Tangible and Intangible Voices: Listening to the Artifacts of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Maritime Archeology of the Slave Trade: Past and Present Work, and Future Prospects", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Traditionally archaeologist and conservationist physically probe and interrogate the cultural materials of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade seeking insight and meaning into the peoples of the time period or the context in which the material exist. This physical approach is a intensely tactile and can cause disturbances to the very context that is trying to be understood. There is another dimension to understanding cultural materials and their deeper meaning beyond the physical realm, particularly cultural materials or artifacts that were supportive of significant traumatizing experiences such as being captive on a slave ship. This paper will examine intangible experiences involving artifacts of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and how they can "speak" to interrogators revealing deeper insight into their meaning and humanizing the people that were terrorized and traumatized by the events in which the artifacts were involved.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Maritime Archeology of the Slave Trade: Past and Present Work, and Future Prospects   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow