Reinventing the Colonial Plantation on French Saint-Christophe

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Comparative Perspectives on European Colonization in the Americas: Papers in Honor of Réginald Auger" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper examines the transformation of the plantation economy from tobacco to sugar production at sites on the island of Saint-Christophe (Saint Kitts) in the French Antilles. This shift was motivated by a drop in tobacco prices in the 1630s leading to sugar monoculture. Two royal governors were primary agents of this change: Pierre d'Esnambuc and Philippe de Longvilliers de Poincy. Both men usurped the power of the French monarch, initiated the use of enslaved labor and developed prototypes for plantation design, town plans and coastal fortifications. Detailed evidence from documentary sources and field investigation of French plantation sites is reviewed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Comparative Perspectives on European Colonization in the Americas: Papers in Honor of Réginald Auger

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 297