Provide a response to either the articles and videos on Ft. San Juan and Joara in North Carolina or the content about St. Augustine and its early history. (300-600 words)
Based on the article from Moore et al. (2017) and web links, what insight may we begin to consider about these new European arrivals? What types of evidence do we have about their “old world” and their life in the “new world”? What can the artifacts tell us about the intentions and plans of the Spanish who built Fort San Juan and others in the Carolina Piedmont? In what ways are they similar to the Native artifacts and in what ways do they differ? Consider the needs of daily life alongside cultural variations, and what the archaeology can tell us about the Spanish presence in 16th-century America.
“Mixing” in Cultural Contact
Readings from Kathleen Deagan (1973, 1983) describe the archaeological and documentary record of St. Augustine. Deagan is interested in culture contact, exchange, and synthesis, whereby once separate peoples begin to merge on cultural, social, and biological levels. What evidence does Deagan offer for the creolization and mestizaje processes of colonial St. Augustine? Give specific examples of these exchanges, Deagan’s evidence, and her interpretations.
https://college.unc.edu/2013/09/joara2/
6
JOARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN JUAN
The Construction of Colonial Identities at the Berry Site
David G. Moore, Christopher B. Rodning, and Robin A. Beck
Until very recently, archaeologists have often had to rely on distributions of
European artifacts on Native American sites to address questions of sixteenthcentury colonial and Native interactions. The discovery of the sixteenthcentury Spanish colonial outpost of Fort San Juan and Cuenca, at the prin
cipal town in the Native polity of Joara in western North Carolina, aUows
us to take an alternate perspective and attempt to better understand such
issues as the creation and maintenance of social identities proposed in the
introduction of this volume. In this chapter, we discuss the historical con
text of Fort San Juan and the archaeology that allows us to view this site as
the location of a series of sixteenth-century events in which Native hosts
and colonial intruders negotiated and maintained their identities.
For a brief time, from 1567 to 1568, the principal Spanish outpost along
the northern frontier of the colonial province of La Florida consisted of Fort
San Juan and the associated settlement of Cuenca, located at the Native
American town of Joara, in what is now western North Carolina. Captain
Juan Pardo and his men, acting on orders from Governor Men^ndez at
Santa Elena, established their outpost at Joara in early 1567. Initially peace
ful, diplomatic relations between Pardo’s colonizing garrison and the people
of Joara deteriorated by the spring of 1568, when Juan Martin de Badajoz
arrived in Santa Elena with news that warriors had attacked and destroyed
Fort San Juan. In fact, all six of Pardo’s outposts established at Native Ameri
can towns in the interior had been lost Following the abandonment of Fort
San Juan and Pardo’s other forts, the focus of Spanish colonialism in South
eastern North America shifted from exploration and military installation to
missionization and trade. As the first interior colonial settlements within
the modern-day United States, these forts established the landscapes of co
lonial interaction and identity in the sbcteenth-century Southeast.
There are some written descriptions of events that took place at Fort
San Juan and in surrounding areas in the 1560s, but there are no detailed
descriptions or drawings of the fort itself, and there is some imcertainty
100 / MOORE, RODNING, AND BECK
JOARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN JUAN / 101
Figure 6.1. Berry site
excavations, 1986-2015
(plan view) (drawing
by Abra (oghart).
as to exactly what transpired during the 1568 attack. Given the incomplete
and one-sided nature of the historical records of this important episode
of American history, archaeological research has fortunately shed muchneeded light on the subject. This chapter summarizes 14 years of archaeo
logical investigations at the Berry site, the location of the remnants of
Joara, Cuenca, and Fort San Juan (Figure 6.1). During that long-term ef
fort, the goals and nature of our research have evolved, as we discuss below.
Throughout this chapter, and in publications elsewhere (Beck 1997; Beck
and Moore 2002; Beck et al. 2006, 2011; Moore 2002; Moore et al. 2005),
we have depended heavily on the archival research and interpretations of
Charles Hudson (1990, 2005) and his colleagues (e.g., DePratter and Smith
1980) on Pardo’s expeditions and the forts built by Pardo’s troops.
Juan Pardo’s Expeditions
During the first half of the sixteenth century, numerous Spanish expeditions
explored and mapped the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America, a land
they referred to as La Florida. Period maps show remarkably detailed coast
lines, but theinteriorof La Florida remained poorly understood. During this
period several Spanish efforts to settle the coast and interior of La Florida
ended in failure. Despite these failures, increasing French pressures to colo
nize the region spurred Spain’s colonial ambitions. By the 1550s, French pri
vateers were attacking Spanish ships as well as Spanish settlements in the
Caribbean. King Phillip II of Spain was determined to block French access
to the Southern coast and to prevent their ability to intercept the fleets of
galleons carrying New World riches to Spain. By June 1559, Spaniards had
identified the Point of Santa Elena (on today’s Parris Island, South Carolina)
in Port Royal Sound as a likely location for a potential settlement In April
1562, Jean Ribault actually established a French settlement, Charlesfort at
that location, only to have it fail within the first year. In March 1565, Phillip
II, already aware of Charlesfort, received news of a second French settle
ment, Fort Caroline, located farther south on the Atlantic coast. In response
to these French intrusions on Spanish claims, Phillip II sent Pedro Men^ndez de Avilds to found a Spanish colony in La Florida. In September 1565,
Mendndez located Fort Caroline, defeated the small French force there, and
established St, Augustine, his first colonial settlement, not far away. After
securing the Southern coast, he moved north with most of his men to the
Point of Santa Elena, where he planned to build his colonial capital. He ar
rived there in April 1566, laid out the city plan, directed construction of Fort
San Salvador, and after leaving a detachment of soldiers at the fort returned
to St Augustine for additional provisions. The Spanish fort at Santa Elena
was built on the same site as the preceding French outpost of Charlesfort,
and, similarly, the town of St. Augustine effectively erased the presence of
the French settlement at Fort Caroline. In these ways, Mendndez created a
Spanish colonial imprint on the landscape of the Southeast, in part by dis
placing the French footprint that had been taking shape.
