paper

de Soto (Probably) Never Slept Here: Archaeology, Memory, Myth, and Social Identity

Cameron B. Wesson

Published online: 13 April 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract Accounts of the expedition of Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto to Southeastern North America (1539–43 CE) provide the first written descriptions of the Indigenous peoples and physical geography of the interior of this region. These accounts have become not only indispensable resources for archaeologists wishing to reconstruct the social, cultural, and political landscapes of Native Americans at the moments of first contact with Europeans, but essential components of existential ontology for many modern Southeastern communities. This paper examines the case of Childersburg, Alabama, which, despite archaeological evidence to the contrary, has developed a mythic civic charter that asserts itself to be the oldest continually occupied European community in the present United States.

Keywords Southeastern US . Social memory. Hernando de Soto . Coos

Myth and legend are at once a kind of performance that brings a community together, and also an explanation for why the community is as it is. Such a community has no need for a past, other than perhaps a mythic past. Traditions, custom and narrative form a seamless whole that integrates, reproduces and provides an exegesis for society, rendering any further clarification superfluous

(Thomas 2004, pp. 40–41).

Introduction

In the spring of 1539 Hernando de Soto, the Spanish governor of Cuba, departed Havana with a group of more than 600 Spanish and Portuguese volunteers on an expedition into the interior of southeastern North America. Having served under Pizarro during the conquest of the Inca, de Soto was keenly aware of the potential riches (and perils) that awaited his

Int J Histor Archaeol (2012) 16:418–435 DOI 10.1007/s10761-012-0175-0

C. B. Wesson (*) Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Lehigh University, Price Hall, 681 Taylor Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA e-mail: [email protected]

entrada. After landing on the west coast of present-day Florida, de Soto’s party was to spend more than 3 years traversing portions of the present states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Hernando de Soto died in 1541, shortly after he and the members of his expedition became the first Europeans to encounter the Mississippi River. Eventually the expedition’s survivors—numbering slightly more than 300—made their way to Mexico City without the riches or glory that had initially inspired their efforts.

Our present knowledge of the de Soto expedition is largely derived from four narratives either written by survivors of the entrada or based on interviews with its members. These accounts, named for their authors, are commonly referred to as Elvas, Rangel, Biedma, and Garcilaso (the Inca) (Clayton et al. 1993, 1, p. xxvii; Swanton 1952, p. 156). These chronicles have been used by successive generations of archaeologists and ethnohistorians to examine not only the path taken by the de Soto expedition, but to reconstruct essential details of the Native American societies with which it made contact (e.g., Swanton 1932). As Jeffrey Brain (1985, p. xi) suggests, “A wealth of detail about those societies and their cultures while they were still in a pristine state of development is preserved in the chronicles. But in order for scholars to take full advantage of the information it is necessary to place it with geographic accuracy.” Unfortunately, as more recent scholarship has demonstrated, there are serious impediments to using these narratives as accurate sources on matters of either ethnology or geography (Altman 1997; Boyd and Schroedl 1987; Clayton et al. 1993, 1, pp. xxvii-xxix; Dowling 1997; Elbl and Elbl 1997; Galloway 1993, 1997a; Hassig 1997; Henige 1998; Hoffman 1993, pp. 13–17; Weddle 1997). Despite these defi- ciencies, reconstructing de Soto’s route has remained something of a cottage industry among Southeastern historians and archaeologists (Fig. 1).

Although there were earlier speculative efforts, the first official attempt to reconstruct de Soto’s route came in the 1930s in preparation for the 400th anniversary of the expedition. The United States De Soto Expedition Commission was created and charged with establishing as accurately as possible the route of the de Soto party through the Southeast (Swanton 1985). Chaired by noted Smithsonian anthropologist John R. Swanton, the commission used the de Soto chronicles, later historic docu- ments and maps, and the locations of major archaeological sites in the region to propose a hypothetical route for the expedition. Although problems with the commission’s route were noted immediately upon its publication, their reconstructed route remained essen- tially unchallenged for more than 40 years (Hudson 1997,p. 314) (Fig. 2).

