Bulow Plantation (8FL7): The Main House Kitchen and Remaking of Plantation Landscapes in the Post-Emancipation South

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "African Diaspora in Florida" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Detached kitchens associated with plantation main houses during the antebellum era are recognized places of intersectionality, wherein a single building served multiple functions – as domestic space for enslaved labor (typically a woman and her children), food preparation for the white enslaver’s family, and various other activities. In Florida, excavations of detached kitchens are rare, with the kitchen associated with the Bulow Plantation being a notable exception. Excavations in 2018 confirmed its location and revealed a massive coquina chimney fall, early 19th century ceramics and other domestic trash, but researchers also recovered evidence of a post emancipation occupation and rebuilding event. The Bulow Plantation had been totally destroyed by fire in 1836, at the hands of the Seminoles during the Second Seminole War; so what was this later occupation, which extended into the early 20th century? This adaptive reuse, and obfuscation of its former nexus of enslavement, is interpreted here.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African Diaspora in Florida   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

Keywords

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 934