy within
the maroon community could also be seen in
the differences within the settlement. Common
pottery has been found in several sites, while
a much less restricted distribution of glazed
maiolica could indicate maroon elite areas. At
one site in Potbelly Hill, imported wares appear
with native and slave ceramics, suggesting that
one section of the settlement may have been
associated with an elite group. Judging from
the ceramic evidence, the elite at Potbelly Hill
were not homogeneous. They were a pluralistic
elite, maintaining consistent and long-term trad-
ing or barter links with ordinary colonists on the
coast. Rowlands (1999:340) interprets the evi-
dence as indicating that Palmares was neither a
multiethnic society of fusion and assimilation nor
one of ethnic difference. It could have a more
pluralist structure with relatively little differentia-
tion in the material culture but increasing elite
distinction in a specific area of the settlement.
This evidence does not deny identity building at
Palmares. Rather, the people of Palmares had a
positive sense of their community. They had a
common consciousness of themselves as a rebel
group. Their common enemy provided them with
enough solidarity to resist several onslaughts over
the 17th century. Solidarity, however, does not
imply the absence of friction, divisions, or even
inner contradictions. In any case, the archaeologi-
cal evidence strengthens the perception that Pal-
mares was far from being homogeneous, having
social hierarchies and inner conflicts as well as
conflicts with the outside world.
Popular Perceptions of Palmares
Perceptions of Palmares need to be examined
within the context of Brazilian society. From its
inception, Brazil has been authoritarian and patri-
archal, dominated by patronage, a “hierarchizable
society,” in the words of anthropologist Roberto
DaMatta (1991a:399). Brazil has been described
as a country with no citizens but with dependents
(Schwartz 1997:2) and vassals (Velho 1996),
privileges (DaMatta 1991b: 4) being granted to
87
people in power. The result is a most uneven
society: the 10% richest people control 47% of
the GDP, while the poorest 10% get only 0.8%
(Natali 1998). Nowadays, Brazil boasts the 10th
largest economy, just behind Spain and Canada,
but it has an appalling distribution of income.
Millions of poor people, indigenous peoples,
landless peasants, and street children are looked
upon as expendable (Pinheiro 1996). The social
exclusion of indigenous peoples, homosexuals,
landless peasants, and street children goes hand
in hand with discrimination against several
minorities and Brazilians of African descent who,
despite accounting for roughly half the population,
are conspicuously absent from positions of power
and influence. This is due to several causes,
not least a colonial heritage of patronage and
patriarchal social relations. An aristocratic
setting prevailed for the first centuries of the
country’s development, and when capitalism
and modernity were introduced in the mid-19th
century, subaltern groups were absorbed by the
dominating hierarchical ideology and habits. The
country was ruled by the military from 1964 to
1985, and the end of the dictatorship led to
formal expressions of freedom. From the 1960s,
Palmares has been a potent focus of attention by
academics, activists, and ordinary people in their
struggle for reinterpreting the past.
Serra da Barriga was declared a National
Heritage Site in the mid 1980s after a mobi-
lization by the Black Civil Movement (Santos
1985). Since the 1970s, activists used Palmares
as a model for a modern-day state. Abdias do
Nascimento (1995:26) spearheaded the movement
for the establishment of a National Maroon State,
inspired by the 17th-century Palmares “Repub-
lic,” as the rebel state was called in the historical
documents of the period. A communist interpre-
tation of Palmares, following a Soviet Proletkult
style (Campos 1988), interpreted it as a people’s
republic and Zumbi (the last leader of Palmares)
as a people’s guide, a Black “iron man” or Stalin
(iron man being the translation of the nickname
Stalin). Zumbi has also been presented as a
learned Catholic novice, well acquainted with
classical Latin war literature (Schwartz 1987:
82), and hailed as a mythic hero (Santos 1991).
Recently, Luiz Mott (1995) proposed that the
Black hero was also homosexual, leading a
struggle against sexual prejudice. There has
been a strong reaction by some leading Black
88
activists against this interpretation, for it could
denigrate, in their opinion, the image of Zumbi.
In 1995 President Cardoso addressed the coun-
try and called for the interpretation of Palmares
as a multiethnic state, struggling for freedom
and serving as a model for a democratic Brazil
(Bonalume 1995; Funari 1996).
All these popular perceptions were grounded in
a search for, struggling for, a less conservative
understanding of the past, an interpretation that
recognized the Brazil oppressed. However, a
leading historian was probably the best interpreter
of the elite understanding of Palmares. Evaldo
Cabral de Melo (Funari 1996) in a popular
news magazine interview said that “Palmares
was destroyed and I prefer that it was so. It
was a Black polity and if it had survived, we
would have in Brazil a Bantustan.” The preju-
dice Cabral de Melo expressed, ex cathedra, his
delenda Palmares call, even 300 years after its
destruction, says a lot about the prevailing and
official understanding of dissent. In this context,
the archaeological study of Palmares has focused
the attention of the media and introduced the
subject even to school textbooks, whose authors
usually shunned the issue of Palmares altogether.
The controversies around the multiethnic rebel
polity served the purpose of countering the tradi-
tional and upper-class odium against popular dis-
sent. The fight for freedom, be it interpreted by
African-Brazilians or by the oppressed in general,
is at the heart of the archaeology of Palmares.
Conclusion
Racism and discrimination against people of
African descent is now widely acknowledged
by several observers of Brazilian culture. Wage
differentials persist today in Brazil, even after
controlling for education and job experience,
suggesting that labor markets are characterized
by color-based wage discrimination (Lovell and
Wood 1998:106). The popular myth found in
Brazil, that this country is a color-blind democ-
racy helps to mask, normalize, and internalize
everyday racism (Goldstein 1999:573). How-
ever, discrimination is not restricted to people
of African descent. There is discrimination
against people of Native Brazilian descent,
along with a plethora of ethnic groups, includ-
ing Jews and Arabs, to name only those groups
already harassed in colonial times. Several other
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 37(3)
discriminations may also be added to the list:
against people from the poor areas of the country
and against several ethnic groups of recent immi-
gration to the country, like the Italians and the
Koreans. Prejudices can also be found against
women and homosexuals.
In this context, archaeological interpretation is
relevant. If societies are heterogeneous, compris-
ing different and malleable social groups, it is
unreasonable to look for purity and homogeneity
in the past. If all societies are driven by divi-
sions and conflicts and if all historical societies
are characterized by class division, it is illogi-
cal to look for Edenic models in the past. The
archaeological evidence from Palmares seems
to confirm that heterogeneity existed in both
colonial and maroon societies. Racism and dis-
crimination led several activists to look for an
African independent state as a model for state
building. This reaction to upper-class mores and
prejudices accepted some of their unreasonable
tenets: homogeneity and racial purity. When
archaeologists and engaged social activists accept
racial purity and social homogeneity, they are
simply using the same epistemological principles
used by those they oppose. Archaeologists who
defend Native Brazilian and African-Brazilian
rights sometimes consider that pure Guaranis or
Africans did actually exist and that their task,
to defend their rights, includes the identification
of pure ethnic markers. It also implies that dif-
ferent ethnic groups really have different mores
and different genes. Again, accepting ruling
concepts means accepting ruling prejudices:
Europeans are rational, Indians are lazy; Afri-
cans are gregarious and good (subaltern) work-
ers. Instead of this essentialism of bourgeois
ideology, Marxism stresses internationalism and
humanism (Levebvre 1988:87). The diversity of
material evidence from Palmares does not seem
to confirm purity or homogeneity, but this is no
reason to deny its potential to challenge racial
discrimination and hatred. Delenda Palmares can
be challenged, not by finding racial purity but by
exposing the social conflicts in a society that was
so violent against different social groups that the
only option was for them to flee.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe thanks to the following colleagues who forwarded
papers (sometimes unpublished ones), exchanged
PEDRO PAULO A. FUNARI—Conflict and the Interpretation of Palmares, a Brazilian Runaway Polity
ideas, and helped me in different ways: Scott
Joseph Allen, Maria Franklin, Jonathan Glassman,
Carlos Magno Guimarães, Siân Jones, Leandro
Karnal, David Keys, Barbara Little, Michael Löwy,
Randall McGuire, Joseph Miller, Paul R. Mullins,
Martin Hall, Charles E. Orser, Jr., Michael Rowlands,
Dean J. Saitta, Jocélio Teles dos Santos, Paul A.
Shackel, Michael Shanks, Thomas E. Skidmore, John
Thornton, Caio Navarro de Toledo, Mark Walker, and
Ellen Meiksins Wood. The ideas expressed here are
my own, for which I alone am therefore responsible.
I must also mention the institutional support from the
National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the World
Archaeological Congress, Brazilian National Research
Council, São Paulo State Research Foundation, and
Campinas State University.
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PEDRO PAULO A. FUNARI
DEPARTAMENTO DE HISTÓRIA
UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DE CAMPINAS
C. POSTAL 6110
CAMPINAS, SP 13081-970, BRAZIL