British Ceramics at the Empire’s Edge: Economy and Identity Among Subaltern Groups in Late 19th-Century British Honduras

Summary

Following the outbreak of the Caste War in the Yucatán (1847-1901), a group of approximately 1,000 Maya migrated into northwestern British Honduras (Belize) and settled 20 small villages. Far from the principal population centers of the Yucatán, the Petén, and Belize City, the only other inhabitants in this region were logging gangs predominantly composed of descendants of African slaves who seasonally inhabited the mahogany camps of the Belize Estate and Produce Company’s (BEC) vast land concessions. Recent archaeological investigations at Qualm Hill, a BEC logging camp, and Kaxil Uinic village, a San Pedro Maya settlement, examined the ways in which these two marginalized groups navigated the cultural landscape of late 19th-century British Honduras. This paper focuses on the ceramic assemblages of the two sites to examine differences in access to colonial imports and how the two groups may have selectively participated in the colonial cash economy of British Honduras.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• British Ceramics in Indigenous, Colonial, and Post-Independence Latin America   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 153