Armed with vastly improved archaeological datasets, new translations of the de Soto narratives, a more nuanced understanding of historiography, and better knowl- edge of regional settlement patterns, site occupational chronologies, and sociopolit- ical organization, archaeologists and historians began to challenge many long-held assumptions informing the Commission’s route in the 1980s and 1990s (Atkinson 1987; Blake 1987a, b; Boyd and Schroedl 1987; Brain 1985; Curren 1986, 1987; Eubanks 1989; Galloway 1993, 1997a, b, c; Hally et al. 1990; Hudson 1987, 1997, pp. 314–323; Hudson et al. 1984, 1985, 1987a, b; Knight 1988; Knight et al. 1984; Lankford 1977; National Park Service 1989). In addition, some researchers question the inherent merits of continuing to debate the precise route of the expedition. These scholars criticize such efforts for frequently perpetuating the discredited trope of the noble European explorer, failing to adequately address the importance of Native

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Americans in the process of initial cultural interactions, and emphasizing the histor- ically particularistic over the anthropological (Boyd and Schroedl 1987; Galloway 1997c, pp. 410–426; Loren 2008, pp. 76–77; Wesson 2008, p. xxiv).

Somewhat surprisingly, the most vehement opposition to renewed scrutiny of the de Soto expedition’s route came not from the scholarly community, but from mem- bers of the general public (e.g., Leverette and Lawson 1990; Eubanks 1989, 1990, 1991a, b). This resistance took its most visible form when the National Park Service attempted to create a new National Historical Trail across the Southeast that used recent archaeological and historical data to better approximate the de Soto expedi- tion’s route. Public denunciation of efforts to redraw the 1939 route was immediate. The primary concern expressed by those opposed to these efforts was that if contem- porary efforts to reconstruct de Soto’s route produced a trail that differed markedly

Fig. 1 Route Proposed for the Hernando de Soto expedition in the 1939 De Soto Commission Report (after Swanton 1985, p. 343d)

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from that proposed by the original De Soto Expedition Commission, communities with longstanding historical claims to a visit by de Soto would find those contentions undermined (although none expressed concern that their communities post-date de Soto by more than 250 years). The prospect that a purported connection to de Soto would have to be redacted from local histories provoked frenzied opposition to any effort to re-draw the commission’s 1939 route (Cromer 1988).

Efforts to undermine the creation of a new “official” de Soto trail frequently centered on two primary rhetorical strategies—questioning the scholarly credentials of those involved in the process, and using the 1939 De Soto Commission Report in a literalist, quasi-fundamentalist, manner that “eerily echoed creation science contro- versies” (Galloway 2007, p. 429). Having conducted interviews in 2002 and 2003 with many of those opposed to revisions of the de Soto route, Galloway’s character- ization captures my own interactions perfectly. Two individuals I interviewed had

Fig. 2 Route Proposed for the Hernando de Soto expedition by Hudson, et al. 1985

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committed large sections of the 1939 De Soto Expediton Commission’s Report to memory, with particular emphasis placed on those sections they believe relate to their specific community. Such fundamentalist uses of the Commission’s Report occur despite the words of caution found in its opening passage: “This Final Report of the Fact Finding Committee does not profess finality in the sense that the exact line of march pursued by De Soto … has now been established for all time and no future effort need be expended in this direction. No such finality ever will be attained” (Swanton 1985, p. 1).

The motivations for those with no professional training in archaeology, anthropol- ogy, or history devoting such extraordinary efforts to such a relatively esoteric issue have been characterized as either economic or sentimental (Galloway 2007, p. 429). However, given the relatively low political, and economic stakes involved in the creation of a de Soto Historic Trail, there appears to be far more than economics and sentimentality involved. For the affected communities, altering de Soto’s route represents nothing less than a demythologizing of the past, and its replacement by the “terror of history” (Eliade 1963, p. 151). In this instance, somewhat surprisingly, many aspects of this controversy mirror conflicts between archaeologists and Indig- enous communities in a variety of global settings. Issues of cultural representation, social memory, scholarly authority, and the suppression of local narratives in lieu of “official histories” are all implicated. However, although contemporary archaeology has become more welcoming and respectful of the interpretive dissonance of Indig- enous histories, far less conciliatory effort has been extended to members of the dominant culture employing what many consider “heretical” histories.

In this paper I examine the importance of the de Soto entrada for a significant segment of the public in the southeastern US. Focusing on the unique case of Childersburg, Alabama, I explore the rationale of those defending the 1939 route as the most accurate reflection of de Soto’s path. In addition, I examine claims, based on a literal interpretation of both the de Soto chronicles and the original De Soto Commission’s Report, that Childersburg is “the oldest continually occupied city in America” (Mathis-Downs 2006, p. 11). I examine the ways in which Childersburg has increasingly used archaeology and social memory to enhance its connection to the de Soto expedition, thereby establishing a mythic civic charter that provides a collective existential ontology for its citizens. I also question whether archaeologists should treat these claims any differently than those of any other “Indigenous” subaltern community. Having grown up in Childersburg myself, I should confess that I have both professional and social stakes in this case.

Childersburg, Coosa, and de Soto: Historical Reality or Idée Fixe?

