En Bas Saline

Life in an Indigenous town during an

understudied era of Haitian history



This

book details the Indigenous Ta?no occupation at En Bas Saline in Hispaniola between

AD 1250 and 1520, showing how the community coped with the dramatic changes

imposed by Spanish contact. En Bas Saline is the largest late precontact Ta?no

town recorded in what is now Haiti; the only one that has been extensively

excavated and analyzed; and one of few with archaeologically documented

occupation both before and after the arrival of Columbus in 1492. It is thought

to be the site of La Navidad, Columbus's first settlement, where the cacique Guacanagar?

offered refuge and shelter after the sinking of the Santa Maria.



Kathleen

Deagan provides

an intrasite and spatial analysis of En Bas Saline by focusing on households,

foodways, ceramics, and crafts and offers insights into social organization and

chiefly power in this political center through domestic and ornamental material

culture. Postcontact changes are seen in patterns of gendered behavior, as well

as in the power base of the caciques, challenging the traditional assumption

that Ta?no society was devastatingly disrupted almost immediately after

contact. En Bas Saline is the only

archaeological account of the consequences of contact from the perspective of

the Ta?no peoples' lived experience.



A

volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series