Salt in Eastern North America and the Caribbean: History and Archaeology

By Ian W. Brown, Ann M. Early, Hannah Guidry and 9 more

Case studies examining the archaeological record of an overlooked mineral
 
Salt, once a highly prized trade commodity essential for human survival, is often overlooked in research because it is invisible in the archaeological record. Salt in Eastern North America and the Caribbean: History and Archaeology brings salt back into archaeology, showing that it was valued as a dietary additive, had curative powers, and was a substance of political power and religious significance for Native Americans. Major salines were embedded in collective memories and oral traditions for thousands of years as places where physical and spiritual needs could be met. Ethnohistoric documents for many Indian cultures describe the uses of and taboos and other beliefs about salt.
 
The volume is organized into two parts: Salt Histories and Salt in Society. Case studies from prehistory to post-Contact and from New York to Jamaica address what techniques were used to make salt, who was responsible for producing it, how it was used, the impact it had on settlement patterns and sociopolitical complexity, and how economies of salt changed after European contact. Noted salt archaeologist Heather McKillop provides commentary to conclude the volume.
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• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Feb 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9780817393335

Book preview

SALT IN EASTERN NORTH AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

ARCHAEOLOGY OF FOOD

Series Editors

MARY C. BEAUDRY

KAREN BESCHERER METHENY

Editorial Board

UMBERTO ALBARELLA

TAMARA BRAY

YANNIS HAMILAKIS

CHRISTINE HASTORF

FRANCES M. HAYASHIDA

KATHERYN TWISS

AMBER VANDERWARKER

MARIKE VAN DER VEEN

JOANITA VROOM

RICHARD WILK

ANNE YENTSCH

SALT IN EASTERN NORTH AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

History and Archaeology

EDITED BY ASHLEY A. DUMAS AND PAUL N. EUBANKS

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

TUSCALOOSA

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

uapress.ua.edu

Copyright © 2021 by the University of Alabama Press

All rights reserved.

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of Alabama Press.

Typeface: Scala Pro

Cover image: Artist’s reconstruction of an AD 1500 salt maker homestead based on excavations, drawing by Ed Martin; with the permission of the Arkansas Archeological Survey

Cover design: David Nees

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-0-8173-2076-8

E-ISBN: 978-0-8173-9333-5

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction

PAUL N. EUBANKS AND ASHLEY A. DUMAS

Part I. Salt Histories

1. A Millennium of Salt Production in Southwest Alabama

ASHLEY A. DUMAS

2. Prehistoric Uses of Salt and Mineral Springs in the Middle Cumberland Region of North-Central Tennessee

PAUL N. EUBANKS, KEVIN E. SMITH, HANNAH GUIDRY, AND LARRY MCKEE

3. More Than Just Salt: Middle Tennessee’s Mystical Mineral Springs

KEVIN E. SMITH AND PAUL N. EUBANKS

4. Production of Salt in the Onondaga Lake Region of New York: From Prehistory to History

IAN W. BROWN

5. Salt Production and Consumption in Historic Jamaica

ALYSSA SPERRY

Part II. Salt in Society

6. Salines in the Late Pleistocene Human Landscape of Southeastern North America

STEVEN M. MEREDITH

7. Salt Making among the Precontact Southern Caddo of Arkansas

ANN M. EARLY

8. Prehistoric Salt Making Writ Small: An Ancestral Caddo Example from East Texas

NANCY A. KENMOTSU AND TIMOTHY K. PERTTULA

9. Salt Archaeology in Northwest Louisiana

PAUL N. EUBANKS

10. Creating Social Meaning: The Role of Salt in Multicrafting at the Mississippian Periphery

MAUREEN MEYERS

11. The Power of Salt in Gift Exchange and Social Transformation in the Precolonial Caribbean

JOOST MORSINK

Conclusion: The Quest for Salt

HEATHER MCKILLOP

Glossary

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Illustrations

Figures

I.1. Salt lick in northwest Louisiana

I.2. Examples of vessel forms used to evaporate salt in eastern North America

I.3. Salt-making sites and localities in eastern North America and the Caribbean discussed in this book

1.1. Map of southwest Alabama showing salt springs and other archaeological sites mentioned in the text

1.2. McLeod simple stamped bowl from the Lower Salt Works, fabric-impressed saltpan from Beckum Village, and cane-impressed saltpan from Stimpson

1.3. Remains of a salt-boiling furnace at the Upper Salt Works

2.1. Topographic map of the mineral springs at Castalian Springs

2.2. Rim fragment from a fabric-impressed pan at Castalian Springs

2.3. Profile view of a limestone/earthen oven at Castalian Springs

2.4. T-shaped pit at the French Lick site

3.1. Mineral springs localities recorded with support facilities, 1800–1930

3.2. Castalian Springs vicinity

3.3. Chimney base and hearth of slave residence at Wynnewood State Historic Site

4.1. William Kirkpatrick Jr. Monument honoring the discovery of the Onondaga salt springs

4.2. Principal late prehistoric and historic Onondaga Indian sites

4.3. Interior view of a salt manufactory, Salina

4.4. Mural of solar salt production, Syracuse

5.1. Drawing by William Berryman of workers in evaporation ponds at salt works, Jamaica, circa 1808–1816

5.2. Survey of Captain Joseph Noyes of The Little Salt Pond, 1668

5.3. W. R. Harris Salt Pond, St. Thomas, 1832

6.1. Early interpretation of Paleoindian artifact concentrations compared with concentrations of salines in eastern North America

6.2. Quantities of Clovis points and quantities of mineral springs by Tennessee county

6.3. Locations of documented Clovis points and salines in Louisiana as documented in the Paleoindian Database of the Americas

6.4. Quantities of Clovis points by Alabama county as documented in the Alabama Paleo Point Survey

6.5. Location of sites with Clovis components, salines, and quarries of knappable stone in Choctaw, Clarke, and Washington Counties, Alabama