Among the most impressive Native American communities visited by the de Soto entrada was that of Coosa. Described in the chronicles as the largest and most powerful of all the Native American polities encountered by the expedition, Coosa was a paramount town, with smaller communities within its domain paying tribute to its supreme chief (Hally et al. 1990; Hudson et al. 1985; Knight 1994; Smith 2000, p. 94). Modern reconstructions of this chiefdom suggest that it stretched for almost 300 km along the Coosa River drainage system (Corkran 1967, p. 44; Hudson et al.

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1985, p. 723; Smith 2000) (Fig. 3). The de Soto chronicles state that it took the expedition an astonishing 24 days to march from one end of the Coosa province to the other (DePratter et al. 1983; Elvas in Clayton et al. 1993, 1, pp. 85–94; Hudson et al. 1985, p. 723).

Given Coosa’s power, size, and regional importance, early archaeologists and historians felt that locating Coosa’s precise location was vital to reconstructing the expedition’s route (Smith 2000, pp. 50, 82–95; Swanton 1985, pp. 206, 208). If Coosa’s position could be definitively established, it was believed scholars could more easily reconstruct other aspects of de Soto’s route. These efforts were aided by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historical references to a Creek village of the same name located along the Coosa River in east central Alabama. Benjamin Hawkins (1971, p. 39) described this village in 1799:

Fig. 3 Recent reconstruction of the Coosa polity (after Smith 2000, p. 2)

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Coo-sau on the left bank of Coo-sau, between two creeks Eu-fau-lau and Nau- chee. The town borders on the first, above, and on the other river. The town is on a high and beautiful hill; the land on the river is rich and flat for two hundred yards, then waving and rich, fine for wheat and corn. It is a limestone country, with fine springs, and a very desirable one; there is reed on the branches, and peavine in the rich bottoms and hill sides, moss in the river and on the rock beds of the creek. They get fish plentifully in the spring season, near the mouth of Eu-fau-lau-hat-che; they are tock, trout, buffalo, red horse, and perch. They have fine stocks of horses, hogs, and cattle; the town gives name to the river and is sixty miles above Tus-kee-gee.

However, unlike the grandiose sixteenth-century descriptions of Coosa, by the eighteenth century it is described as “an old beloved town, now reduced to a small ruinous village” (Adair 1971, p. 166).

Based on specific historical documentation, researchers identified a large archae- ological site located between the mouths of Tallasseehatchee and Talladega Creeks in Talladega County, Alabama, as Coosa. Commonly referred to as the Childersburg site (1Ta1), John R. Swanton and other scholars had little reason to doubt that this village was the same Coosa visited by de Soto in 1540 (Hudson et al. 1985, p. 723). In fact, the commission considered the identification of the Childersburg site as Coosa concrete, stating that it was “one of the best identified points along De Soto’s route” (Swanton 1985, pp. 206–207). For the modern town of Childersburg, having the most definitive connection to the de Soto entrada—and having a scholar of John R. Swanton’s professional standing support this connection in publication—provided an immense sense of civic pride and history. However, rather than being satisfied with historical connections to a major sixteenth century Native American polity visited by the de Soto expedition, local citizens found an even greater source of civic pride when they further probed the de Soto chronicles.

One of the most intriguing developments to take place for the de Soto party while in Coosa was that at least three members of the group remained behind after the expedition left. As Rodrigo Rangel (Clayton et al. 1993, 1, p. 285) records:

On Friday, the twentieth of August, the Governor [de Soto] and his people left Coça, and there remained behind a Christian who was named Feryada, a Levantine; and they spent that night beyond Talimuchusi. And the next day, in a heavy rain, they spent the night in Itaba, a large town alongside a good river. And many Indians of evil intent were waiting, intending to take the cacique of Coça away from the Christians, because they were subjects of his; and so that the land would not rise in revolt or deny them supplies, they took him with them, and they entered in the town very much on guard. The cacique of Coça commanded the Indians to lay down their weapons; and so they did, and they gave them tameness and twenty Indian women, and they went in peace, although a gentleman from Salamanca, called Manzano, remained there, and it was not known if it was from his own will or from losing his bearings, going alone to pillage, inasmuch as he went on foot. He was unhappy, and he had requested other soldiers to remain with him, before they missed him. This was not known for certain, but it was said in the army after he was missing.

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Also a very shrewd black man, who was called Jo[h]an Vizcaíno, deserted from Captain Juan Ruiz Lobillo there.

