Repurposed Metal Objects from the Plantation at Marshalls Pen: How the Reuse of Iron Reflects Settler Colonial Tension in 19th Century Jamaica

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Social Landscapes of Settler Colonialism in the Caribbean", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The growth of the settler economy in Jamaica was driven not only by the export of agricultural commodities, but by the importation of objects to be used on the plantations by the enslaved population. Long standing tradition in Jamaica held that plantation managers working for absentee planters would be compensated for the activities by collecting a 6% commission on both sales of plantation produce and the purchase of goods to be used on the plantation. This arrangement created great tension between the absentees and the settler attorneys who were acting on their behalf, and who were profiting handsomely through the over importation of goods. In this paper I propose that the retooling and reuse of iron and copper artifacts by the enslaved population of Marshalls Pen reflects both the ingenuity of the workers who created new objects for their use, as well as the colonial tensions between settlers and absentees.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Social Landscapes of Settler Colonialism in the Caribbean   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow