Smoke and Mirrors: Comparing Smoking-Based Plant Consumption from Two 19th Century Captive House Sites

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.

Smoking is deeply connected to and embedded in the institution of slavery. Many captive people smoked tobacco, but it is unclear what additional plants were smoked and why. This paper will compare chemical residues on smoking pipes from captive houses sites located at the Fanny Dickins and Cedar Grove Plantations in Western Tennessee. Despite this region producing large amounts of cotton pre-Civil War, there is a limited understanding of the everyday lives of captive Africans and African Americans in Western Tennessee. These two plantations are within two miles of each other, but Fanny Dickins was approximately 400 acres and owned by a widowed woman while Cedar Grove was approximately 5,000 acres and owned by one of the wealthiest men in the region. Comparing pipe residues from these two sites will allow insights into similarities and differences in plant knowledge, use, and individual agency involved in smoking at these two plantations.

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