Archaeology of Domestic Landscapes of the Enslaved in the Caribbean

by James A. Delle (Editor), Elizabeth C. Clay (Editor)

Overview

While previous research on household archaeology in the colonial Caribbean has drawn heavily on artifact analysis, this volume provides the first in—depth examination of the architecture of slave housing during this period. It examines the considerations that went into constructing and inhabiting living spaces for the enslaved and reveals the diversity of people and practices in these settings. Contributors present case studies using written descriptions, period illustrations, and standing architecture, in addition to archaeological evidence to illustrate the wide variety of built environments for enslaved populations in places including Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the islands of the Lesser Antilles. They investigate how the enslaved defined their social positions and identities through house, yard, and garden space; they explore what daily life was like for slaves on military compounds; they compare the spatial arrangements of slave villages on plantations based on type of labor; and they show how the style of traditional laborer houses became a form of vernacular architecture still in use today. This volume expands our understanding of the wide range of enslaved experiences across British, French, Dutch, and Danish colonies. 

 

Contributors: Elizabeth C. Clay | James A. Delle | Todd M. Ahlman | Marco Meniketti | Kenneth Kelly | Hayden Bassett | James A. Delle | Kristen R. Fellows | Allan D. Meyers | Elizabeth C. Clay | Alicia Odewale | Meredith D. Hardy | Zachary J. M. Beier | Mark W. Hauser 

 A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683402695
Publisher:	University Press of Florida
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Series:	Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

James A. Delle, associate provost for academic administration at Millersville University, is the author of several books including The Archaeology of Northern Slavery and Freedom. Elizabeth C. Clay is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Figures 

List of Tables 

1. Household, Village, and Landscape: The Built Environments of Slavery in the Caribbean 

Elizabeth C. Clay and James A. Delle

2. An Examination of Enslaved and Freed African Housing and Plantations on St. Kitts’ Southeast Peninsula Sugar and Cotton Plantations 

Todd M. Ahlman

3. The Present Past: The Design Legacy of Laborer’s Housing in the Landscape of Vernacular Architecture on Nevis 

Marco Meniketti

4. Building a Better Village?: Transformations in French West Indian Slave Village Architecture from the Ancien Régime to Emancipation 

Kenneth Kelly

5. Asymmetric Architectures of Enslaved People in Jamaica: An Archaeological Study of Household Variation at Good Hope Estate 

Hayden Bassett

6. Variation within the Village: Housing Enslaved Laborers on Coffee Plantations in Jamaica 

James A. Delle and Kristen R. Fellows

7. Humanitarian Reform, Model Cottages, and the Habitational Landscape of Slavery on a Bahama Island 

Allan D. Meyers

8. Labor and Landscape on the Periphery: Built Environments of Slavery in Nineteenth Century French Guiana 

Elizabeth C. Clay

9. Royal Enslaved Africans in Christiansted: Exploring the Archaeology of Enslavement in an Urban Caribbean City 

Alicia Odewale & Meredith D. Hardy

10. Households and Dwelling Practices at the Cabrits Garrison Laborer Village 

Zachary J. M. Beier

11. Built Environment: Slavery, Materiality, and Useable Pasts 

Mark W. Hauser

References 

List of Contributors

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“An important resource for understanding enslavement and colonialism in the Caribbean, containing a wide array of archaeological contexts. Contributors recognize ways that the built environment may have been a site of self—determination for the enslaved occupants, and repeatedly show that slavery was in no way uniform.”—John M. Chenoweth, author of Simplicity, Equality, and Slavery: An Archaeology of Quakerism in the British Virgin Islands, 1740–1780 “Placed within the broader context of the Atlantic world, this superb resource provides new and significant insights on the diverse built environments of Caribbean enslavement. Using multi—scalar analysis across time and space, this volume illustrates how the enslaved lived within and shaped constructed places.”—Patricia Samford, author of Subfloor Pits and the Archaeology of Slavery in Colonial Virginia

Editorial Reviews

Essential for understanding the diverse experiences of enslaved individuals from the Caribbean as well as the larger sociopolitical processes that shaped the possibilities of domestic spaces and slavery as a whole.”—H—Net

 

“An important, thorough, timely collection.”—Historical Archaeology

 

“Delle and Clay demonstrate the need for interdisciplinary dialogues that offer a departure point for dialogue among archaeologists, architectural historians, and vernacular architecture scholars to deepen our understanding of the built environment of enslaved African lifeways in the Caribbean.”—Labor

 

“Makes magnificent strides in a positive direction toward expanding our understanding of individual experiences of enslavement, how people survived under a system of extreme violence and structural inhumanity.”—New West Indian Guide

 

“One particularly valuable aspect of this volume is the attention that authors pay to the evolution of slavery within their respective contexts, including the periods leading up to and immediately following the abolition of the slave trade and emancipation.”—Winterthur Portfolio

From the Publisher