Kathryn Sampeck | Illinois State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Kathryn Sampeck

The ancient domestication and pre-Columbian uses of cacao show ways that people related to the de... more The ancient domestication and pre-Columbian uses of cacao show ways that people related to the delicate ecology of the cacao tree. Cacao linked
people to each other, the plants, animals
and places around them, and to the
divine. Cacao was an eye of the storm of colonial desires for profit and order and countercurrents of the
dark and brutal forces of social inequality
and resistance to them. Treatises dealing with cacao show that the colonial ecology of knowledge was not just of plants and animals, but also the dynamic social
metamorphosis of gender, labor and race.

A least-cost path (LCP) analysis and a circuit theory analysis were used to estimate the path fol... more A least-cost path (LCP) analysis and a circuit theory analysis were used to estimate the path followed by Hernando de Soto as he crossed the Appalachian Mountains between Tennessee and North Carolina in 1540. The analyses were performed on the slope of the terrain and on a function of the slope that estimates hiking speed. The analyses were performed on data sets with 90-m and 180-m spatial resolutions. Three potential routes were found and compared. The most novel element of the work was the use of CircuitScape software, which returned the likelihood that each cell in the raster data was a part of de Soto’s route. This clearly illuminated areas where the estimated routes were more constrained and areas where de Soto would have been free to take alternate paths without increasing travel time. The two analysis methods, LCP and circuit theory, corroborate one another and provide insight into de Soto’s journey.

This paper examines the changing role of chocolate in European society, especially in light of th... more This paper examines the changing role of chocolate in European society, especially in light of the food movement turn to slow, small batch, craft chocolate, as a way to critically analyze relationships of labor and race, gender, and class inequality. The changing culture of chocolate consumption over centuries, from its pre-Columbian origins to the ways European colonists culturally and economically adopted chocolate shows a trajectory of increasing permeation of European foods (more foods contain chocolate) and regionalization of tastes in chocolate recipes, most recently by small batch chocolate makers whose work crafts local identity through branding of a tropical product. Europe is the world's biggest importer and processor of cacao as well as the largest per capita consumer of chocolate. Industrial chocolate is higher in sugar and less complex in taste compared to the variety of local chocolate makers, so chocolate occupies an uneasy place in European diets, especially in light of growing rates of obesity and recent " junk food taxes " that target sugary foods. The historical context and analysis of labor in cacao farming and chocolate production shows a critical reliance on coerced labor. While the legacy of the past has been the decoupling of horrific coerced labor in cacao production from the consciousness of everyday chocolate consumers, the growing vitality of small batch chocolate makers refocuses attention on the country of origin-the conditions of production-as well as local, European tastes-the conditions of consumption. The authors employ interdisciplinary methodologies of close readings of primary sources that include historical recipes, critical analysis of representation in historic and contemporary images and media, and descriptive economic data of export and consumption levels. This systematic study of taste in chocolate and its social, economic, political, and cultural implications is carried out in an analytical framework of the historical contingency of the social construction of realms of value, and that such construction takes place within global and local political economic forces that tend to propagate inequality as a solution to greater economic efficiency. Examining food access and food justice in the light of ways people produce and consume chocolate can challenge assumptions about social inequalities, race, health, and identity and offer insights into long-term sustainability. The critical analysis of these social factors suggests directions for future education, investment, and action by the fine and craft chocolate industry in Europe that can promote mutual benefits for producers and consumers.

This article explores how Pipil writing compares to better-known Central Mexican pictorial manusc... more This article explores how Pipil writing compares to better-known Central Mexican pictorial manuscripts. The sole evidence for preconquest writing in this region was presented in the seventeenth century by Don Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán through his drawings and descriptions in the chronicle Recordación Florida. In the process of re-presentation, these remnants underwent alterations due to clerical errors, interpretive errors, and errors arising from a mixing or blending of texts. The manuscript of Recordación Florida contains images that were never published, erasures, and marginalia. Three writing genres are identifiable, and the content of these writings has an unusual emphasis on ways to represent money and counts of commodities, particularly cacao. The Pipil demonstrated their independence from the Mixtec and Aztec empires through writing by using a distinctive style to record sovereign political and financial affairs, an example of the Mesoamerican emphasis on authority—the ability to inscribe and draw upon and mobilize relevance and meaning—as the foundation for creating and maintaining a lettered polity.

