2015-2016
The Deep Histories of Colonial Encounters in the Kingdom of the Calusa
Tuesday, October 13 6:00 pm
Giffels Auditorium, Old Main, University of Arkansas
Victor Thompson, Phd, Department of Anthropology at University of Georgia
In 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon sailed along the southern tip of Florida eventually making
his way up along the southwestern coast to the Bay of Carlos, modern Estero Bay. This
would mark the beginning of several decades of Spanish-Calusa entanglements. The focus
of this talk is to explicate the early colonial world of the Calusa. More specifically,
I explore the question: why did early European interactions, particularly in terms
of various power relations, in the region take such a dramatically different course
than other areas of Spanish colonization? I focus on interactions between the Spanish
and the Calusa during the early and mid-sixteenth (ca. AD 1513 to 1569) century drawing
upon both archaeological data and the analysis of primarily published and unpublished
translations of Spanish documents.