The account by the Gentleman from Elvas (Clayton et al. 1993, 1, p. 94) supports Rangel’s description in regards to Manzano, stating, “A Christian of noble parentage, named Manzano, a native of Salamanca, who wandered away to look for grapes which are abundant and excellent there, was lost in that place.” A slight variation of this account is provided by Garcilaso de la Vega (Clayton et al. 1993, 2, p. 326):

In the pueblo of Coça there had remained a Christian, if he were such, named Falco Herrado. He was not a Spaniard nor is it known from what province he came; he was a man of the lowest class and thus was not missed until the army reached Talise. Steps were taken to bring him back, without result, for he very shamelessly sent word by the Indians who went with the governor’s messages that he wanted to stay with the Indians and not go with the Castillians, so that he might not have to see his captain every day, who had quarreled with him and spoken to him abusively; therefore they need not expect to see him again … We have forgotten to say that in this same pueblo of Coça there had remained a negro named Robles [Johan Vizcaíno?], who was sick and unable to travel. He was a very good Christian and a good slave, and was entrusted to the cacique who very willingly and affectionately took upon himself the task of caring for and curing him. We have included an account of these details so that when God, our Lord, shall will that that country be conquered and won, an effort may be made to see whether some trace or memory remains of those who thus stayed among the natives of that great kingdom.

Thus, either Herrado and Feryada are one in the same, as are Robles and Vizcaíno, or a total of four members of de Soto’s party remained in the town of Coosa. Meanwhile, Manzano apparently either disserted the expedition or was lost in the woods, not in the main village of Coosa, but at the southernmost edge of the province, near the town of Ullibahali. It should be noted that discrepancies such as these plague the entirety of the de Soto chronicles, with these inconsistencies providing ample opportunity for disagreement among scholars concerning the practical limits of their accuracy and interpretability (Galloway 1997a; Elbl and Elbl 1997; Henige 1998; Hudson 1997). The conventional view is that two members of de Soto’s party, Falco Herrado and Johan Vizcaíno remained behind in Coosa either out of an inability to travel due to illness or willful desertion, while Manzano simply became lost in the woods (Clayton et al. 1993, 1, p. 201; Lowery 1901, p. 365). For the next 2 years the exploits of the de Soto expedition continued as they made their way across the Southeast, while Herrado, Vizcaíno and Manzano disappeared from history between August 20–21, 1540.

Why devote so much discussion to three individuals who play such a minor role in the de Soto chronicles? The principal reason is that it is the presence of these members of the de Soto expedition in Coosa that provides Childersburg, Alabama with its claim to being the oldest continually occupied city in the present United States (Mathis-Downs 2006, p. 11; McSween 2006, p. 10), in direct challenge to St. Augustine, Florida (1562), and other communities with similar claims of historical continuity. Rather than tracing its origins to the 1830s—a founding not coincidentally

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following the wholesale deportation of Native Americans from the region on the Trail of Tears—Childersburg began claiming 1540 as its date of community establishment. This argument is based on the notion that the two members of de Soto’s expedition who remained in Coosa must certainly have married and produced children with local Native American women, creating a permanent European presence (if only geneti- cally) at Coosa. What for most historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists con- stituted nothing more than a small, comparatively insignificant passage within these narratives has thus become the central foundational element in the mythico-historical charter of the community. It should also be noted that this case is not one in which locals argue for a direct genetic link between themselves, but rather a case of spatial association. As McManamon (2003, pp. 131–132) suggests, “An anchor to the past, in this case one embedded in place rather than biology, helps individuals balance their modern life through reflection and comparison.”

Unfortunately for Childersburg, the same historical documents that hint at a connection to de Soto’s expedition also undermine these claims. Two decades after the de Soto expedition a small contingent from the Tristan de Luna party visited Coosa. As described by a member of this expedition (Padilla, cited in Lowery 1901, p. 365), “Fray Anunciacion sought to intersperse some matters of religious instruction among the natives during his intercourse with them. He learned of the death of two of De Soto’s followers, a common soldier and a negro, who had remained behind and lived eleven or twelve years in their midst.” Although it appears that there remained some recollection of Herrado and Vizcaíno two decades after their initial decision to remain in Coosa, there are no records of widows, descendents, or Spanish-speaking Natives who could testify to their cultural or genetic impacts on the local population.

