Rice Berms and Deadhead Logs: Co-Creating Land and Labor on the Cape Fear

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Co-Producing Space: Relational Approaches to Agrarian Landscapes, Labor, Commodities, and Communities", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Studies of antebellum rice plantations in the Southeastern United States tend to center on South Carolina and Georgia, largely because they were the most extensive land holdings in terms of acreage, production, and enslaved labor. One area where rice agriculture is overshadowed, however, is in Southeastern North Carolina along the Cape Fear River, where historical narratives tend to emphasize the role that the naval store industry played in economic development. White colonists, however, invested in rice agriculture as well, which required huge infrastructural investment and environmental modification, even at a small scale. Archaeological and historical evidence of North Carolina plantations indicates that the relationship between landscape and labor is essential to the colonial history of the region. This framework offers an opportunity to deepen interpretations of the Lowcountry more broadly, particularly the development and interstitial nature of slavery, which is inseparable from colonial agendas for commodity production and the environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Co-Producing Space: Relational Approaches to Agrarian Landscapes, Labor, Commodities, and Communities

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow