Commodity Culture: the formation, exchange, and negotiation of Early Republican Period identity on a periphery of the Spanish Empire in Western El Salvador

Summary

During the Early Republican Period, the sugar industry increasingly connected a fledgling Salvadoran country to a global market. A creolized labor force produced sugar on large estates known as haciendas. The hacienda was a crossroads of indigenous, African, and European interests as evidenced in the ceramic landscapes of the Río Ceniza Valley. The extensive organization of labor, on a periphery of the Spanish Empire, was underscored by a complex set of power relations. This research focuses on the transitional period of Salvadoran independence; a volatile time when individuals reshaped their social, economic, and political identities.The control and consumption of commodities may be one way individuals reshaped identity, or perhaps it is the physical manifestation of the ways in which identities were wrought. This paper is an exploration of identity and agency, or lack thereof, at a 19th-century hacienda within a larger, possibly illicit, ceramic landscape of western El Salvador.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions) 2017   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 111