Analysis of Cultural Retention in an Eighteenth-Century Enslaved African Community in the Dutch Caribbean

Summary

This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The island of Sint Eustatius, once the world's wealthiest free-trade port, played an important role during exploitation and globalization of the New World. This research project addresses the retention and/or loss of traditional cultural practices of enslaved Africans in the wake of European presence and influence at burial ground SE600. If traditional cultural practices were retained, then SE600 should provide evidence of retention through mortuary practices within the African cemetery. Artifacts from SE600 recovered during the 2012–2019 excavations were used for qualitative analysis. Spatial analysis of funerary attributes was analyzed using photogrammetry and documentation from the 2012 and 2017–2019 excavations. Comparative samples used to assess cultural retention are from West African and/or African American burial grounds, chosen based on the similarity of date ranges. The relevant frequency of variables at SE600 as well as the Fisher Exact test of independence between variables at each site suggest both loss and retention of African cultural mortuary practices compared to other enslaved and/or freed African burial grounds. In an effort to assess the movement of traditional practices of enslaved Africans brought to the New World through globalization, the project's goal was to assess retention and loss of African mortuary practices observed at SE600.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 31986