Furthermore, there is no a priori reason to believe that these two men would have been integrated into local community life at all. The de Soto expedition is noteworthy for its cruelty in dealing with local peoples, including kidnapping the Lord of Coosa to ensure their safe passage through his province (Clayton et al. 1993; Galloway 2006; Hudson 1997). Sixteenth-century accounts or southeastern Natives interacting with the Spanish abound with stories like that recorded in Lowery (1901, p. 352): “In 1545, a vessel was wrecked upon the coast, and of its crew of two hundred souls some were slain by the natives and the remainder reduced to slavery.” Other accounts suggest that the killing of Spaniards would not have been a shocking prospect, with claims circulating among Native Americans in the sixteenth century that “the people of Coosa had killed Soto and his men” (Hudson et al. 1985, p. 724). If it is possible that Herrado and Vizcaíno founded the first European settlement in North America, it is equally possible that they were simply killed the second the de Soto expedition left the province of Coosa without leaving any discernible cultural or genetic contribu- tions to the Indigenous community. The inherent problem with possibilism from the perspective of scientific archaeology is that in the absence of confirmatory (or disconfirmatory) evidence anything one can imagine remains “possible.”

An additional blow to local claims of historical continuity is provided by profes- sional archaeology. Excavations at the Childersburg site by the Alabama Museum of Natural History in 1948 revealed an occupation dating to 1700–75 CE, with no evidence of a mid-sixteenth- century occupation (DeJarnette 1958; DeJarnette and Hansen 1960). These findings led DeJarnette and Hansen (1960, p. 62) to the conclusion that “the site of the community De Soto visited is somewhere else.”

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Additional archaeological research in this vicinity indicates that the local sixteenth century ceramic complex is not consistent with that of Coosa, suggesting that the Childersburg site and other contemporaneous sites in the region are part of Talisi, a community politically subservient to Coosa, rather than Coosa itself (Hudson et al. 1985, pp. 723–724; Knight et al. 1984, pp. 11–13). Based on these and other factors, professional archaeologists and ethnohistorians now generally reject the view that Childersburg is Coosa (Brain 1985, p. xxix; Curren 1986; Hall 1987; Hudson et al. 1985; Knight et al. 1984; Lankford 1977, pp. 23–24), suggesting instead that it was the Little Egypt site in northwestern Georgia (Hudson et al. 1985; cf. Boyd and Schroedl 1987, p. 841).

Although there is general scholarly agreement that the eighteenth-century com- munity of Coosa was the Childersburg site, what previous scholars and the local community failed to adequately appreciate is the incredible demographic and cultural change resulting from Native American interactions with Europeans. Earlier gener- ations of American anthropologists stressed cultural continuity, essentialism, and a timeless ethnographic present that rejected radical changes among Indigenous peoples (Blaut 1993; Darnell 2008), with John R. Swanton considered among the eras worst offenders (Galloway 1993, pp. 78, 91–92). The thought that the Coosa community moved more than 150 km from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century never occurred to John R. Swanton or other contemporary ethnohistorians and archaeologists (see Swanton 1985, p. 103). Given the dual impacts of European- introduced diseases and the dislocation of Indigenous peoples along the Atlantic coast, Native American communities of the Southeast are known to have experienced dramatic demographic change and geographical dislocation from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries (Dobyns 1983; Ethridge 2003; Hahn 2004).

Community Reaction

This is a very bitter subject with us right now (Jack Washum, member of the Childersburg Heritage Commission, cited in Cromer 1988).

Given assaults on the status of Childersburg as Coosa by professional archaeolo- gists and ethnohistorians over the past 50 years, one might naturally assume that local claims regarding these purported historical connections would have diminished. The truth, however, is that the local community has responded to these new “professional” knowledge claims by intensifying assertions of a connection to de Soto. These efforts have taken several forms, including countering scholarly claims on the basis of disagreements within the scholarly community, mobilizing community protests and commemorations, adopting overt community symbols incorporating de Soto imagery, and actively seeking to transmit community memories that reinforce these historic connections. All of these actions are designed to make “the intangible and ephemeral material—social and cultural values, identity and memories are all intangible and mutable, but are rendered ‘real,’ touchable and in some ways ‘knowable’ through material symbolism” (Smith and Waterton 2009, p. 29, see also De Marrias et al. 1996; Thomas 2004).

Among the most common counterclaims among those asserting Childersburg as Coosa is the professional status of John R. Swanton, the Chair of the 1939 De Soto

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Commission, and the comparative “lightweight” status of those scholars who differ with his opinions on Coosa. These efforts are designed to undermine the scholarly credentials of those engaged in altering the route, with “any admission of uncertainty by the experts [used] to claim that experts who could not agree could not, in fact, be experts” (Galloway 2007, p. 429). My interviews with local community members indicate that this is a common rhetorical practice when dealing with the findings of more recent scholars. As one community member stated, “You have your experts and we have ours. I don’t think any of your experts can hold a candle to John Swanton.” Thus, priority is placed on the reputation of a scholar who supports one perspective while derision is heaped on those who espouse different opinions.

Among the most frequently maligned experts is David L. DeJarnette, director of investigations at the Childersburg site by the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Locals maintain that his excavations were ill placed to recover evidence of de Soto era occupation. Such assertions are actually based on a particularly good understand- ing of basic archaeological methodologies and the difficulties involved in excavating multi-component sites. Support for these criticisms is also found in John L. Cotter’s (1961) review of DeJarnette and Hansen’s (1960) report of excavations at Child- ersburg. As Cotter (1961, p. 574) states, “The limited area of the dig, the 12 burials, and the other features, are insufficient to give a representative picture of the progres- sive site occupation. It is quite possible that a test a few hundred feet away could have produced evidence from 1400, 1540, or 1800.” Such perspectives have only further inflamed the possibilism inherent in local de Soto claims. “They just dug in the wrong spot,” is an all too common refrain from many of my interviews.

Another frequent recipient of public ire is Charles Hudson. Perhaps more than any other modern scholar, Hudson has devoted a large portion of his career to studying the route of the de Soto expedition (Hudson 1987, 1997; Hudson et al. 1984, 1985, 1987a, 1990). These efforts have fundamentally altered our understanding of the de Soto route, shifting the placement of Coosa from Childersburg to the Little Egypt site in northwest Georgia. Locals are quick to point out Hudson’s professional academic affiliation with the University of Georgia. Several of those I interviewed in Childersburg suggest that Hudson’s desire to wrest Coosa from them was a crass act of intellectual “carpetbagging.” Such efforts, they claim, were simply designed to have the prehistoric glories of Coosa appear as part of Georgia’s history at the expense of Alabama’s.

In addition to attacking the scholarly reputation of those opposing their claims, locals have also marshaled archaeological data to defend their claims. In another creative effort to turn the discipline against itself, the presence of early Spanish material in local hands is seen as evidence of de Soto’s presence. Of particular interest are Nueva Cadiz beads and Clarksdale bells —both items known to have been used in trade by the de Soto expedition—purportedly found by avocational archaeologists in the Childersburg area. There is even a local legend about a Spanish helmet that was non-professionally excavated in the 1940s near the Childersburg site. Unfortunately, this item is said to have been lost, either while in the collections of the Talladega County Museum, or the University of Alabama (Mathis-Downs 2006, p. 14). Although I have not had the opportunity to examine these materials, I am told that there are several local private collections that include sixteenth-century Spanish items and I have reason to doubt their existence, provenience, or authenticity. For supporters, these are the “smoking guns” linking de Soto, Coosa, and Childersburg.

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However, as archaeologists working on issues of European contact in any world region can attest, there are many cultural and historical mechanisms that can be employed to explain the presence of sixteenth-century Spanish objects in local archaeological deposits, with direct contact with the de Soto party being only one. However, there is still good reason to believe that the de Soto expedition did travel through the Childersburg area while following the Coosa River into central Alabama. This does not mean, however, that local Native communities were Coosa, nor does it mean that early Spanish materials were not traded over long distances in the Southeast prior to being removed from circulation. As Boyd and Schroedl (1987, p. 843) contend:

Thus, finding one, two, or even hundreds of such items in burial contexts on a site is not sufficient proof that Soto, Pardo, or any other Spaniard visited that site … While documentation of these expeditions is vital for understanding the general political, social, and cultural environment in the southeastern United States during the sixteenth century, one must exercise extreme caution in using this documentation to support a specific ethnographic or historical reconstruc- tion. The reconstruction of Soto’s route is largely a particular, historical ques- tion which, for the most part, cannot be answered using archaeological data.

Incredibly, locals employ a similar logic to challenge Charles Hudson’s view that the Little Egypt site is Coosa based, in part, on the presence of sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts at the site. As Billy Atkinson (cited in Cromer 1988), a member of the Childersburg Heritage Commission states, “You can’t pinpoint any place from artifacts. Many of them traveled around with the Indians as trade goods … until we have more documented evidence and get all our eggs in one basket, Childersburg is Coosa.” Such arguments demonstrate the sophistication of local Coosa advocates, as they adapt to new evidentiary challenges by using the terminology of the very professional archaeologists who challenge their claims. If debate and uncertainty are perpetuated among the public, those believing in links to Coosa and de Soto are allowed to maintain their position by default.

