Joara

 

On an unassuming backroad in rural North Carolina, there is a field with a few overturned wheelbarrows and holding some plastic in place. One would never guess that this was a place of historical importance. A plaque on a rock is there to mark the spot, but it is about 500 feet from the road, and not even facing it. If Angie were not along, I probably would have missed the small plaque that marks the spot. Just outside of Morganton was Joara, the largest Mississippian culture settlement in present day North Carolina. As an economic and transportation hub, it was the largest and most dominant town in the area, perched on the northeastern edge of the Mississippian cultural influence.

The site was also the furthest inland where Spanish explorers built a fort in the 1560s, Fort San Juan, in the United States. Despite the substantial economic and political influence of Joara, the Spanish explorers, under the rule of Juan Pardo, were effectively claiming territory. After about 18 months, the indigenous people revolted against the Spanish incursion and burned the fort, effectively ending Spanish ambitions in the area.

There is not a lot to “see” at the Joara site. But I did enjoy getting out and walking around for a very few minutes and think about what was no longer. It was a world that we do not, and cannot, understand. Archaeologists and historians are not even positive about the language spoken by the local inhabitants. But the people who lived at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains were our predecessor. Such sites, which dot the Eastern United States, are not easily found nor well publicized or understood by the public. It has led to a false narrative that the country was a blank slate before the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in the 1620s and suggests that what came before was not history.

Plaque placed in 2012 at the Joara / Fort San Juan archeological site

Where the earthen mound and Spanish fort once sat in the foothills of the Appalachians