Shell Beads and Belts in 16th- and Early 17th-Century France and North America

Abstract

Scholars generally agree that wampum belts were new artifacts among the Indigenous peoples of northeastern North America in the first half of the 17th century. However, the context of and reasons for their emergence are still little known or misunderstood. Archaeologists and ethno-historians have often assumed that the shell beads used in the manufacture of wampum belts were Indigenous artifacts and part of a long tradition that continued until the Colonial era. Although this tradition did exist, I nevertheless argue that wampum belts were also the result of profound changes: they emerged as novel tools for intercultural communication in the aftermath of European colonization in the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries. Studies have up until now focused on the impact of the Dutch and the English, as opposed to the French, despite their widely-acknowledged role in the bead trade and the emergence of wampum. This study seeks to fill this gap with an interdisciplinary analysis of the written sources and archaeological collections.