7.1. Outline of the Caddo Culture Area with major salt-making sites and locales mentioned in this volume

7.2. Artist’s reconstruction of an AD 1500 salt-maker homestead based on excavations

7.3. Distribution of post molds, hearths, and graves in the central portion of the Hardman site

7.4. Facsimile of the 1691 Terán map of a Nasoni Caddo village on the Red River

7.5. Keno Trailed bottle and Old Town Red effigy bowl

8.1. Salt Well Feature 3, an exposed, shallow hearth with clumps of sherds around it

8.2. Sherds of a Nash Neck Banded vessel recovered from several of the sherd clumps around Feature 11

9.1. Upper and Little Licks at Drake’s Salt Works, as seen from Google Earth, 2012

9.2. Excavations on a low mound of salt production debris at the Little Lick

9.3. Nineteenth-century wood-lined well from the Upper Lick at Drake’s Salt Works

10.1. Plan view of Carter Robinson mound and excavation areas

11.1. Map showing the location of MC-6 on the edge of the salina and its relation to Armstrong Pond

11.2. Detailed map of the central plaza on MC-6

Tables

I.1. Approximate Sodium Content in Selected Foods

8.1. Archaeological Assemblages from Caddo Salt-Making Sites, Farmsteads, and Hamlets

10.1. Number and Percentage of Rims with Rim Thickness Greater than Body Thickness

10.2. Number of Bowls from Rim Fragments per Level and per Structure

Introduction

PAUL N. EUBANKS AND ASHLEY A. DUMAS

After marching thousands of miles through the forests, mountains, and prairies of southeastern North America, Hernando de Soto and his conquistadors reached the banks of the Mississippi River in the spring of AD 1541. Although their minds had been fixated on gold when they began their entrada two years before, by the time they reached the mighty river, Soto’s men were afflicted by fatigue, nausea, and muscular seizures. Their suffering came not from their lack of gold but for want of an equally precious substance—salt (Clayton et al. 1993:II:383–384, 410). In a dramatic recounting of their plight, it was said that they felt the lack of [salt] greatly, and some whose constitutions required more than others died for the need of it in a most extraordinary manner. They were taken with a slight hectic fever, and by the third or fourth day no one could endure the stench of their bodies fifty paces away from them, . . . and their bellies were as green as grass from the breast down (Clayton et al. 1993:II:384). It is certain from this gruesome description that Soto’s men were suffering from hyponatremia, a suite of debilitating symptoms caused by chronic lack of salt (Adrogué and Madias 2000; Verbalis et al. 2013). In this case, long hours of marching in the subtropical climate of southeastern North America caused a rapid depletion of salt through perspiration. In desperation, some of Soto’s men interrogated a group of captured Indigenous traders about any local sources of salt. The traders told them of a salt deposit in a mountainous region some 40 leagues (222 km, 138 miles) to the west of their encampment. Soto dispatched a small group of men to accompany the traders, and eleven days later, they returned with six loads of rock-salt crystals (Swanton 1946:300–301). This life-sustaining substance was undoubtedly seen as a godsend to Soto’s men, but for many, their manna arrived too late (Clayton et al. 1993:II:384).

This historical episode reveals two facts about the need for salt in the North American interior. First, and perhaps most telling, is that salt was important enough that Soto sent his exhausted and battle-weary men specifically to obtain this mineral. The conquistadors’ experiences confirmed that without salt the human body begins to shut down, especially in warm and humid environments. Second, there was a regional demand for salt in eastern North America, as the captured traders seemed accustomed to traveling long distances to acquire or trade this substance. What is not apparent from this encounter, however, is that for many centuries prior to Soto’s arrival, the Indigenous peoples of North America had been making and trading salt. Moreover, the limited distribution of salt sources across the interior of the eastern portion of the continent means that salt may have been viewed similarly as other scarce, valued materials, such as marine shell, copper, mica, or greenstone, whose production and distribution was controlled or influenced by people seeking social prestige.

We are fortunate to have accounts from the Soto expedition that speak to the need for salt and describe some of the Indigenous peoples who made and traded this commodity in the sixteenth century. Limited European exploration into the interior of eastern North America and the uneven distribution of salt sources means that such early ethnohistoric accounts are rare. Furthermore, shortly after the establishment of Euro-American trading houses and settlements in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, native peoples in some areas ceased making and trading for salt, resulting in a general lack of primary sources on the topic. Archaeological traces of prehistoric salt sites and artifacts are often damaged or destroyed by later salt-making activities, which themselves have suffered from a lack of attention from the preservation and scholarly communities. Fortunately, prehistoric salt production sites have gained increasing attention from researchers in recent decades. Colonial and American period salt production locales have also enjoyed some study, enhanced by the presence of archival documents and first-person accounts. This volume assembles the information and models from some of these projects so that we might explore the story of salt—its uses, production, exchange, and cultural meaning—in eastern North America and the Caribbean, from the continent’s initial settlement to the twentieth century.

USES AND DEMAND

Salt is an electrolyte required by humans to help us retain water (Beauchamp 1993:345; Meneton et al. 2005; Morimoto et al. 1993:389; Whitney et al. 1990). Although the minimum amount of sodium required by the body is a much-debated topic, certain groups, such as the Yanomamo of Brazil, have been known to survive on as little as 50 mg a day (He and MacGregor 2007; Mancilha-Carvalho et al. 1989; Oliver et al. 1975). This amount is roughly equivalent to the sodium found in 98 g (3.5 oz.) of venison, 86 g (3 oz.) of speckled trout, or 13 g (0.5 oz.) of marine mussels (Table I.1). As the health-conscious reader may know, 50 mg of sodium is considerably less than the American Heart Association’s recommended intake of 1,500 mg, which is about half as much as the average American consumes in a single day (American Heart Association 2017).

TABLE I.1. APPROXIMATE SODIUM CONTENT IN SELECTED FOODS

Data from United States Department of Agriculture 2016, Food Composition Databases.

