Fort Moore, Aiken County, SC (38AK4/5): Evidence of creolization along the South Carolina frontier

As early as 1782, Americans were being described as a creolized population, the result of multiple European nationalities blending together both biologically and culturally to form a unique identity in America. However, in only recognizing the influences of European cultures in the formation of cultures in America, the influence of Native American cultures have been ignored. The goal of this research was to examine how creolizing processes among European and Native American cultures influenced the formation of cultures in America. Specifically, this research studied the cultural interactions between Europeans and Native Americans along the Carolina frontier and how these interactions created creolized cultural processes as a result of contact.;Fort Moore was a colonial fort built in 1715-1716 to serve as a fur trade outpost, a diplomatic center, and a military stronghold. Multiple Native American and European populations interacted at the fort on a daily basis in a number of ways, including kinship ties, business relationships, friendly exchanges, and diplomatic liaisons. In the course of these interactions, populations exchanged cultural traits and material goods that altered a range of cultural activities including subsistence practices, clothing fashions, leisure activities, healing practices, and the acquisition of prestige goods.;As a result of daily interactions, a shared political economy, and an exchange of material goods, populations along the Carolina frontier developed creolized activities in response to environmental and new population pressures. By examining the artifact assemblage of a store house found at Fort Moore, this research reveals what cultural activities were being adapted and adopted by Native American and European populations. By comparing trade lists produced by the colonial government in 1716 with the artifact assemblage of the fort's store house in the 1740s, trade patterns of European goods used by Native Americans were mapped over the first half of the eighteenth century, a period immediately following initial contact between these populations. Additionally, the presence of Native American artifacts within the store house, a restricted space where Native Americans were not allowed access, suggested ways that Europeans were utilizing Native American goods along the frontier.