A relatively new rhetorical response in defending Childersburg’s connections to Coosa has come in the form of Native American histories. In recognition of the status granted to Indigenous histories within the professional archaeological community, locals have turned to the account of George Stiggins (1989), a Native American born in Talladega County, Alabama in 1788, as evidence of continued occupation of the Childersburg site from the time of de Soto until forced removal (McSween 2006, p. 12). Using Woodward’s assertion that the nineteenth-century location of Coosa (near Childersburg) was unchanged since the time of the de Soto entrada, locals have blunted the views of the professional archaeological community by placing them in the uncomfortable position of denying the veracity of Native American historical tradition.

In addition to efforts designed to defend the notion that Childersburg is Coosa on epistemological and evidentiary grounds, a third front has been opened in the realm of popular opinion. As has been acknowledged previously, archaeologists commonly fail to present our findings to the general public in engaging ways, preferring instead to communicate inwardly with other professionals (see Holtorf 2005, 2007). We have also tended to be completely dismissive of views about the past generated outside the discipline, preferring instead to rely upon our cult of expertise (Holtorf 2005; Sabloff 2008; Smith and Waterton 2009, p. 35). This collective professional disengagement

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has provided ample room for those committed to alternative views of the past to create community networks grounded in shared memory, experience, and social identity. Such actions form “a framework of ideas, beliefs, and notions, which permeate all aspects of the lives, minds, and bodies of people” (Hamilakis 2003, p. 54).

Much of this effort has been directed to the commemoration of de Soto’s visit to Coosa. Similar actions began in an earlier period, with the erection of a large marble monument in Childersburg by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in 1939. However, as the scholarly community has continued its assault on links between Childersburg and Coosa, these efforts have intensified. Community action has included: renaming a local cavern from Kymulga Onyx Cave to De Soto Caverns; the commissioning of a large public mural in downtown Childersburg depicting de Soto’s visit to Coosa; the adoption of an official town seal that incorporates a Spanish helmet, sword, halberd, and the date 1540; and the creation of Coosa Fest, an annual community festival designed to celebrate de Soto’s visit (Fig. 4).

At no time in the “modern” history of Childersburg have community connections to, and recognition of, Coosa and the de Soto expedition been more prominent. Community members have responded to what they see as nothing less than a “taking” of history from them through the imposition of scientific knowledge by outside forces. Childersburg resident John Washam (cited in Cromer 1988) expressed this notion perfectly: “We’re not giving up our claim … and anyone who tries to take it from us will be subject to violent reaction.” As Smith and Waterton (2009, p. 52) suggest, archaeologists must avoid the tendency to see “communities … as those that ‘feel’ whereas experts are those who ‘think’ and ‘know’ in a process that skillfully ‘avoids’ subjectivities … The emotional response of communities is thus often fuelled by frustration; a frustration that also often works to mask more complex and nuanced emotional responses from the heritage expert.” In the case of Child- ersburg, the frustration generated by the imposition of unwelcome, externally gener- ated historical narratives has become a potent force, used to create both community pride and a unique social identity for its residents.

Archaeological Engagement and the Importance of the Past

Some scientific work has no conceivable relation to the welfare of the human race— most of archaeology or comparative linguistics for example (Kaczynski 2005, p. 39).

Having grown up in Childersburg, I have heard stories of Coosa and the de Soto expedition since my childhood. In part, I credit my decision to pursue a career in archaeology to these early experiences. Thus, it was personally disorienting to learn, while taking an undergraduate archaeology course, that everything I had been taught about Childersburg’s connection to de Soto was contradicted by contemporary archaeo- logical and historical data. As I have pursued my archaeological interests in other locales, I have been asked repeatedly by Childersburg residents why I wasn’t using my professional skills to help substantiate their claims about Coosa. More often than not, these interactions lead to incredulity once I present the professional view that Coosa was not Childersburg, and my personal opinion that “a Spaniard and an African did not a town make.”

Although my initial goal in pursuing this work was to educate locals on the findings of contemporary archaeology and ethnohistory (mirroring McManamon

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2000), what I subsequently have come to realize is that it is far more interesting to understand the desire locals express in attempting to hold onto historical connections in the face of such overwhelming expert opinion. As I have suggested, local advo- cates are by no means ignorant of professional opinion regarding their claims. In fact, they are among the best informed avocational historians one could encounter. Rather than using archaeology to confront community beliefs, it must be acknowledged that

Fig. 4 Various uses of de Soto imagery in Childersburg, Alabama: (a) Cartoon image of de Soto used to advertise de Soto Caverns Park; (b) Iconic de Soto image used for the Childersburg Chamber of Commerce; and (c) Official city seal of Childersburg

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the importance of the de Soto-Coosa connection for Childersburg transcends any literal truth of these connections. Although locals do not doubt the reality of these associations, their beliefs have come to form an essential element in the collective memory and experience of the community (see Kane 2003, pp. 3–4). As such, they serve the same psychosocial needs as that of other stories of ethnogenesis. The only substantive difference is that we are far more accustomed to seeing these views expressed by Indigenous peoples rather than members of the dominant culture (Smith and Waterton 2009, pp. 36, 60).

