Island Production for Global and Local Consumption

This chapter describes archaeological investigations of the historic Hacienda El Progreso. Excavation areas, phytolith sampling columns, and preserved infrastructure from the hacienda’s buildings and sugar mill are described and contextualized. Zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical identifications and analyses are described as they pertain to agriculture, sugar production, cattle ranching, animal exploitation, exportation, and landscape transformation. Historic and modern landscape transformations are visually presented through time via repeat photography.

Manuel J. Cobos, San Cristóbal, and the Hacienda El Progreso

This chapter describes the historic Hacienda El Progreso and its evolution into an industrial-scale sugar plantation and extensive cattle ranch, particularly after its founding visionary, Manuel J. Cobos, returned to San Cristóbal Island in 1879. The island’s climate, vegetation, and contemporary human population are introduced with particular attention on the highland village of El Progreso, the historic hacienda’s namesake. The chapter details the transformation of island landscapes through historic descriptions of the hacienda’s expanding holdings, infrastructure, and human population. Further historic descriptions of Hacienda El Progreso after Cobos’ assassination by his workers in 1904 track its waning fortunes and eventual fate into the 1960s.

Humans Encounter Galápagos

This chapter summarizes major events that occurred throughout an almost 500-year relationship between humans and Galápagos. Specific attention focuses on how the changing interests of humans in the islands contributed to ecosystemic landscape transformation up to the end of the Second World War. The chapter historically contextualizes the nature of the changes that transpired through direct human interaction with relatively recently encountered island ecosystems, and how this interconnected relationship shifted through time within the context of changing political and economic circumstances. It sequentially details alleged pre-Columbian visitation, early and later colonial human encounters, Republican-period colonization, and early twentieth century activities in the archipelago. The current human geography in Galápagos is briefly described, followed by a discussion of landscape transformation and invasive exotic organisms throughout the archipelago.

Introduction

This chapter introduces San Cristóbal Island, and specifically the village of El Progreso, which occupies a Zone of Special Use inside the Galápagos National Park. It outlines various problems faced by the park, especially those associated with invasive organisms and the growth of tourism. It juxtaposes the image of a people-free nature park with the growth of novel or emerging ecosystems, and discusses current disagreements in biological conservation. It presents the study of historic human landscape transformation within the framework of Historical Ecology by combining history, ecology, and archaeology. A chapter by chapter framework of the book is presented.

Galápagos, San Cristóbal, El Progreso, and Colonos in a Changing World

This chapter summarizes the human history of Galápagos and its legacy in the contemporary context of a protected natural area and popular destination for conservation tourism. The recent history of contemporary human residents of the island is examined from Cobos’s death in 1904 through the growth of conservation and ecotourism after the Second World War. The direct and indirect impacts of the current situation on local resources and resident populations, and the responses of islanders and governments to them, are discussed. Consideration is given to the future of Galapagueño culture as the islands transition from a production-based economy to one based on services, especially tourism.

Consumption and Control in the Material Culture of Hacienda El Progreso

This chapter presents the material culture recovered from Hacienda El Progreso midden contexts within the broader perspective of Latin America’s participation in the global market during the later nineteenth century. Two distinct aspects of the imported manufactured goods are suggested: (1) consumption to project a modern image; and (2) technologies used to control the hacienda’s landscape and its workers. Archaeological contexts are described, and the preserved assemblage, including armaments, actuarial implements, money, fencing, alcohol containers, tableware, sewing instruments, toys, and medicaments, are analyzed and contextualized. Consumer choices made by Cobos reflect the consumption habits of a coastal Ecuadorian planter class that were transported to a remote location in time and space.