The Excavated Bead Collection at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23) and Its Implications For Understanding Adornment, Ideology, Cultural Exchange, and Identity

Fort St. Joseph in Niles, Michigan was a French and later and English fort built along the St. Joseph River. It had a military presence, but the majority of its activity involved the fur trade. A variety of French, French-Canadian, Native and Métis people called this fort locale home, which led to a blending of cultural practices. Documents such as the baptismal register for the fort suggest this site hosted daily interactions between the French inhabitants and the neighboring Miami, Potawatomi, and Sauk peoples. New forms of cultural interaction affected the participants as they negotiated their individual and group identities in a changing world.
This project examines the collection of beads excavated in 2002, 2004, and 2006 from Fort St. Joseph. This thesis demonstrates that: (1) beads can be viewed as more than chronological markers, (2) beads in colonial New France had multiple uses, and (3) beads were markers of social identity for the people of Fort St. Joseph. Lastly, this thesis discusses how the exchange of bead practices illustrates intercultural behaviors that contribute to the process of ethnogenesis at this frontier fort.