Survivance Strategies and the Materialities of Mashantucket Pequot Labor in the Later Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Scholars in New England have long been puzzled by the mixed materialities of colonial period Indian homes. Variously interpreted as a strategy for survival, a reflection of cultural loss, or as representations of continuity and change, these sites and their assemblages remain undertheorized. This article focuses on three sites from the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation in southeastern Connecticut, dating between the 1740s/1750s and the 1780s. By considering the differences among them, archaeologists can begin working toward new understandings of Pequot Indian survivance. That research pathway starts with a reconsideration of Indian work in the 1700s, in which household subsistence labor is distinguished from household surplus labor and labor products from labor time. This tactic allows for more in-depth, contextual studies of furnishings and foodways, in which the differences amongst site assemblages become clues to changing reservation ecologies, social exchange networks beyond the reservation, everyday household rhythms, and acts of “quiet defiance.”