Exploring Material Change on Contemporary Pre- and Post-Emancipation Sites in the US and Caribbean.

Summary

In the British Caribbean, archaeologists have documented notable shifts in material culture after emancipation in 1834.  Similar diversity and richness in material culture have been observed but not quantified on nineteenth-century sites of slavery in the United States. We compare artifact assemblages from contemporary post-emancipation sites from Morne Patat (Dominica) and Seville (Jamaica) with pre-emancipation sites from The Hermitage.  We highlight differences in how formerly enslaved laborers in the Caribbean responded to the changes brought on by emancipation, and ask whether the material remnants of these responses differ from contemporary pre-emancipation assemblages at The Hermitage. Do the differences capture a moment of critical change? Or are the similarities related to broader changes in 19th-century material culture manufacture and distribution? This comparison presents us with an opportunity to pose new questions about life before and after slavery that resists polarities by focusing on the material practices of the formerly enslaved. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018   •
• The Past, Present, and Future of Archaeological Research at The Hermitage: Legacies of Larry McKee and Sam Smith

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 572