During the summer of 1566, a fleet of Spanish vessels arrived in St. Au
gustine with supplies and soldiers, among whom were Captain Juan Pardo
and 250 men. Mendndez immediately dispatched Pardo and his troops north
to resupply Santa Elena. When Pardo reached Santa Elena in July 1566,
he found Fort San Salvador in very poor shape, and most of the garrison
lost to a mutiny. Pardo and his men helped to rebuild the town, and they
erected Fort San Felipe to replace Fort San Salvador. Menendez returned to
Santa Elena in August 1566. While Pardo had helped restore order, there
were few provisions to support his large force. Therefore, Menendez or
dered Pardo immediately to execute his original colonial plan. Mendndez
tasked Pardo with exploring the interior of La Florida, rlaiming the terri
tory for Spain while pacifying and evangelizing Native American groups,
and establishing an overland route connectiiig Santa Elena with the Span
ish silver mines near Zacatecas, Mexico. TTie Zacatecas mines, which pro-
102 / MOORE, RODNING. AND BECK
duced vast amotmts of wealth for the Spanish colonial empire, were erro
neously thought to lie within easy march of the La Florida coast Because
he could not spare provisions from the town’s storehouses, Men^ndez in
structed Pardo to feed his men by extracting tribute from the Indians he en
countered. Thus. Pardo began his first expedition with a monumental task.
Not only was he to extend the colony across La Florida, but also he would
have to rely on Native Americans to host and provision his men. As a re
sult, although Pardo did command an army, he placed greater emphasis on
diplomacy than had his conquistador predecessors, such as Hernando de
Soto, who briefly traversed the province of “Xuala” in 1540, some 26 years
before Pardo arrived at the principal town of Joaia,
On December 1, 1566, Pardo departed Santa Elena with a company of
125 men. They marched on foot and carried their possessions, moving from
one Native American town to the next, including several visited by the Soto
expedition years before. At many such places, Pardo gave formal diplomatic
talks to Native American community leaders, and he gave them gifts, while
also asking that they become allies of the Spanish colonial province of La
Florida. At certain towns he demanded that they build houses and set aside
food for their Spanish visitors.
Pardo’s small army arrived at the town of Joara several weeks after de
parting Santa Elena. With abundant farmland and other resources near this
prosperous and powerful town, and with snowcapped peaks visible to the
west, foara was chosen by Pardo as the location for a Spanish fort and settle
ment He presented gifts to the chief of Joara, and he renamed the place
Cuenca, after his hometown near Madrid, Spain {Hudson 2005:153). Pardo
spent two weeks at foara. Fort San Juan was completed in January 1567, al
though little was written by the expedition’s chroniclers about the dimen
sions or other characteristics of the fort. Before departing, Pardo placed
Sergeant Hernando Moyano in charge of approximately 30 men stationed
at the fort Pardo provisioned these troops with match cord, gunpowder,
and other supplies and set out on his return to Santa Elena. Heading east,
he visited other Native towns in the surrounding area. At the town of Gxiatari, Pardo received instructions summoning him quickly to Santa Elena to
help protect the capital from a feared attack by the French. Without time to
build another fort, Pardo assigned the expedition’s priest, Sebastian Montero, along with several soldiers to remain at Guatari while he and the bal
ance of the force returned to Santa Elena.
On September 1,1567, Pardo led a second expedition of 120 men with
extra provisions from Santa Elena into the interior. Without authorization
from Pardo and in his absence. Sergeant Moyano engaged in minerals pros
pecting and had participated in raids on Native American villages to the
JOARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN )UAN / 103
north and west of Joara. When Pardo reached Joara in September 1567, he
learned that Moyano and several of his men were surrounded by Indians at
the town of Chiaha (in eastern Tennessee). Pardo rescued Moyano, built a
fort at Chiaha, marched southwest toward the powerful chiefdom of Coosa
but turned back east to cross the mountains en route to Joara. Pardo and his
men built forts at the town of Cauchi, then returned to Joara. where Pardo
met in November with many Native American community leaders from sur
rounding areas. He dispatched several people on prospecting trips during
this period, and he did some prospecting himself in the area around Joara.
The Spaniards found corundum, quartz crystal, and other gemstones, per
haps contributing to Spanish legends that later circulated about ‘Los Diamantes,” moimtains made of crystal or diamonds (Hudson 2005:189-195).
Pardo visited several more Native American towns in the CaroUnas and es
tablished three more forts before arriving at Santa Elena in early March
1568. In June 1568, news reached Santa Elena that Fort San Juan and Par
do’s other outposts had been attacked by Native American warriors. It is
uncertain how many of the soldiers died in the uprising, but only one is
known to have made it back to Santa Elena alive (Hudson 2005:175). Pardo’s
second expedition to the interior marked the last attempt by Mendndez to
extend Spain’s reach across the interior of La Florida. Fort San Juan and
Cuenca, the first of the six Spanish interior settlements, were occupied for
only 18 months.
Juan Pardo’s Forts
Archaeologists know relatively little about sixteenth-century Spanish forts
in La Florida, but archival research suggests considerable variability in the
shapes, dimensions, and other characteristics of Spanish colonial forts.
Generally, forts consisted of ditches or moats, log stockades, and earthen
embankments enclosing spaces where wells, pit features, and structures
such as casasfuertes were present Entryways to Spanish colonial forts and
churches were sometimes paved with pebbles and crushed oyster shell.
Archaeological excavations have uncovered evidence of all these features
in Fort San Felipe, at Santa Elena, point of departure for the Pardo expedi
tions (South et al. 1988).
Pardo’s men built six forts during his two expeditions (Hudson 2005).
Fort San Juan was constructed first, at Joara early in 1567, when Pardo also
renamed the Native town “Ciudad de Cuenca” (Hudson 2005:153). The fort
was named Fort San Juan to mark the army’s arrival at Joara on the Day of
San Juan, December 27 (Hudson 2005:147). There are no known written
descriptions or visual depictions of the fort Hudson (2005:147) suggests
104 / MOORE, RODNINC, AND BECK
that Pardo justified building this fort “to prevent the land from remaining
a wilderness {disierto)” perhaps implying that Indian towns were consid
ered less than civilized, parts of “a wilderness.” However, we think it more
likely that Pardo was following a well-established convention of Spanish
colony-building. Rather than merely applying a Spanish name to the In
dian town, Pardo was intentionally giving a name to the new Spanish co
lonial town, the built environment of which encompassed a fort and a do
mestic compound (Beck et al, 2016), This convention was followed at all but
one of the towns in which Pardo’s men built a fort. Fort San Juan was the
only fort built during Pardo’s initial advance into the interior, and although
there were approximately 30 men garrisoned at Fort San Juan, there were
as many as 125, and perhaps as few as 10, of Pardo’s men at the fort and
its associated domestic compound at any given time.
The remaining five forts were built during the second expedition. Hud
son (2005:148) suggests that they were built as defensive responses to the
hostilities Pardo faced in the mountains on the second expedition. Follow
ing Pardo’s rescue of Moyano and his men from the Chiaha threat in east
ern Tennessee, the array moved briefly west to the town of Satapo before
being warned of a planned ambush by warriors from Satapo, Coosa, and
other towns. As Pardo and his small army retreated from Satapo, they built
their second fort, Fort San Pedro, at the town of Olamico (or Chiaha) (Hud
son 2005:40). No details of its construction are known, but Bandera reported
that the men spent four days laying out the town and building the fort In
terestingly. this is the single location for which Pardo provided no Spanish
name for the settlement save that of the fort. This might support the idea
that Pardo was not renaming the Indian towns but providing names for in
tentional Spanish colonial settlement Fort San Pedro may have been seen as
a more temporary fort holding the western flank of his conquered territories.
Turning east from Olamico to foara, Pardo paused to build Fort San Pablo
in Cauchi, where a house had previously been built for the Spaniards. The
fort was constructed in three or three and a halfdays (Hudson 2005:40), but
nothing is known about the relationship between the fort and the house.
Fort San Pablo was garrisoned with 11 men, before Pardo and the rest of his
detachment marched from Cauchi to Tocae, then through the Swannanoa
River vaUey to the trail leading from the mountains to the province of Joara.
Reaching Joara, Pardo reprovisioned Fort San Juan with the largest quan
tity of supplies at any of the forts, including additional gunpowder, match
cord, and lead balls. Interestingly, he also left the majority of iron shovels,
socketed axes, and mattocks as well as the only nails recorded for any of
the forts. Hudson (2005:41) suggested that the fort was again garrisoned
with 30 men, and the large quantity of supplies supports his notion that
lOARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN JUAN / lOS
Fort San Juan was intended as the central outpost of the Spanish colonial
frontier. FinaUy, Pardo issued 42 chisel-like tools {azolejas) to Fort San Juan,
an item left at none of the other forts. In all, Pardo gave chiefs at many of
the viOages a total of 126 chisels and wedges of various types and names.
Though azolejas do not appear on lists of traded chisels and wedges, their
large number suggests they are included in the total or were otherwise in
tended for trade. Regardless, the scale of munitions, supplies, and possible
trade tools left at Fort San Juan speaks to its intended role as the central
Spanish interior settlement
Pardo’s men built their fourth fort. Fort Santiago, at the town of Guatari,
in the Yadkin River valley, and Pardo named the settlement “Ciudad de Sal
amanca.” Twenty-two days were spent building Fort Santiago, which con
sisted of two bastions built of logs and earth, “four tall ‘cavaliers’ of thick
wood and dirt and a wall of high poles and dirt” (Hudson 2005:151). The
people of Guatari helped in the construction of Fort Santiago, and Pardo
supplied them with two socketed axes to cut wood for the fort. Because
this is also the town at which Pardo had previously installed his chaplain,
Sebastian Montero, it is possible that the details of this construction (none
of which were noted for the other forts) were meant to leave a record of pro
tection for the mission that Montero planned to build. Fort Santiago was
garrisoned with 17 men.