This introduction to the volume summarizes of several of the main themes of the 2012 Wenner-Gren ... more This introduction to the volume summarizes of several of the main themes of the 2012 Wenner-Gren sponsored workshop on colonial Mesoamerican literacy at the John Carter Brown Library in 2012. These are crucial themes for the volume and demonstrate that important insights about the history of literacy can be gleaned from understanding the rich legacy of one region well and that Mesoamerica is well understood by examining its literacy.

Maiolica (tin-enameled earthenware) was a staple of daily life for serving food and drink, as wel... more Maiolica (tin-enameled earthenware) was a staple of daily
life for serving food and drink, as well as other household
purposes, in Spain and Spanish America throughout the
colonial period. Examining choices in ceramic styles is one
way to examine the colonial policies of reducción, which
were to instill a regular, commonplace Christian order in
everyday life. The Río Ceniza Valley of western El Salvador,
the heartland of the Nahua-speaking Pipil polity known as
the Izalcos, was a center of Spanish colonial commerce in
Guatemala. This research presents a typology and chronology
of Guatemalan maiolica, the stylistic similarities of its
maiolica types to trends in Europe, and frequencies in rural
vs. urban use, based on an ample collection of 16th- to
19th-century Guatemalan maiolica from extensive survey
and excavations. The relative importance of maiolica vs.
maiolica attributes on indigenous-made pottery gives a view
into daily life under extreme conditions of colonialism and
the process of reducción.

Ancient Mesoamerica 21.2 pp. 415-441, 2011

Al momento de la Conquista española, el chocolate era una de las bebidas provenientes del cacao c... more Al momento de la Conquista española, el chocolate era una de las bebidas provenientes del cacao consumidas en Mesoamérica. El occidente del actual territorio de El Salvador era el corazón político de los Pipiles Izalcos, uno de los estados precolombinos más importantes del sur de Mesoamérica. La importancia y el poder político de los Pipiles Izalcos se basaba, tanto en tiempos previos como en los posteriores a la Conquista, en su participación en la producción mesoamericana de cacao. Debido a que el cacao gozaba de una creciente importancia en la economía colonial, la palabra ‘chocolate’, la cual aparece primero en la zona pipil, fue todavía más común durante la época colonial, hasta llegar a convertirse en una palabra de uso común a nivel mundial para designar productos que contienen cacao. Este cambio semántico llevó implicaciones económicas y sociales para los habitantes de los Izalcos, que se traducen en cambios en el asentamiento y en el uso de materiales culturales. En este ensayo se presentaran datos históricos y arqueológicos hasta el siglo XIX para localizar las consecuencias del destino del chocolate en el paisaje cultural de los pipiles-izalcos.

This research revisits the question of the most likely paths traveled during the 1540 entrada of ... more This research revisits the question of the most likely paths traveled during the 1540 entrada of Hernando de Soto and colonizing efforts of Juan Pardo about 20 years later by utilizing the spatial modeling method of geographic information system (GIS) analysis to evaluate the favorability of different paths and place them within the context of recent archaeological and ethnohistoric research. Analysis results make the larger anthropological point that GIS route modeling should explicitly take into account the size of the party traveling. Routes for small parties are not the same as optimal routes for large armies such as de Soto's, which included hundreds of people, pieces of equipment, and livestock. The GIS-modeled routes correlate with the distribution of contact-period archaeological sites and attested eighteenth-century routes. More accurate estimation of Spanish routes allows us to better model the Native American social, economic, and political nexus of this period, showing that the residents in far eastern Tennessee were probably part of a dynamic borderlands between the chiefdom of Coosa to the west and the ancestral Cherokee heartland to the east. This anthropological refinement in GIS modeling will be useful in investigating ancient paths of interaction in many parts of the world.

