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Jesuit endeavors in Maryland are difficult to categorize as either missions or plantations. Archaeological sites associated with the Maryland Mission/ Province bear similarities to Jesuit mission sites in New France as well as plantations in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is clear that in Maryland, the Jesuits did not enforce a distinction between missions as places of conversion and plantations as sites of capitalist production. Moreover, people of American Indian, African, and European ancestry have been connected with Maryland’s Jesuit plantations throughout their history. Archaeological evidence of Indian missions in Maryland—however fragmented—contributes to a narrative of the Maryland mission that is at odds with prevailing nineteenth- and twentieth-century histories. Archaeology demonstrates the importance of critically reflecting on available historical evidence, including a historiographic focus on either mission or plantation, on the written history of Jesuits in the Americas. Furthermore, historical archaeologists must reconceptualize missions as both places and practices.

An old negro, the white-washer about St. Thomas', told me a nice story of Father Hunter. One night, it was pitch dark, two young men came from Virginia to call Father Hunter to a sick man. They were very respectful and spoke very little; one of them had a lantern to show the way. They entered the skiff and rowed him across; the Potomac here is about eight miles wide. After the Father had attended to the sick man, they brought him back in the same way. Now when Father Hunter had stepped ashore, he turned around to thank them, when lo and behold, men, skiff and lantern had disappeared; they were two angels. 1

The archaeological record of Jesuit sites in the Americas preserves an essential resource for the study of daily life among individuals in the Jesuit sphere of influence. The full potential of an archaeological synthesis of these sites has yet to be realized, since systematic excavations have occurred at only a relatively small number of Jesuit sites in the American continents and the Caribbean. This essay serves to introduce a collection of five archaeological case studies and a conclusion, which show how archaeology complements the written histories of Jesuits from Nasca to New France. These case studies address several major themes, including the definition of mission sites, scales of analysis, the nature of missionary “success,” and overcoming historical silences. In particular, they articulate the influence of Jesuit missionaries on the material worlds of numerous cosmopolitan communities of colonists, enslaved Africans, and American Indians.