Neither Pardo nor Bandera described the next fort, built at Cofitachequi,
which Pardo later referred to as Fort San Tomds. Pardo named the settle
ment “Ciudad de Toledo,” and he stayed there for 18 days but left no men
or munitions upon his departure (Hudson 2005:151)
Pardo’s sixth and final fort was “Fuerte de Nuestra Seflora,” built at the
Native town of Orista located on the coast a short distance from Santa Elena.
Apparently construction here differed from the other forts, being described
as “a strong house {casa fuerte) built out of sawn lumber” (Hudson 2005:
152). Pardo renamed the settlement “Villa de Buena Esperan9a.’ Little else
is recorded about this casa fuerte or the surrounding settlement, but the
reference to “sawn lumber” suggests that Pardo’s men did carry with them
one or more saws during the expeditions.
Pardo clearly built these forts with every intention of supporting future
permanent Spanish colonial settlements. Hudson suggested that the pres
ence of micos (principal chiefs) at Joara and Guatari persuaded him to con
struct larger forts there than at other sites. Pardo intended for Cuenca and
Fort San Juan to be the major metropolis of the interior settlements on the
northern frontier of La Florida. It may have been important to him to estab
lish a colonial presence visible both to Native peoples and to any French in
terlopers who threatened Spanish claims to the interior. Hudson (2005:152)
106 / MOORE. RODMNG. AND BECK
sliggests that the forts not only served a defensive military purpose, but were
also intended as a means by which the Spaniards could exploit interior Na
tive towns for food (principally com) for Santa Elena.
Unfortunately, there is almost no information about the size or design of
any of the forts, merely a few hints gleaned from the Spanish documents in
cluding an occasional report ofthe length of time spent on fort constmction.
Hudson (2005:152) thinks that the forts “resembled the small, hastily con
structed fortifications that Europeans built in other parts of the world.” Perhaps
they were smaller versions of the first forts that were built at Santa Elena,
but we can have no sure knowledge until one of these forts is located—if
we can be so lucky—and excavated by archaeologists” (Hudson 2005:166).
Our discovery of Fort San fuan at last provides definitive evidence for the
most important of the interior forts. Fort San (uan furnishes a baseline,
with details on a substantial construction for permanent occupation. Ban
dera’s lists of munitions and supplies indicate it was the most heavily pro
visioned, and it may also have been the largest fort
Archaeological Investigations at the Berry Site
When Hudson (1990) first published his book about the Pardo expeditions,
the location of Fort San )uan was unknown. But archaeological investiga
tions at the Berry site (Moore 2002) and reconstructions of the Soto and
Pardo routes across western North Carolina (Beck 1997) persuaded him
that the Berry site is the location of Joara, Cuenca, and Fort San Juan (Hud
son 2005:ix-x). Our research at the Berry site, located in the upper Catawba
River valley of western North Carolina, has now spanned nearly three de
cades (Beck and Moore 2002; Beck et al. 2006, 2011; Moore 2002). We have
been extremely fortunate that the Berry site has been avaUable for extensive
long-term excavation, as it is unlikely that the fort would have been identi
fied otherwise. The following section briefly describes the evolution of the
research designs that have guided our excavation strategies since 1986. The
site covers some five hectares in a bottomland along Upper Creek, which
meets Irish Creek nearby to form Warrior Fork, which then flows to the Ca
tawba River some 12 kilometers to the south. Berry and other sites in the
upper Catawba Valley are attributed to the Burke phase, an archaeological
manifestation of Mississippian culture dating from A.D. 1400 to 1600 (Beck
and Moore 2002; Moore 2002). Archaeological surveys (Beck 1997; Moore
2002) indicate that the Burke-phase settlement pattern includes a range of
sites, from dispersed farmsteads to nucleated villages of various size, inte
grated at a multicommimity level. The Berry site probably functioned as a
regional central place (Beck 1997:55; Beck and Moore 2002). On this land
lOARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN JUAN / 107
scape, the Spaniards attempted to transplant a Spanish colonial identity on
the frontier of La Florida.
The Berry site was first described in the 1880s as the location of an earthen
mound, “about 15 feet high and unexplored,” on the west bank of Upper
Creek (Thomas 1891:151). There are no known photographs of the mound,
but James Berry, 80 years old in 2015, remembers riding a tractor across the
steep slope of the mound when he was young, and he also reports that the
moimd was bulldozed in the past to fill erosional damage in the surround
ing fields. AU local informants associate the mound location with a small
rise about one meter tall (indicated by dashed line on figure 6.1). It is pos
sible that the moimd was destroyed around 1940 following one of the most
damaging floods in the r^on’s history (Geiger et al. 2012: Moore 2002). The
Berry site is by far the largest of more than 26 Burke-phase sites in the Up
per Creek drainage. On the basis of its size and the presence of the earthen
mound. Beck (1997) proposes that the Berry site was the major settlement
within a regional settlement hierarchy.
Modem systematic study of the Berry site began in response to renewed
interest in the sixteenth-century routes of the Soto and Pardo expeditions
(DePratter 1994; Hally 1994b: Hally et al. 1990; Hudson 1997, 2005; Hud
son et al. 1985, 2008; Levy et al. 1990). David Moore’s 1986 survey of South
Appalachian Mississippian sites and ceramics in the Catawba and upper
Yadkin River valleys demonstrated that a relatively large number of Indians
lived in these areas during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Based on
ceramics, this population is believed to have been directly related to other
Lamar cultural groups located in the Carolinas and Georgia (Moore 2002).
