
En Bas Saline
A Taino Town Before and After Columbus
Kathleen Deagan(Author)
University Press of Florida
Published on 9. May 2023
Book
Hardback
356 pages
978-1-68340-355-5 (ISBN)
Description
Life in an Indigenous town during an understudied era of Haitian history
This book details the Indigenous Taino 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 Taino 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 Guacanagari 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 Taino 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 Taino peoples' lived experience.
A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
This book details the Indigenous Taino 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 Taino 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 Guacanagari 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 Taino 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 Taino peoples' lived experience.
A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Florida
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paper over boards
Illustrations
74 b/w illus., 25 tables
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
699 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68340-355-5 (9781683403555)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2023
University of Florida Press
€177.99
Available for download
Person
Kathleen Deagan is Distinguished Research Curator of Archaeology Emerita and the Emerita Lockwood Professor of Florida and Caribbean Archaeology at the University of Florida. Her many books include Puerto Real: The Archaeology of a Sixteenth-Century Spanish Town in Hispaniola. Deagan is the recipient of many awards, including the J. C. Harrington Award for lifetime distinction from the Society for Historical Archaeology.