The Economics of Trade on the Eastern Cape Frontier, 1820-1860: A Study of the Glass and Metal Artefact Assemblages from Huntley Street, Farmerfield and Fort Double Drift (original) (raw)

I have only uploaded Chapter 1 & 2: The full document can be accessed in the Unisa Repository http://hdl.handle.net/10500/24549 (Link below) The collections-based research reported upon in this dissertation focuses on three sites in the Eastern Cape: Huntley Street in Grahamstown, Farmerfield, a nearby Wesleyan mission station, and Fort Double Drift, a British fortification on the Great Fish River. The collection, which is housed in the Albany Museum, derives from Patrice Jeppson’s excavations, completed in the 1980s. Analyses of the excavated glass and metal, augmented by a close reading of tender and shopkeepers’ advertisements in The Graham’s Town Journal, chronicle how merchants, settlers, soldiers, missionaries and local African communities were involved in, and affected by, trade between 1820 and 1860. The study explores aspects of the mercantile economy, consumerism and military provisioning relating to a wide range of imported glass and metal merchandise. The burgeoning trade linked various enterprises, groups and individuals through monetary and social transactions, reflecting the steady incorporation of the Eastern Cape into the British colonial trading network. Keywords: Eastern Cape, Grahamstown, Huntley Street, Farmerfield, Fort Double Drift, trade networks, historical archaeology, agency, glass, metal.