Moore also conducted excavations at three of the largest sites in the region,
including the McDoweO site (31MC41) in McDowell County, the Shuford
site (31CT115) in Catawba County, and the Berry site (31BK22) in Burke
County. The Berry site investigations were the most extensive and included
excavation blocks and trenches on and adjacent to the presumed mound.
Moore reported intact postholes and numerous features beneath the plowzone along the southwest edge of the mound. He also observed “sod-block”
deposits in excavation units (see figure 6.1) across the lop of the remnant
mound feature (compare with Sherwood and Kidder 2011).
In 1994, Robin Beck contacted David Moore to report that he had found
several sherds of Iberian olive jar vessels on the surface at the Berry site.
Moore had a small number of historic potsherds in his 1986 collection but
they had been identified fragments of eighteenth-century Moravian vessels.
Upon comparison, they appeared to be identical to Beck’s potsherds. Beck
and Moore took these artifacts (along with a nail found by Beck) to Santa
Elena, where Stanley South and Chester DePratter confirmed their identi-
108 / MOORE. RODNING, AND BECK
fication as sixteenth-century Iberian olive jar. They also found the nail to
be consistent with the nails from the Santa Elena excavations. Following
this development. Moore and Beck decided to pursue additional fieldwork
at Berry to try to determine the source of the sixteenth-century Spanish ar
tifacts. Later that summer, Beck carried out geophysical surveys (performed
by Thomas Hargrove) and soil coring at the north end of the site, where
most Spanish artifacts had been collected, which revealed the presence of
several burned structures and large pit features in an area of some two
hectares, north of the mound remnant The identification of mid-sixteenthcentury Spanish artifacts and the presence of a small compound of burned
buildings provided the first evidence that the Berry site might represent an
early Spanish contact site. On this basis, Moore and Beck (1994,1997) pro
posed that the Berry site represented the location of the Native American
town of Joara, where Juan Pardo built Fort San Juan.
In 2001, we all investigated the Berry site, and especially the compoimd
ofburned structures, to determine whether this could indeed be the locabon
of Joara and Fort San Juan. In addition, the project team (Rodning, Moore,
and Beck) wanted to understand better the Native American occupation of
the larger encompassing site, and the nature of encounters and entangle
ments among the Native people of Joara and the Spanish colonists at Cuenca
and Fort San Juan. Our excavations from 2001 to 2005 identified founda
tions of at least five burned structures. Interestingly, we found no evidence
that any of the buildings had been rebuilt after their destruction. We also
excavated numerous related pit features around the structures. Feature fill
included relatively large quantities of Native American ceramics, along with
archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological remains, as well as numerous Span
ish artifacts including Iberian olive jar sherds, nails, lead baUs, and rolled
copper aglets. It became clear that the area adjacent to and just north of the
mound constituted an unusual domestic compound of less than one-half
acre consisting of five buddings loosely arranged around a small “plaza.”
During this period of our investigations, we were imable to locate any
features or structures that could be interpreted as part of a formal defensive
“fort,” despite carefully examining every line of postholes that we uncovered.
We came to interpret the five buildings as a domestic compound for Span
ish soldiers stationed at Fort San Juan, and we began to wonder whether the
structures themselves constituted the “fort.” The structures were probably
burnt by the Joarans when they destroyed Fort San Juan. Following this in
terpretation, we focused our efforts from 2006 through 2009 on excavations
to expose more of the burned structures and surrounding areas, including,
with the help of a National Science Foundation grant in 2007 and 2008, in
tensive excavations of Structures 1 and 5 (Beck et al. 2016).
lOARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN )UAN / 109
Structures
Only two of the five burned structures have been excavated and the details
described here are more fully discussed in Beck et al. (2016:85-149). Struc
ture 1, measuring slightly more than 8 by 8 meters square with rounded cor
ners, was buOt in a shallow semisubterranean basin with entryway trenches
on the southeast comer. Upright log posts formed the framework for earthen
walls, and four large posts placed around the central hearth supported a roof
made of log poles, earth, bark, and thatch. The dirt dug from the ground to
create the structure basin was presumably the source of earthen material
incorporated in the walls and roof of the structure. In all of these respects,
Stmcture 1 reflects many common Mississippi-period Native American ar
chitectural practices. In other respects. Structure 1 reflects Spanish colonial
practices and Spanish material culture. Lee Ann Newsom’s (2016) analy
sis of wood samples from Structure 1 indicates that many post and timber
elements were harvested, prepared, and shaped with metal tools, such as
axes, adzes, chisels, and saws—tools noted in lists of items carried by Pardo
and his men. Some wooden elements have saw marks; at least one chestnut
plank from Structure 1 demonstrates quarter-sawing, which is only possible
with metal-edged tools; and some wooden elements have holes that may
have been created by iron nails. Structure 1 appears to have been built by
people with intimate knowledge of Native American architectural design
and materials. However, it also appears that many of the posts were cut or
shaped with metal axes, possibly wielded by the Spanish soldiers. We sug
gest that the people of Joara buUt Structure 1, but Pardo’s men actively as
sisted in the construction.
