Cacao and Criollo-ware: Historical Archaeology of Contraband between Curaçao, Bonaire, and Venezuela, 17th–18th Century

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Islands of Time (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

During the 17th and 18th century, Curaçaoan Sephardim, enslaved Africans, freedpeople, maroons, Amerindians, pardos, and Europeans on Dutch Curaçao and Bonaire and in the Spanish Province of Venezuela created a bustling informal and moral economy centered around prized Venezuelan cacao and vital everyday necessities including simple ceramics. Here I present the preliminary results of the ArCarib project — the first cross-border archaeological study to bridge the geopolitical maritime boundaries separating the ABC islands and Venezuela. Excavations undertaken at a probable cacao warehouse and smuggler’s campsite on Bonaire and a plantation on Curaçao owned by a Sephardi maritime merchant reveal how informal commerce impacted local island foodways and identities in the 17th and 18th century. I suggest that through this informal and moral economy the colonized on the islands and the mainland agentially forged their identities and alternative modernities beyond the restrictive and acculturating policies imposed by the colonizers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021   •
• Islands of Time (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology