An Examination of Enslaved African Domestic and Labor Environments on St. Eustatius

Summary

The discovery of dry stone rock features in the northern hills on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius presented a unique opportunity to investigate an enslaved African environment during the time of enslavement. Abandoned after emancipation, the intact nature of the sites held potential to add significantly to our understanding of choices enslaved Africans made in slave village design, orientation, and the construction of their dwellings, as well as the labor activities of daily life. Research for this project assessed slave village patterning and spatial orientation in comparison to other slave domestic environments in the Caribbean, United States and West Africa. Historical maps, regional comparisons, structural, feature and spatial comparisons, and an examination of artifact distribution provided essential diagnostic characteristics to determine whether dry stone rock features were associated with a domestic environment. This paper will discuss this research as important groundwork for future investigations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Reckoning: Landscapes and Legacies of Slavery   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 361