Labor Relations and Landscape: Slave Built Agricultural Retaining Walls on the Quill, St. Eustatius.

Summary

In 1732, at the height of the slave trade on St. Eustatius in the Caribbean, the Dutch shipped more than 2,700 people from Africa, making the island integral to the Second West India Trading Company’s influence in the Caribbean. This site consists of a series of 10 dry built stonewalls that run down a large valley on the side of the Quill (602m in height) which is a dormant volcano located within a National Park of the same name. The walls were built either to assist in the minimization of erosion or flood damage to plantations below. There are a number of these walls scattered over the Quill, all in various states of decay. This site is significant within an island wide landscape context in that it demonstrates the interaction of plantation culture and labor relations with the environment and the deep impact that slavery had in St. Eustatius.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Multicultural Caribbean and Its Overlooked Histories   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 45