Where modernity suggested that the dominant position of positivism within Western thinking had rendered mythology, memory, and counter-factual thinking to primitive societies, with the steady replacement of “belief” with “knowledge” (Eliade 1954), within postmodern theory there is ample room within dominant culture for alterity and belief. What is needed is a form of archaeological engagement with these communi- ties that does not insist that its views are the only ones that are right, or proper to hold. As Julian Thomas (2004, p. 238) suggests, an archaeology that seeks to silence its critics “is a totalisation that is closely related to totalitarianism: it contains the same urge to impose order on the world and annihilate whatever does not fit.” Furthermore, just as Galloway (2007, p. 429) contends that those defending their connections to the de Soto expedition engage in fundamentalism, Holtorf (2005, p. 547) notes that “aca- demics who see the status of their own work threatened by competitors from the alternative ‘camp’ resort to ideological fundamentalism and verbal violence” as well.

I do not wish to suggest that archaeologists alter their research findings, but rather that we extend the same forms of interpretive inclusivity to those in dominant cultural and ethnic groups we have come to expect in regards to Indigenous communities (Gledhill 1994, pp. 23, 92; Smith 2006, p. 61). During the past two decades global archaeology has come to reconcile itself to the reality that we serve multiple, diverse communities—communities whose views are frequently in conflict with our research findings. Consensus has emerged that we must engage local communities in ways that are non-confrontational and that we must be prepared to renounce our position as the “official” arbiters of the past. As Smith and Waterton (2009, p. 38) suggest, “This means that we have to move away from uncritical and dialogically closed relation- ships with community groups and reconsider the nature of involvement, responsibil- ity and control … we have to deal with power and the consequences of alienation.” It must be acknowledged that archaeology is both a politically and existentially pow- erful discipline—a power that has been used to “create” meaningful cultural con- nections on the one hard, while actively “destroying” them with the other (Gledhill 1994; Jones 1997; Kane 2003; Smith 2006).

Archaeologists constantly lament our inability to convince the public that our work is meaningful. Generating public interest in the past has become a major element in our outreach efforts and in our undergraduate classrooms (Holtorf 2007, pp. 105–129; Sabloff 2008). In the case of Childersburg we have everything we say we want—a public that eagerly follows archaeology and sees its past as a meaningful constituent element in its present. What we must avoid, either intentionally or unintentionally, is the tendency to crush that interest under the weight of own “expertise” (see Holtorf 2005, pp. 549–550; Joyce 2003; Smith and Waterton 2009).

Productive engagement in situations like that in Childersburg does not require that we sacrifice our professionalism, but that we put it into practice in novel ways.

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Numerous opportunities to use archaeology as a teaching tool exist in this case. Archaeology has the potential to help Childersburg residents consider a local Native American presence that existed millennia before the arrival of the de Soto entrada. By helping to direct attention away from a temporally limited, and primarily European event (the de Soto visit in 1540), emphasis can begin to be placed on the comparative invisibility of Indigenous faces in these reconstructed pasts (see McManamon 2003). This would also permit archaeologists to counter prevailing notions of Native American cultures rooted in cultural essentialism. Such engagement would inevitably lead to an increased interest in other periods of Native American occupation in the area, and a recognition that the occupation of Childersburg did not begin in 1540, but 15,000 years ago. Beyond intellectualizing Childersburg’s past, these efforts could also directly impact future land development decisions, inform preservation efforts, and encourage explicit recognition that Native American groups who trace their origins to this area should be extended the same opportunity to engage in critical reflections on Childersburg’s history and its future. There can be little doubt that the results of such novel engagement would serve the best interests of both the local community and professional archaeology.

Acknowledgments I first wish to thank Siân Jones and Lynette Russell for allowing me to present my work in their WAC6 session on Oral History, Social Memory, Place and Archaeology. Although the final form of this paper differs substantially from the one I presented in Dublin, it is in no small measure due to the excellent presentations made by the other session participants and the insightful comments of the audience. I wish to thank them collectively for helping me reconsider the application of the central themes of our session in my own work in new and exciting ways. I am also indebted to Andrew Beaupré and two anonymous reviewers for commenting on earlier versions of this paper. Finally, I wish to thank the citizens of Childersburg, Alabama for sharing their insights on what de Soto’s journey across the Southeast in the sixteenth century continues to mean in the twenty-first.

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