Given the amount of naturally occurring salt in many animal-based foods, it may not have been too difficult for most of the inhabitants of eastern North America and the Caribbean to meet the bare minimum for survival. In addition, there are accounts of some groups obtaining potassium chloride from the ashes of particular plants as a weak salt substitute (Dyson 2006; Hatley 1989:231). Nevertheless, populations heavily reliant on plant-based foods, like maize, often had to supplement their diets with additional salt (Bunge 1873, 1874; Driver and Massey 1957:250; Hunter 1940; Kawashima 2012; Muller 1997:249). Along with having a physiological need, people’s desire for salt may have been driven, in part, by habit or addiction, perhaps analogous to our modern dependence on sugar, tea, and coffee (Tekol 2006). As salt is necessary for survival, it is unsurprising that our bodies frequently crave salty foods. Thus, like today, it was not uncommon for people in the past to add salt to their foods simply because it made them taste better (Kurlansky 2002; Multhauf 1978; Swanton 1928a:573–578, 604). Further, together with certain animal fats, plant ash, and a few other substances, salt was one of the few available seasonings in pre-Columbian North America. As a result, this mineral was often highly coveted for its ability to enhance the flavor or quality of a meal (Kurlansky 2002; La Vere 1998; Multhauf 1978; Wentowski 1970).

Like many societies of the Old World (e.g., Alexianu et al. 2011, 2015; Harding 2013; Kurlansky 2002), the Indigenous peoples of the Americas had numerous taboos and proscriptions concerning salt (Adair 2005:143; Hill 1940; Hunter 1940; Swanton 1928a:573; Titiev 1937; Wentowski 1970). In the southwestern United States, for instance, the seemingly simple act of obtaining salt was frequently laden with ritual. As it was common for salt deposits to be located some distance from people’s villages, a small group of individuals (usually men) would need to travel for several days just to reach the salt deposit. Among the Navajo, those wishing to mine salt were required to pray and pay homage to Grandmother Salt, the spiritual being responsible for this substance’s creation. Often, once they began the harvesting process, at least a portion of the salt was collected in a special manner and set aside for later use in rituals and religious rites (Hill 1940). The Hopi also appear to have had similar beliefs regarding the sacred and spiritual nature of salt. On Hopi salt-gathering journeys, the miners were required to make numerous prayers and complete a series of rituals on their way to the salt deposit (Titiev 1937). Additionally, such journeys appear to have been akin to a rite of passage for the younger male participants, and any mishaps along the way were frequently attributed to the shortcomings or inexperience of the novice miners.

Although detailed accounts regarding the connections between salt and mythology are generally lacking in eastern North America and the Caribbean, it is known that salt was often avoided during the Green Corn or Busk Ceremony and that it was associated with rituals related to rebirth and cleansing (Harding 2013:765, 785; Hunter 1940; Mooney 1890; Mooney and Olbrechts 1932; Swanton 1928b:386). For instance, during the Chickasaw, Kisata, Yuchis, and Coweta Creek Green Corn Ceremonies, participants were required to fast and were prohibited from eating salt until the end of the ceremony (usually four to seven days), at which point salt and salted foods were consumed in large quantities (Adair 2005:143; Harding 2013:765, 785; Speck 2004:45, 114, 118; Swanton 1928a:577–78, 604). In addition, some nineteenth-century Cherokee burial rites dictated that a small container of salt be placed on the chest of a deceased individual (Mooney and Olbrechts 1932:134). While this custom may have had Indigenous roots, it is possible that it was derived from contact with English settlers who were known to have conducted a similar ritual, which was said to prevent bloating and corpse reanimation (Burnett 2014:58–59). Elsewhere in the southeastern United States, especially in the Cumberland River Valley of Tennessee and Kentucky, it was not uncommon for individuals to be interred in graves lined with fragments of pottery containers that were used to make salt (Brown 1981a; Dowd 2008). In this same region, salt and mineral springs were known for their ability to heal and for being cosmically charged places on the landscape (Eubanks et al. this volume; Eubanks and Smith 2018; Swanton 1928b:70; 1928a:669; 1931:239–240; Mooney 1902:310–311, 321–22, 463, 496). Various cultures around the world classify salt as a hot substance, giving it value for healing or hurting, depending on the context of its use (Barker et al. 2017; Dumas 2018:73). Finally, in parts of the Caribbean, salt was considered by some to be a type of turey (heavenly substance) and was linked to myths regarding divinely sanctioned rulership (Keegan 2007; Morsink 2012:313–318).

