Slavery of Indigenous People in the Caribbean: An Archaeological Perspective (original) (raw)
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Colonization, Transformations, and Indigenous Cultural Persistence in the Caribbean
Colonization, Transformations, and Indigenous Cultural Persistence in the Caribbean, 2020
It is the second chapter of the relevant book about the global expansion of the Spanish colonial empire in diverse regions of the world. This chapter is focused on the Caribbean region including many aspects of this process and the persistence of indigenous cultural expression in some of the current local communities of the Caribbean region. The analysis included in the chapter takes as a base some case studies and systematizations of archaeological research and historical records
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.
Hispaniola 0 k m 600 N The role of pre-contact indigenous peoples in shaping contemporary multi-ethnic society in Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and elsewhere in the Caribbean, has been downplayed by traditional narratives of colonialism. Archaeological surveys in the northern Dominican Republic and open-area excavations at three (pre-)Contact-era Amerindian settlements, combined with historical sources and ethnographic surveys, show that this view needs revising. Indigenous knowledge of the landscape was key to the success of early Europeans in gaining control of the area, but also survives quite clearly in many aspects of contemporary culture and daily life that have, until now, been largely overlooked.
Archaeology of marronage in the Caribbean Antilles
Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, 2020
The archaeological study of maroons in the Caribbean Antilles presents both opportunities and challenges. On small islands, runaways had few places where they could seek refuge from slavery and elude capture for long periods of time. Consequently, such sites were occupied briefly and have been difficult to locate and identify. The Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) had both short-term refuge sites and long-term settlements comparable to quilombos. Archaeologists have been most successful in their investigations maroons in Cuba and Jamaica. In Hispaniola, where I am working at the present, only a few cave sites and one presumed maniel (the local term for a long-term maroon settlements) have been studied. In this paper, I provide an overview of the archaeological study of maroons on the Caribbean Islands and my preliminary research to locate El Maniel de Ocoa, a major settlement of slave runaways for over a hundred years during 1500s-1660s.
Revisionist history of Caribbean plantation slavery and its dramatis personae continues to challenge scholars of every discipline. Despite an increasing number of collateral references in Atlantic, Borderlands, Indian-centric, African Diaspora, and related genres of history, research regarding the sale and employment of enslaved mainland Indians on Caribbean island plantations remains underdeveloped. Recent U.S., Mexican, and Cuban studies have established that a slave trade in Native Americans, from New England to the Pampas and all points in-between, flourished from the colonial period until the nineteenth century. These studies have yielded some important discoveries in limited regional contexts, but each new revelation raises more ambiguities and contradictions, a conundrum familiar to Latin American and Caribbean specialists. To date, no known study exists exploring potential linkages among Anglo, French, Dutch and Iberian American slave societies and trade networks for the sale of Native Americans. Likewise, preliminary research has not uncovered any existing narrative history of Indian slaves on Caribbean plantations. However, Mexican and Cuban historians provide promising leads, many of which challenge the received wisdom and heretofore narrow U.S. definitions of slavery in its various guises. The transition of the Maya world from imperial borderlands to emergent nationalisms contrasts with Antillean ethnogenesis in late colonial Cuba; both provide interrelated yet divergent paths to the formation of modern states, and suggest new approaches for conceptualizing Caribbean history. This essay examines some of the existing literature in an attempt to identify new perspectives and vectors for further research.
Levisa 1. Studying the earliest indigenous peoples of Cuba in multicomponent archaeological sites
Early Settlers of the INSULAR CARIBBEAN Dearchaizing the Archaic, 2019
The archaeological site Levisa 1, in northeast Cuba, possesses one of the earlier radiocarbon dates for the so called ¨archaic¨ communities in this Island and one of the earliest one from the Caribbean region. For this reason that place is a basic reference for the study of the archaic groups. Also due to its location and potential link with other important archaic sites, and because possesses contexts that reflect diverse types and moments of pre-Arawak’s occupations, and even ceramic use. This paper revises the archaeological data of Levisa 1, the history of its investigation and its implications in the knowledge of the archaic societies in Cuba and the Caribbean. We discusses how the methodological and theoretical changes more than the incorporation of new data or a detailed and deep analysis of the available information have determined the understanding of that space.