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. 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.

Full Product Details

Author:   James A. Delle ,  Elizabeth C. Clay
Publisher:   University Press of Florida
Imprint:   University Press of Florida
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 22.80cm
Weight:   0.151kg
ISBN:  

9781683402695

ISBN 10:   1683402693
Pages:   298
Publication Date:   02 August 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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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 and 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

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

Author Information

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.

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