The Chronicles of Storage and Everyday Ceramics: A Comparative Analysis of Pottery from Captive African and African American House Sites in Western Tennessee

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper will evaluate the storage and everyday use ceramic assemblages from two 19th-century captive house sites, Cedar Grove and Fanny Dickins. These sites are located within the modern 18,500 acre Ames land base in western Tennessee, which historically was one of the highest producing cotton areas in the US South. Since 2011, the Rhodes College Archaeology Field School has focused its efforts on understanding the daily lives of captive Africans and African Americans through house excavations, which have yielded a large quantity of ceramics. Comparing and contrasting the storage (earthenware, stoneware, yellowware, etc.) and everyday use (whiteware, creamware, porcelain, etc.) pottery can give us insight into how each plantation was operated. This in-depth analysis can also shed light on how captive populations were treated by their enslavers and survived under oppression from the system of slavery.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow