Mahogany and Sugar for Tobacco, Booze, and Salt-Pork: Consumerism and Consumption at 19th-Century Lamanai, Belize

Summary

During the nineteenth-century, the Caribbean region was a hotbed of trade and commerce driven principally by extractive industries such as agriculture (principally sugar) and hardwood collection. Such ventures required large injections of capital into the creation and maintenance of discrete, productive landscapes as well as for hiring, housing, and feeding the workers who provided physical labor and management. The following presentation will explore a long-term residential area of one such space: Lamanai, Belize, excavated during the 2014 summer field season. Lamanai is located in what is now the Orange Walk District of northwestern Belize. During the nineteenth-century British colonists established a short-lived sugar plantation at the site, which had long been – and continued to be long after the demise of the sugar venture – an area exploited for logwood and mahogany. Along with wild fauna, chicken, beef, and bottled, canned, or barreled products such as soda water, salted pork, and potted meat, the residents of nineteenth-century Lamanai were also active consumers of tobacco and bottled alcoholic beverages. In addition, the monies paid to the individuals and groups were used to purchase bottled medicines, health and hygiene products (e.g. chamber pots), and wearable objects such as buttons and boot heels.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Capital, Craft, and Consumption in Mesoamerica after the Spanish Invasion

Keywords

Spatial Coverage