| Ref ID: | 25255 |
|---|---|
| Ref Type: | Book Section in a Series |
| Authors: | Barker, Alex W. |
| Title: | Powhatan's Pursestrings: On the Meaning of Surplus in a Seventeenth Century Algonkian Chiefdom |
| Date: | 1992 |
| Source: | Lords of the Southeast: Social Inequality and the Native Elites of Southeastern North America |
| Publisher: | American Anthropological Association |
| Abstract: | The implicit tension in chiefly economiesbetween a political economy predicated on surplus supplied by a domestic economy content with sufficiencyis explored, and an example of its political and processual consequences discussed. Comparison of ethnohistoric narratives with estimation of annual agricultural production for the seventeenth century Powhatan chiefdom suggests that the expansion and increasing complexity of the Powhatan political system was not due to overpopulation but was instead a response to sudden depopulation following establishment of the Spanish mission at Ajácan. There were not enough producers to generate the agricultural surpluses necessary to drive the political economy while maintaining the necessary relations of power supporting ranked structural positions in the social and political hierarchy. |
| Identifier: | 0-913167-48-7 |
| Date Created: | 7/16/2019 |
| Editors: | Barker, Alex W. Pauketat, Timothy R. |
| Number: | 3 |
| Page Start: | 61 |
| Page End: | 80 |
| Series Editor: | Fitzhugh, William W. |
| Series Title: | Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association |