Coffee and captivity in the 19th century Paraíba valley (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Landscape archaeology and phenomenological recording

Summary

The expansion of modern capitalism in the 19th century led to higher demands for commodities such as coffee, sugar, and cotton. The production of these commodities, however, was associated to an increasing industrialization of slave labor ("Second slavery"). The Paraíba valley in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, produced most of the coffee consumed in Europe and North America. The central question is: how was the valley constructed over the 19th century as a landscape of enslavement? Labor routines dominated those who lived there, and they definitely determined the ways people defined their lives. Masters modeled particular architectures so they could try to frame the experience of their captives. Captives, on the other hand, tried to cope with the challenge of forced labor by creating their own sensorial regimes; for example, by producing songs on their labor journeys and using certain areas to perform social events. How can we as archaeologists create a comprehensive narrative that is able to acknowledge for the intersection of slavery’s materiality as a productive system and its lived experience? My aim is to examine the possibility of exploring the former coffee plantations of the Paraíba valley archaeologically and discuss methodologies for landscape archaeology and phenomenological recording.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage