Keywords
history of archaeology
history of museums
museums
Theodoor de Booy
anthropology of science
academic colonialism
imperial science
Abstract
Like many other regions throughout the world the colonial experience
in the Caribbean included the arrival of foreign archaeologists conducting research and taking collections to their countries of origin. These
were mostly composed of North American and European scholars
representing different institutions such as museums, universities, or
scientific academies. One of these expeditions poorly known by Caribbean, but more specifically by Puerto Rican archaeologists is the 1916
expedition of the Museum of the American Indian led by Theodoor
de Booy. This paper describes and discusses this expedition within its
institutional and historical context and how it relates to the early to the
history of museums and archaeology.
References
Baatz, Simon. 1996. “Imperial Science and Metropolitan Ambition: The Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico, 1913-1914.” Pp 1-16 in The Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands: An Eighty-Year Resssessment of the Islands’
Natural History, edited by J.C. Figueroa Colón. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Vol. 776. New York: New York Academy of Science.
Browman, David. 2011. “Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I.”Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 21(2):10-17.
Browman, David L., and Stephen Williams. 2013. Anthropology at Harvard: A Biographical History, 1790-1940. Boston: Harvard University Press. de Booy, Theodoor. 1912. “Lucayan Remains on the Caicos Islands.” American Anthropologist 16(1):81-105.
De Hostos, Adolfo. 1919. “Prehistoric Porto Rican Ceramics.” American Anthropologist 21(4):376-399.
Fewkes, Jesse W. 1907. “The Aborigines of Porto Rico and the Neighboring Islands.” Pp. 1-220 in Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for 1903-1904. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
Harrington, Mark R. 1921. Cuba Before Columbus. Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American Indian. New York: Heye Foundation.
Harris, Charles H., III, and Louis R. Sadler. 2003. The Archaeologist Was A Spy: Sylvanus G. Morley and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Heye, George G. 1919. “Foreword.” Indian Notes and Monographs 1(1):7-11.
Krieger, Herbert W. 1929. “The Aborigines of the Ancient Island of Hispaniola.” Pp. 473-506 in Annual Report. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
Mason, J. Alden. 1917. “Excavation of a New Archaeological Site in Porto Rico.” Pp. 220-223 in the Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Americanists. Washington, D.C.
———. 1941. “A Large Archaeological Site at Capá, Utuado, with Notes on Other Porto Rican Sites Visited in 1914-1815.” Vol. 18, Pt. 2 in Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands. New York: New York Academy of Science.
McMullen, Ann. 2009. “Reinventing George Heye: Nationalizing the Museum of the American Indian and Its Collections.” Pp. 65-105, in Contesting Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives, edited by S. Sleeper-Smith. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Meléndez, Marisol J. 1997. “Punta Ostiones, Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. Excavaciones de Herbert Spinden en 1916.” Pp. 240-254 in Proceedings of the 18th
International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology. St. George, Graneda: St. George’s University Campus.
———. 1998. “Estudio arqueológico de Punta Ostiones, Cabo Rojo: Análisis de las excavaciones realizadas por Herbert Spinden en 1916.” Manuscript on file, Puerto Rico State Historic Preservation Office, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Montalvo Guenard, José L. 1933. Rectificaciones Históricas: El Descubrimiento de Boriquén. Ponce, Puerto Rico: Editorial Llano.
Osgood, Cornelius. 1942. The Ciboney Culture of Cayo Redondo, Cuba. Publications in Anthropology No. 25. New Haven: Yale University.
Ostapkowicz, Joanna, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Fiona Brock, Tom Highham, Alex C. Wiedenhoeft, Erika Ribechini, Jeannette J. Lucejko, and Samuel Wilson. 2012. “Chronologies in Wood and Resin AMS 14C Dating of PreHispanic Caribbean Wood Sculpture.” Journal of Archaeological Science 39:2238-2251.
———, and Lee Newsom 2012. “Gods… Adorned with Embroiderer’s Needle”: The Materials, Making, and Meaning of a Taíno Cotton Reliquary.” Latin American Antiquity 23(3):300-326.
Pané, Fray Ramón. 1999. An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rainey, Froelich G. 1940. “Porto Rican Archaeology.” Vol. 18, pt. 1 in Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and Virgin Islands. New York: New York Academy of Science.