Across the world, salt has been a critical part of traditional technologies, two of which we highlight here for their potential relevance to the regions under study. Salt is a well-known mordant, a substance used to fix the colors of dyes in textiles, and we cannot discount the possibility that Indigenous peoples of eastern North America also discovered this function (Meyers, this volume). Although textiles rarely survive in the archaeological record here, we have enough fragments of cloth or representations of clothing in other forms of art to know that they were multicolored. Parsons (2001:241, 248) points out that the processes of leaching salty soil and leaching soil to make dye are quite similar and that, in some places, they may have been linked, if not concurrent, crafts. He notes too several ethnographic reports of salt plants being used to intensify the colors of natural dyes (Parsons 2001:241–42).

Another potentially important use of salt in eastern North America and the Caribbean is its role in preindustrial cooking technology. To reach its potential as a dietary staple, maize must go through the process of nixtamalization, whereby it is soaked and cooked with slaked lime (sodium carbonate), potash (potassium hydroxide), or soda ash (sodium carbonate), all alkalizing agents and all naturally obtainable ingredients from limestone, wood, or a combination of salt and limestone, respectively (National Center for Biotechnology Information 2005). Nixtamalization helps to release the nutrients from maize, increases its digestibility, and makes it easier to reduce the hulled kernels into a fine, multipurpose flour. The process, in fact, is what makes it possible for maize to serve as a dietary staple without the effects of malnutrition (Briggs 2015:114–120). In her study of the hominy (boiled, nixtamalized maize) foodway tradition of eastern North America, Briggs (2015:121) notes the usefulness and availability of both lime and salt water, both . . . being superb alkalizing agents, in addition to sodium- and potassium-bearing plants, for the critically important maize-based diets of Indigenous peoples.

Although there was a demand for salt as a dietary supplement and for certain preindustrial technologies, this amount may have been dwarfed by the salt that was needed to participate in the booming fish and animal hide trades following European contact (Braund 1993; Elvas in Clayton et al. 1993:I:124–25; Eubanks 2014, 2016a, this volume; Gregory 1973:255; Hubert 1717; Kelley 2012:424; La Vere 1998:4–7; Morsink 2012). By the early eighteenth century, the Indigenous peoples of eastern North America were trading thousands of deerskins to the French and English each year, and countless fish from the Caribbean and Atlantic were being salted and shipped across the globe (Braund 1993; Kurlansky 2002; Surrey 1916:180, 343, 343). Interestingly, however, there is no evidence that salt was used to preserve fish or other types of meat in eastern North America prior to European contact.¹

SOURCES OF SALT

There are multiple sources of salt in eastern North America and the Caribbean. The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico are certainly the largest, but efficient evaporation of seawater to yield salt crystals requires either ideal natural conditions—calm, shallow waters with few impurities and long periods of sunshine—or some amount of engineering to create and maintain these conditions, usually by constructing elaborate systems of dykes and evaporation ponds. Additionally, most seawater averages only about 3.5% sodium chloride (Landes 1960a:34; Shelton 1966:240). This means that methods of increasing the water’s salinity were usually necessary. For these reasons, evaporation of seawater along the Atlantic or Gulf coasts of eastern North America was rarely undertaken except during times when salt could not be cheaply imported (Dumas, this volume; Lonn 2003). In the Caribbean, however, warm temperatures, windy beaches, and easy access to the sea allowed for solar evaporation to flourish along the coasts of numerous islands (Morsink, this volume; Sperry, this volume).

The interior salt springs in the American Southeast derive their salinity from deeply buried, homogeneous salt deposits in the Gulf Coast Basin. During the Upper Jurassic period (163–145 million years ago), vast amounts of seawater were evaporated from a large shallow inland sea called the Mississippi Embayment. This left behind tremendous deposits of salt and other evaporites that eventually became covered by other sediments, and with time they were buried deeply beneath the ground surface (Landes 1960a:41; Lefond 1969:1–21). The northern boundaries of the evaporite deposits are found beneath Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama, and its southern boundary stretches to the Yucatan Peninsula (Kupfer 1970:29; Landes 1960b:85). Because salt is usually less dense and much more plastic than other rocks, it tends to rise to the surface when it is buried, pushing up on overlying rocks, occasionally creating some topographic relief. If geologic fault lines are also present, then deeply buried connate water may rise through the cracks, dissolving salt and other evaporites as it does, and appearing on the surface as a saline.

