Archaeology of Domestic Landscapes of the Enslaved in the Caribbean - (Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen) (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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

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.