Food for Thought: Comparing Diets of Enslaved People on Southern Plantations through Preliminary Faunal Analysis

Summary

Extensive excavation at Kingsley Plantation (within the Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve National Park in Jacksonville, Florida) has yielded a wealth of data through which to interpret the lifeways of enslaved Africans who lived and worked there between 1814 and the Civil War.  Located on Fort George Island, Kingsley Plantation offered an environment rich in terrestrial as well as estuarine faunal resources.  Through preliminary analysis of faunal samples collected from cabin interiors as well as a back yard midden, a clearer picture emerges of diet among the enslaved.  Moreover, comparison of these samples with those collected through excavations of plantations elsewhere in the South may reveal how diet at Kingsley Plantation was similar to, or different from, foodways on similar sites.  Where contrasting patterns exist, differences may be explored through distinctions of natural resources, slaveholder pressures, and individual or group preferences.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Diet and Decisions in Island and Coastal Settings: Current Zooarchaeological Research

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 454