Public Face and Private Life: Identity Through Ceramics at the Boston-Higginbotham House on Nantucket

Summary

As an African American-Native American family living on Nantucket in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, the household of Seneca Boston and Thankful Micah faced many challenges of race and class. Through their ceramic assemblage it becomes clear that in order to successfully navigate their diverse identities in a predominantly white society the Boston-Micah family adopted both a public and private persona. The presence of European manufactured ceramics such as hand painted and transfer printed pearlware, plain creamware, and Chinese porcelain expresses an identity consistent with a European middle-class family. However, several sherds of earthenware ceramics combining European production techniques with Native decorative traditions and a tin glazed punch bowl reinforce the family’s Native and African racial backgrounds, respectively. The presence of these ceramic vessels suggests the existence of both a private and public identity that can today only be recognized in the Boston-Micah family’s consumption practices. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018   •
• Refuge and support: Historical Archaeologies of Multiracial Native American and African American Sites and Communities

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 414