Marcia Bianchi Villelli

From Colonial Representation to Materiality: Spanish Settlements on the Valdés Peninsula, Patagonian Coast (1779–1810)

In recent years the acknowledgment of the importance of peripheral realities, local contexts, and social actors’ roles in shaping both colonialism and modern society has contributed toward challenging the conception of colonialism as a monolithic, unilinear process. This article explores this problematic through the historical and archaeological study of the Spanish colonization of Patagonia. It describes the case of Fuerte San José (Valdés Peninsula, Chubut Province, Argentina), a military fort that existed between 1779 and 1810 and is discussed as an example of the way colonization actually operated within a wider colonial context. There, the integration of historical and archaeological evidence provides the means for contrasting the planning and the implementation of colonial projects in order to uncover their complex and multifaceted character.