Reframing the Protohistoric Period and the (Peri)Colonial Process for the North American Central Plains

ABSTRACT

In the North American Great Plains archaeologists struggle to define interpretative frameworks to capture events, people and processes between 1500 C.E. and 1800 C.E. Europeans did not simultaneously colonize all of North America and for many groups, especially on the Plains, Indigenous peoples were impacted by European colonization yet not extensively written about. Although the term ‘colonialism’ is broad enough to encapsulate the direct and indirect consequences of colonial activities, it is difficult to highlight the sheer diversity of Indigenous responses to the effects of colonialism outside of the colonies themselves. Instead, the concept of ‘pericolonialism’ better frames these processes and calls attention to the importance of refuge spaces where Indigenous peoples were experiencing parallel impacts as their neighbours close to the colonies. A case study is provided from the Central Plains to show how an explicitly decolonizing approach can better capture the creative resistance to European colonial rule.

KEYWORDS:

• North America
• Great Plains
• pericolonialism
• colonialism
• protohistory

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Kansas Historical Society, Nebraska Historical Society, History Colorado and the University of Wyoming for allowing access to collections. Special thanks to Matthew E. Hill and Margaret Beck for all of their work on these sites and for their comments on this manuscript. This paper was much improved by the comments of anonymous reviewers and the volume editor, Dr Lin Foxhall. Any remaining issues are my fault alone.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Note on terminology: I use the term Ndee to refer to all non-Navajo Southern Athapaskan cultures while Dene is used to refer to Northern Athapaskan cultures. This follows Welch, Herr, and Laluk (2017, 497) and Hill and Trabert 2018.

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by an NSF Archaeometery grant (BSC1415403) to the MUR Archaeometry Laboratory, a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (#1316758), a Nebraska State Historical Society Research Grant, the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists, the University of Wyoming Frison Institute, the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, the Central States Anthropological Society and the University of Iowa.

Notes on contributors

Sarah Trabert

Sarah Trabert is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and studies Great Plains Indigenous Communities from AD 1500–1850. Her work centres on understanding the myriad of ways that Plains peoples were impacted by and negotiated changes stemming from European colonization in neighbouring regions. She has active field projects in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.