An archaeology of Black markets; local ceramics and economies in eighteenth-century Jamaica.

9780813032610

An archaeology of Black markets; local ceramics and economies in eighteenth-century Jamaica.

Hauser, Mark W.

U. Press of Florida

2008

269 pages

$65.00

Hardcover

Ripley P. Bullen series / Florida Museum of Natural History

HT1096

Hauser (Africana studies, Notre Dame University) uses ceramic archaeology to trace an unrecorded aspect of life in eighteenth-century Jamaica among slaves and free Black inhabitants. He uses the migration of the pottery, made by the slaves and sold at Sunday markets, to demonstrate how lines of communication were established between communities once thought to be isolated. This allowed for the planning necessary for organized slave revolts, particularly the Emancipation Revolution of 1831. The book is part ethnographic history and part archaeological report. There are chapters dealing with the composition and design of the ceramics in scientific detail and others that discuss the society. The conclusions are intriguing, suggesting that this method might well be useful in the context of finding the history of those who have left no written record.

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