Sometimes a large body of salt rises through a weakness in overlying strata and appears near the surface as a dome of salt. Dozens of salt domes rise from the Mississippi Embayment, from Texas to Alabama. In south-central Louisiana, the Avery Island salt dome rises 50 m (163 feet) above the surrounding marshes and is over two miles in diameter. While digging to expand an existing salt well in 1862, slaves discovered the solid rock salt dome only sixteen feet beneath the ground’s surface (Lonn 2003:32). Although the possibility of prehistoric salt mining on Avery Island cannot be ruled out (Brown 2010a), prehistoric peoples in eastern North America generally accessed salt only through the springs that brought it to the surface in liquid form.

The other source of salt in eastern North America is bedded (horizontal) deposits between layers of non-salt rocks. Compared to the solid rock salt of the Gulf Coast Basin, bedded salt tends to be closer to the surface and less homogeneous, containing other minerals, silt, and clay that make it useful primarily for salting roads to prevent icing in winter. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and western New York contain such deposits. Prehistoric people accessed this salt through associated salt springs (see Brown, this volume), but there is a general lack of research dealing with prehistoric salt use and extraction in these regions.

Given the relative scarcity of salt deposits throughout much of the North American interior, it was sometimes necessary for people to travel hundreds of miles to acquire or trade this substance. For instance, William Edward Myer (1928:735) noted that salt springs in parts of the eastern United States were often associated with major trails and trading routes. Many of these roads were likely started by medium-sized or large game animals (and the hunters who followed them) as they trampled down the foliage on their way to the salt springs (Clark 1938; Myer 1928; Wentowski 1970). The existence of these roads, along with the presence of numerous waterways, meant that most people would have had at least some indirect access to a source of salt. Regarding this subject, the ethnologist John R. Swanton (1946:255) observed that the unequal distribution of salt both increased the flow of commerce from coast to interior and vice versa. It stimulated trade, and the seasonal movements of certain tribes, about various localities where salt licks had been located, particularly in the salt-lick section of Kentucky, and in northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas and Alabama (Figure I.1).

Image: Figure I.1. Salt lick in northwest Louisiana. (Courtesy of Paul N. Eubanks)

Figure I.1. Salt lick in northwest Louisiana. (Courtesy of Paul N. Eubanks)

Even though most people had some access to salt, it is important to remember that certain populations had better access to this commodity than others. For most people living in the inland parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Mississippi, there would have been very few nearby salt resources. Thus, the groups living in these areas had to acquire salt through long-distance trade. For instance, the Sara Indians of the Carolinian Piedmont were known to have traded for salt acquired by the Moheton from somewhere near Saltville in southwest Virginia (Barber and Barfield 2000; Brown 1980a:18; Meyers 2002; Swanton 1946:152, 268; Wentowski 1970:34–35, 42).

METHODS OF MAKING SALT

Extracting crystallized salt from seawater or salt springs requires heat to evaporate the water. Both of these salt sources may contain impurities, such as soil or other minerals from surrounding geological deposits or inclusions that are incorporated into the water at the surface, like plant debris. Many salt makers learned how to collect brine in large vats or cisterns in a manner that encouraged impurities to settle to the top or bottom of the brine solution so that they could be easily removed. Evaporation using solar energy is found across the world on open seacoasts or in regions with distinct dry seasons, such as those described for Jamaica and Turks and Caicos in this volume. Seawater, water from saline springs, or salty lakes, marshes, or lagoons is funneled into a series of shallow, artificial ponds. As the water is shifted from pond to pond, the sun’s heat, aided by wind, evaporates the water and increases its salinity. Along the way, by-products such as gypsum and other impurities settle out. The last ponds in the series contain a supersaturated solution of water and sodium chloride, which, when dry, can be raked into piles for collection.

Unlike