Covering Blood and Graves

Abstract

Gallman and Taylor take up murder at the boundary zones between the Iroquois and British settlers and between Spanish Florida and the Lower Creeks and Seminoles. Despite contrasts between the legal systems of the empires—civil law and inquisitorial procedure on the Spanish side, common law and trial by jury on the British side—indigenous groups came to similar conclusions regarding murder. Specifically, Native leaders rejected execution of the guilty, as proposed by English law, or other punishments, from execution to imprisonment to exile, under Spanish law. They opted instead to resolve matters by “covering the grave,” or giving gifts by the culpable party to the aggrieved party in lieu of revenge. This practice was less likely to spark a blood feud and enabled indigenous groups to preserve corporate autonomy in the face of pressures to conform to imperial norms. Though reluctantly, imperial officials often went along with this in order to keep the peace.