The Freedom that Nighttime Brings: Privacy and Cultural Persistence among Enslaved Peoples at Bahamian Plantations
Author(s): Jane Baxter
Year: 2016
Summary
When Bahamian scholar and educator Arlene Nash Ferguson wrote about the history of the famous Bahamian festival of Junkanoo, she began her story with enslaved people taking action under cover of darkness. Freed from labor for the two day Christmas holiday, the enslaved went into “the bush” at night time, adorned their bodies with decorations found in the natural world, and reenacted, recreated, and created dances, songs, and traditions reflecting their African heritage. Nighttime afforded privacy, not just for activities that were forbidden by their owners, but also for activities that held a place of cultural significance that they did not want to share with people outside their community. This paper considers the landscapes of Bahamian plantations on the island of San Salvador, and the opportunities and affordances created when those landscapes were experienced and encountered after dark. By comparing diurnal and nocturnal landscapes of the plantation, it is possible to think about space and place making in ways that consider the role of privacy as an essential element in practices of resistance and in the perpetuation and generation of cultural knowledge.
Cite this Record
The Freedom that Nighttime Brings: Privacy and Cultural Persistence among Enslaved Peoples at Bahamian Plantations. Jane Baxter. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Orlando, Florida. 2016 ( tDAR id: 402926)
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Spatial Coverage
min long: -90.747; min lat: 3.25 ; max long: -48.999; max lat: 27.683 ;