Structure 5, located southwest of Structure 1, resembles Structure 1 in
its general configuration and dimensions, but there are considerable dif
ferences in construction details. Most notably. Structure 5 lacks the foun
dational shallow basin and, based on posthole evidence, has no discemibly dear entrance. In addition, the central roof support posts in Structure
5 were placed more shallowly than those in Structure 1, and they are shal
lower than many wall posts in Structure 5. Several wall posts in Structure
5 were placed in postholes much larger than the posts themselves, perhaps
because the holes were dug with a metal shovel. By contrast, postholes in
Structure 1 were the same diameters as the posts themselves. Finally, the
posts used in Structure 5 are younger and smaller in diameter than those
of Structure 1. Even more significantly, many of the structural elements
of Structure 5 appear to be split or sawn to double or triple their effective
length, perhaps saving time in procurement but possibly resulting in a less
durable structure (Newsom 2016:199). These construction details along with
110 / MOORE, RODNINC, AND BECK
many other examples of metal tool use within Structure 5 lead us to suggest
that Structure 5 was built by people who knew what Native American struc
tures looked like but did not follow standard practices for constructing a
more durable building. We think that Structure 5 was built by Pardo’s men.
Aside from the architectural aspects of the structures, we are also inter
ested in understanding how they were used. Unfortunately, the structures
appear to have been cleaned and most evidence of activities removed be
fore their destruction. Despite the relative paucity of material remains on
the structure floors, both Native and Spanish artifacts were recovered from
the floors of Structure 1 and Structure 5.
Several sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts have been found on the ground
surface and in the plow zone in this area of the site, including Iberian olive
jar fragments and other Spanish pottery, lead shot, wrought iron nails, chain
mail, brass aglets, rolled brass beads, brass or copper scrap, and glass beads.
These and other types of sbrteenth-century Spanish artifacts—including
chain mail links and other metal items—have also been found in intact de
posits, including several of the large pit features present in this area of the
site, as well as in the burned structures themselves. Finding a concentration
of sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts in and around the burned buildings,
along with our emerging understanding of construction details for the two
structures, continued to support a compelling argument for our interpre
tation of this compound as a part of Cuenca and Fort San fuan, if not the
fort itself (Beck et al. 2006, 2011).
Even more interesting are the results of the paleoethnobotanical (Fritz
2016) and zooarchaeological (Lapham 2016) analyses conducted on the struc
tures and other Spanish compound features. Taken as a whole, the distri
bution of Spanish artifacts and the ethnobotanical and zooarchaeological
analyses suggest there may have been evolving patterns of activity within the
compoimd. It appears that at least one structure was built cooperatively by
Natives and Spaniards, whereas a second was primarily the result of Span
ish labor. Native men may have at times helped the soldiers procure meat
while Native women very likely procured food for the soldiers and cooked
within the compound. Even over the short 18-month occupancy of Cuenca,
interactions between the soldiers and Native women and men were likely
to have been continually negotiated with respect to social boundaries and
identity (Eritz 2016:268-270; Lapham 2016:300).
Fort Son Juan Revealed
Although we continued to explore the structures and activity areas in the
Spanish compound al Berry, we also remained interested in clarifying the
lOARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN JUAN / 111
Spatial and temporal relationship between the earthen mound and the Span
ish compound itself As seen in figure 6.1, we originally understood the top
ographic rise to correspond generally to the location of the earthen mound.
Over the years of investigation, we considered various excavation strategies
to learn more about the mound itself We thought that basic information,
including the actual mound footprint, could help us understand the timing
of mound construction, as well as give us a more accurate picture of the
built environment at )oara at the time of Spanish contact. We also hoped to
resolve questions about the northern edge of this topographic rise, where
complicated stratigraphy suggested that mound deposits may even sit atop
the burned remnants of Structure 4.
Determining the footprint of the mound seemed a relatively simple task.
We began in 2007 with several excavation units at the southeastern edge
of the topographic rise associated with the mound. These units revealed a
new pattern of horizontal stratigraphy that appeared to follow the edge of
the rise and that we thought had resulted from plowing across several lay
ers of mound deposits. This seemed consistent with Moore’s 1986 excava
tion results across the western summit and at the southwestern margins
of the rise and appeared to confirm the original supposition that this rise
was the bulldozed and plowed remnant of the earthen mound reported to
be 15 feet tall in the late nineteenth century (Thomas 1891).
We continued this task in 2011 with a mound-coring regimen (Geiger
et al. 2011) designed to define the moimd footprint and possibly determine
stages of mound construction. Systematic l-meter-interval soil coring, bi
secting the rise north to south and east to west, revealed a wide variety of
soil profiles that included ashy and burned soils in some locations, mixed
and complex layers in others, and potential deep pit features. Although this
information was useful, it was also difficult to interpret At the very least the
data suggested the mound had a slightly smaller footprint (see solid line in
figure 6.1) that did not exactly coincidewiththeexisting topographic rise. To
obtain better clarity of mound stratigraphy, we returned in 2012 to the 2007
test excavations on the southeast mound edge and expanded those units to
the west. Once again, as we moved to the west, the horizontal stratigraphy
seemed to correspond to the southern edge of the mound.
However, our interpretation changed drastically as we continued to ex
pand these units westward in 2013. As we moved west, it became clear that
the horizontal stratigraphy did not curve to the northwest as expected to con
form to the mound edge, but instead continued in a straight southwesterly
direction. In addition, we began to recognize similar stratigraphy heading
north at a right angle to our original southwest trending linear bands of fill
Suddenly, it was obvious that we were not following the edge of the mound.
112 / MOORE, RODNINC, AND BECK
but had instead encountered a very large feature, larger than any feature or
structure seen to this point at the Berry site. Several days of conjecture led
to the stunning conclusion that we had exposed a comer and a portion of
one side of the moat or ditch around Fort San Juan. Nearing the end of the
2013 field school, we bisected the ditch feature with an 80-cm-wide trench,
revealing a deep V-shaped ditch nearly three meters across and over two
meters deep. We found very few artifacts within a complex stratigraphy.
After consultation with numerous colleagues, including Chester DePratter, Sarah Sherwood, David Anderson, Jeffrey Mitchem, Kathleen Deagan,
David Thomas, and Charles Ewen, we determined that this feature did not
resemble known Native American moats around sites like Etowah or Parkin,
but that it was nearly identical in cross section to the moat associated with
Fort San Felipe at Santa Elena (Chester DePratter, personal communica
tion 2013}. After 14 years of exploration, we had rediscovered Fort San Juan.
This discovery significantly altered our planning and, indeed, the en
tire frame of reference for our research design heading into the future. In
2014, we expanded the excavation of the southwestern comer of the ditch
and continued northward, toward the edge of the “mound.” Numerous fea
tures were revealed in the southwest comer area including a large intrusive
stmcture (see figure 6.1), not unlike the burned stmctures in the Spanish
compound, several possible pit features, and a single row of well-defined
postholes. The intrusive structure must postdate the destruction of Fort San
Juan and the filling of the ditch, but the potential association of the other
features and the fort is unclear. Following the 2014 field season, another
systematic soil-coring regime (Kipfer 2014), along with additional remote
sensing studies (Timothy Horsley, personal communication 2014), appeared
to have confirmed nearly 90 percent of the ditch outline. Details of these
studies are forthcoming, but the apparent footprint of the ditch surround
ing Fort San Juan has a trapezoidal shape, about 23 by 30 meters, smaOer
than but comparable to the shape and size of Fort San Felipe, at Santa Elena,
which Pardo and his men built before marching inland to Joara in 1566.
Understanding the Berry Abound
As described, the discovery of the Fort San Juan moat clarified the nature
of the overall Spanish compound. It is clear that the fort was a distinct en
tity, separate from the five buildings located north of the fort; the fort and
the five buildings constitute Cuenca, the Spanish settlement at Joara. What
remains unclear is the relationship of the fort to the indigenous settlement
of Joara and especially to the Berry mound. We have always considered the
proximity of the Spanish compound to the mound remnant to be surpris
)0ARA, CUENCA, AND FORT SAN JUAN / 113
ing. It seemed unlikely that the Joarans would have tolerated the construc
tion of the Spanish compound in such close proximity to the mound, and
a mound reportedly 15 feet tall next to the Spanish compound would seem
to confer to the Joarans a strategic advantage over the compound. In fact,
there are no written references in primary documentary sources from the
sixteenth century of an earthen mound at the principal town of Joara. We
have therefore wondered whether the Berry site mound was built or en
larged over the fort after it was attacked and destroyed. This question de
mands fiuther consideration and investigation.
However, as we have further explored the area of the presumed mound
base, we find the life history of the mound, like that of the ditch and fort,
to be increasingly complex. At the west edge of Moore’s 1986 excavation
(see figure 6.1), and in our current excavation across the topographic “rise”
in the field, we see significant horizontal stratigraphy within the presumed
mound base. In 1986, Moore {2002:214-218} identified significant deposits
of sod blocks as well as large ash deposits, presumably the remnants of Na
tive American mound building. To the east in our current trench crossing
the rise, we have exposed an ashy midden that corresponds to similar de
posits identified by Moore in 1986. As we continued east across the highest
elevation of the presumed mound remnant in 2015, we identified more ash
deposits and several hearths that may be associated with additional struc
tures located between the fort and the burned buildings. However, no fur
ther sod-block deposits have been identified.
What remains to be answered is whether the sod-block deposits actually
represent Native American mound building and, if so, does mound con
struction predate or postdate fort construction and destruction? Figure 6.1
shows the relationship between the sod-block (presumed to be mound) de
posits and the existing topographic rise. As of the end of the 2015 field sea
son, it remained unclear whether moimd deposits covered any portion of
the footprint of the fort. We are still investigating the spatial and temporal
relationship between fort and mound. However, there are suggestions in the
profiles of Ditch Trenches 1 and 2 that, when the fort ditch was dug, dig
gers sliced through an existing earthwork of some kind at its northern edge.
That is, when Pardo and his men cut this part of Fort San Juan’s dry moat,
they may have sliced through the toe slope of the Berry mound or, alterna
tively, there may have been an earlier construction stage or embankment
of the fort If it was an existing mound, it was probably a very low feature
at the time of the Spanish occupation, similar perhaps to the low mounds
described by Cyrus Thomas (1891:152) along the Yadkin River, in Caldwell
County, just northeast of the Berry site. In either case, it remains possible
that the greatest period of mound construction (to the reported height of
114 / MOORE, RODNING, AND BECK
15 feet) occurred after the destruction of Fort San )uan. Such a sequence of
events would indicate a complete reassertion of Joaran identity within the
landscape of the Spanish colonial encounter.
Fort Son juanjoara. and the Berry Mound: A Landscape of /nteroction
and Identity
Before the arrival of the Spanish armies in the mid-sixteenth century, Joara
probably functioned as a regional central place (Beck and Moore 2002). The
Pardo documents clearly demonstrate that Native peoples regularly traveled
between towns, and )oara likely constituted a native landscape of interaction
in which Joara social identity was maintained within regional political and
economic interactions. Maintenance of Joaran social identity may have been
greatly challenged when Pardo arrived and the Spaniards attempted to trans
plant a Spanish colonial identity on the frontier of La Florida.
The activities briefly described above reveal a host of intriguing possi
bilities for further understanding of social identity on the colonial frontier.
In fact, the juxtaposition of Fort San Juan, the Cuenca domestic compound,
the Berry mound, and the rest of the town of Joara may be seen as map
ping the social landscape of an early colonial event. Indeed, we may even
tually be able to imderstand it as a complex mid-sixteenth-century physical
and figurative landscape of interaction and identity. After 14 years of in
vestigations, we are convinced that we have identified the basic footprint of
Fort San Juan and the adjacent domestic compound constructed to house
the Spanish soldiers who manned the fort We believe that a wide variety
of activities took place within the domestic compound, perhaps involving
the presence of Native women on a daOy or a semipermanent basis. We
also suggest that the domestic compound and the fort represent private and
public dimensions of the colonial enterprise and encounter.
Given our present understanding of the Spanish colonial fort at the Berry
site, it looks broadly comparable to Fort San Felipe, the fort constructed at
Santa Elena by members of the Pardo expedition before they marched in
land and built Fort San Juan. At several European colonial settlements in
eastern North America, there were spatial distinctions between public and
private sectors.
In 1588, John White reported discovering Ralph Lane’s settlement on
Roanoke Island some three years after its abandonment its fort, he wrote,
had “sundry necessary and decent dwelling houses made by his men about it
the yeere before” (Quinn 1985:280). Also, French Fort Caroline, founded in
1564 at the site where St. Augustine was established in 1565, was depicted
as having houses outside the fort itself (Bennett 2001:19). There were spa
lOARA. CUENCA, AND FORT SAN )UAN / US
tial distinctions between forts and residential areas at the Spanish colonial
capital of Santa Elena, in coastal South Carolina (Lyon 1976, 1988, 1990;
South et al. 1988). Similarly, there seems to have been a spatial separation
at the Berry site between the setting of Spanish domestic life at Cuenca, in
the Spanish compound at the northern end of the site, and a more public
space represented by Fort San Juan.
Our finds at the Berry site shed light on the landscape of interaction and
identity at Joara and Fort San Juan. The ditch itself is perhaps the most
powerful symbol of this changing landscape. RecaO that the preliminary
analysis ofthe life of the ditch suggests that, when the ditch was cut, it sliced
through an earthwork of some kind along its northern edge. It is possible
that the ditch around the fort cut through a small mound that was present
at the site when Fort San Juan was built, in which case the fort would have
encompassed and appropriated that mound, making a powerful statement
about the colonial presence in a Native town. Alternatively, the ditch may
have cut through an earthen parapet or rampart that was part of an earlier
construction stage of the fort In either case, it looks increasingly likely that
the earthen mound at the Berry site was either built or significantly enlarged
on top ofthe remnants of the fort, becoming itself a monumental statement
about the conquest of Fort San Juan. The rediscovery of Fort San Juan in
2013, after its abandonment in 1568, presents us with the unique opportu
nity to explore the myriad ways in which both Spanish colonists and Native
Americans from Joara attempted to orchestrate—to control—the public face
of this important colonial encounter, and this decisive episode in Ameri
can history. Fort San Juan seems to have separated the Spanish domestic
compound of Cuenca from the Native American town of Joara. a clear sepa
ration and change in the new colonial social and political landscape. Yet.
following the destruction of Fort San Juan and the conquest of the north
ernmost outpost of Spanish colonial La Florida, that separation may have
been obliterated while being marked in Native monumental form by con
struction or enlargement of the Berry site mound. The moimd construction
itself may have represented a reassertion of Joaran identity and authority.
Acknowledgments
We first wish to thank the Berry family for their continued stewardship
of the Berry site and for their interest and support of our project Our re
search has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Na
tional Geographic Society, Certified Local Government grants to the city of
Morganton from the Department of the Interior administered by the State
Historic Preservation Office and the North Carolina Department of Cul-
116 / MOORE, RODNING. AND BECK
tural Resources, the Western Piedmont Community College Foundation,
the Woodbury Family Foundation, Warren Wilson College, Tulane Univer
sity, the University of Michigan, the University of Oklahoma, and the Ex
ploring Joara Foundation. Thanks to our field crew supervisors and all of
the field school students and volunteers who have participated in our proj
ect and to the many people from Morganton and Burke County, North Caro
lina, who have contributed to this project
Thanks to Greg Waselkov and Marvin Smith for inviting us to contribute
to this volume in honor of Judith Knight. We appreciate their editorial com
ments as well as those of the anonymous reviewers. Any errors remain our
responsibility. FinaUy, it is an honor to participate in this volume and we
thank Judith Knight for her fnendship and for her significant service to
Southeastern archaeology.