From Golden Rock to Historic Gem: A historical archaeological analysis of the maritime cultural landscape of St. Eustatius, Caribbean Netherlands (original) (raw)
Related papers
An Archaeological Assessment of St Eustatius, Netherlands Antilles
1996
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the small Caribbean island of St. Eustatius thrived as an important trade center for the European colonies in the New World. Today the island is dotted with the ruins of plantations, forts, warehouses and other vestiges of human occupation, that have been studied by archaeologists for the last two decades. The present study summarizes information from dozens of archaeological reports and scholarly papers and assesses the current state of knowledge about the 288 documented archaeological sites on the island. This will provide planners and scholars with a concise document that will facilitate the coordination of research, preservation, and development goals in the coming years.
In this thesis, a synthetic analysis of historical and archaeological material from slave sites across the Americas is used to identify the cultural role of the slave holder in transforming African-American societies. Using a comparative approach, I have reviewed patterns associated with each European colonial power. It is generally believed that environmental conditions determined much in the way of slave architecture and foodways. However, I will show that ther are specific patterns in slave related architecture, foodways, religion and laws that are linked to Euro-ethinic cultural patterns in English, French, Spanish, Dutch and Danish colonies during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. I have also identified the temporal changes in the treatment of slaves during the pre-emancipation period that have specific material cultural patterns associated with the Euro-ethnic identity of each colonial power. Using St. Eustatius in the Netherlands Antilles as a case study, I demonstrate the efficacy of comparative analyses in identifying Euro-ethnic cultural trends that guided and affected enslaved African’s lives and are reflected in material cultural remains. These cultural markers can be classified within three thematic catagories that will provide common threads thoughout the thesis. First, ethnicity, comprising the Euroethnic origins of masters, Native American communities, and diverse African cultural legacies, influenced slaves’ lives. Second, slave roles as agricultural labourers, skilled tradesmen, soldiers, watchmen and then as natives of the various colonies clearly affected their sense of identity. Third, power relations between masters and slaves influenced aspects of slaves’ daily life to varying degrees in each colony. On St. Eustatius the comparisons are articulated on two levels. First, slave involvement in the colonial economy on St. Eustatius was unlike that found in the other colonies in that slaves were much more active actors within it. The Statian economy was not based upon plantation monoculture but on providing a free trade port that was then unequalled in the West Indies. In this economy, slaves were not commodities but also direct participants as merchants and traders themselves to a degree not found anywhere else. No previous researcher has attempted to reconstruct how slaves worked in this trade economy. Second, this involvement of slaves in the economy led to a unique position in the cultural and economic landscape as perceived by their masters on the island. This is reflected in the location of slave housing, laws governing slave participation in economic activities, slave religion, and in opportunities for escape and resistence. As part of this comparative analysis, I have also conducted a thin-section analysis of slave produced ceramics or Afro-Caribbean ware from St. Eustatius, Nevis, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Croix and Barbuda. The goal was to examine any island specific differences in clay types to provide evidence for possible circum-Caribbean trade networks for these ceramics. I have determined that each island produced unique ceramic types and that there may have been some exchange of these vessels among islands. The conclusion reveals that only a comparative analysis on a global scale can identify the unique parameters impacting slave material culture under each European power. It is hoped that this thesis will encourage further comparative research, particularly in French, Spanish and Portuguese colonial areas.
The Nautical Archaeology of Puerto Rico
International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 2010
The waters of Puerto Rico harbour the remains of thousands of years of human occupation. The island played a key role in the first decades of European exploration of the New World, and its coasts and estuaries have preserved an extensive record of the island’s maritime history, before and after the arrival of the Europeans. The objective of this project is to study Puerto Rico’s seafaring history through the investigation of its submerged cultural heritage, with a particular focus on the history of European shipbuilding. In 2008 the authors started with survey on the north coast.
Dutch presence in Cuban waters. A first year of archaeological surveys
Dutch presence in Cuban waters. A first year of archaeological surveys, 2021
This is a report on fieldwork conducted between 17 and 26 July 2019 by the National Council of Cultural Heritage of Cuba (CNPC), the agency of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Cuba, and the International Programme for Maritime Heritage of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) as part of the project 'Dutch Presence in Cuban Waters'.
An 'Emporium for all the World': Commercial archaeology in Lower Town, St. Eustatius
Managing our past into the future: Archaeological heritage management in the Dutch Caribbean, 2015
The change in political status of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba (the BES islands), which became special municipalities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on October 10, 2010, brought about an explosion in commercial building activities on St. Eustatius (affectionately called Statia by the local population). At the same time, new laws governing the archaeological heritage were implemented. The St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research (SECAR) was founded in 2000 to conduct research on the island’s rich cultural heritage through archaeological field schools. Since the constitutional change on the BES islands, SECAR has also been conducting commercial archaeological work on the island. A large number of commercial archaeological projects all over the island were carried out by the author over the last two years, including work on former sugar plantations, the historic town center of Oranjestad, and Lower Town, the island’s former commercial port district. It is the latter area that produced some of the most interesting research results of the last few years. This chapter will present and discuss the results of various archaeological projects carried out in Lower Town, which is believed to have the densest concentration of archaeological remains of any area of comparable size in the Americas.
Sidestone Press Academics, 2019
Winner of the Fernando Coronil Prize 2022 awarded to the best book on Venezuela by the Section of Venezuelan Studies of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). The early modern Venezuelan Caribbean did not lure seafarers with the saccharine delights of cane sugar but with the preserving qualities of solar sea salt. In this book, the historical archaeological study of this salty commodity offers a unique entryway into the hitherto unknown maritime mobilities and daily lives of the seafarers who camped at the saltpans of Venezuelan islands from the seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries, cultivating and harvesting the white crystal of the sea. For the first time, this study offers a comprehensive documentary history of the saltpans of La Tortuga Island and Cayo Sal in the Los Roques Archipelago, uncovering the surprising importance of their salt. Long-term archaeological excavations at the campsites by these saltpans have brought to light the plethora of material remains left behind by seafarers during their seasonal and temporary salt forays. The exhaustive analysis of the thousands of recovered things-pipes, punch bowls, plates, teapots, buttons, bones-contrasted with documentary evidence, not only enables us to understand where these things came from and by whom they were used. By engaging the evidence through my theoretical framework of assemblages of practice, I demonstrate how seafarers and things were vibrantly entangled in the everyday assemblages of practice of salt cultivation, dining and drinking. This multisited approach spanning 256 years, reveals that seafarers were fervent buyers of fashionable products, drinking hot tea from porcelain tea bowls, using colorful ceramic chamber pots for their hygienic needs and imbibing exotic rum punch by the scorching saltpans of the uninhabited Venezuelan islands. Intended for scholars, students and the interested public alike, this historical archaeological study positions humble seafarers in the limelight, not as the anonymous movers of international trade and facilitators of imperial interests, but as avid trans-imperial and extra-imperial consumers of the fruits of those very empires.