A key way colonists gained control of a region was through cartography. Although colonial maps ha... more A key way colonists gained control of a region was through cartography. Although colonial maps have seen a great deal of study, the process of making the map through surveying has not, even though surveying of metes-and-bounds was a crucial step in establishing legal control and for making a map. The comparison of written descriptions of an eighteenth-century survey in the Izalcos region of colonial Guatemala with archaeological data illustrates that surveying was an intimately social process. The ultimate tool for implementing state hegemony was for officials to dictate an authoritative perception of the landscape, but arriving at that perception was a contested, contentious procedure. Although maps ostensibly resulted from scientific, objective measurement, stakeholders negotiated among themselves about the truth of measurements and values, the perception of the landscape. Surveys could be so contentious that no one drew a map. This eighteenth-century survey is one example of how the people enacted the state in their lives, and this process was by no means straightforward, even when following standard practices critical for the maintenance of state power.

E. Wyllys Andrews’s work at the prehistoric site of Quelepa in eastern El Salvador detailed how t... more E. Wyllys Andrews’s work at the prehistoric site of Quelepa in eastern El Salvador detailed how this seemingly remote place was linked – at times in surprising ways – to both broader
Mesoamerica and lower Central America. I present evidence that the curious place of eastern El Salvador persisted well into the colonial period and in fact garnered special attention from rogue colonial agents such as British pirates. Archaeological evidence of the long-distance relationships of Quelepa is placed within the context of recent scholarship to evaluate the
frontier or border status of Quelepa over time. This evaluation is then extended into the colonial period on the basis of Spanish and British accounts as well as a series of maritime
maps from the William Hack atlas, which dates to sometime after 1698. The historical and archaeological data of spatial, political, and economic organization indicate that colonial San
Miguel was a center that eclipsed the capital city of San Salvador in several ways. The combined data suggest that the prominence of San Miguel is due in part to its long tradition
of being in a boundary region, which provided the foundation for it to become a precinct for “rogue” colonialism. Rogue centers such as San Miguel, New Orleans, and Detroit contributed to colonial policies because independent agents in them tinkered with economic, political, and social practices freely at the boundaries of governmental oversight. This, in turn, provided tested methods for colonial officials to employ. In this sense, border or boundary centers such as San Miguel were not marginal but operated within the very crux of the problem of empire-building.

The SAA archaeological record, Jan 1, 2011

Ancient …, Jan 1, 2010

... Universidad Nacional Aut??noma de M??xico, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropol??gicas, Mexi... more ... Universidad Nacional Aut??noma de M??xico, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropol??gicas, Mexico City. Metcalfe, Sarah E., and Sarah J. Davies 2007 Deciphering Recent Climate Change in Central Mexican Lake Records. Climatic Change 83:169???186. ...

Anthropos-Fribourg, Jan 1, 2012

Ancient Mesoamerica, Jan 1, 2010

The Izalcos Pipil were pre-Hispanic residents of the Río Ceniza Valley of western El Salvador and... more The Izalcos Pipil were pre-Hispanic residents of the Río Ceniza Valley of western El Salvador and had clear linguistic ties to the Aztecs and other Nahuas of central Mexico. Both archaeological and documentary data are presented that show strong evidence that the Izalcos Pipil also maintained Nahua social and political institutions. The Izalcos Pipil emphasized characteristics of Nahua social practices that depend on dynamic mobility on the landscape to articulate discrete cultural elements, and these characteristics are observable in Izalcos inter-and intrasite settlement organization and the distribution of Nahua settlement in southern Mesoamerica. The degree of mobility on the landscape was shown in the internal organization of sites, architectural arrangements, and the relationships among sites and is indicated in historical documents. Pipil concepts, institutions, and boundaries provided the foundation for the Spanish colonial political economy. This region became a jewel in the Spanish Crown in part because of prodigious cacao production that the Izalcos Pipil established long before Spanish contact. The degree of nucleation before and after conquest did not change dramatically, but the analysis of mobility showed that even though some elements of patterning appeared superficially the same, underlying causes were fundamentally different. The most important conquest-induced change was the transition to capitalism, which created a static, disarticulated landscape of nucleated settlements, enclosures, and private property that discouraged human movement. The tensions between these two contrasting systems of landscape use heightened with the passage of time.

Maya Palaces …, Jan 1, 2003

... I was glad to have Harvey Bricker on my committee. He did his best to set me straight. ChrisR... more ... I was glad to have Harvey Bricker on my committee. He did his best to set me straight. ChrisRodning was a recent arrival here at Tulane just as I was finishing my dissertation. I was deeply impressed by his thoughtful and detailed commentary on my dissertation. ...