Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T08:36:59.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Degrees of freedom in the Caribbean: archaeological explorations of transitions from slavery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Douglas V. Armstrong*
Affiliation:
*Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA (Email: [email protected])

Abstract

The anniversary of the abolition of slavery was justly celebrated worldwide in 2007. But what is the character of freedom, how does it relate to material culture, and how can archaeology study it? The author here summarises ideas he has been developing in Jamaica and York over the past two years.

Type
Research
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, S. 1774. Response to the Colrain Committee of Correspondence by the Boston Committee of Correspondence, 18 July 1774. Manuscript on file: Committee of Correspondence Papers, Lenox Library, Boston, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D.V. 1990. The old village and the great house. Urbana (IL): University of Illinois PressGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, D.V. 2003. Creole transformation from slavery to freedom: historical archaeology of the East End Community, St. John, Virgin Islands. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D.V. & Hauser, M.M.. 2004. An East Indian laborers' household in 19th century Jamaica: a case for understanding cultural diversity through space, chronology, and material analysis. Historical Archaeology 38(2): 921.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, D.V. & Kelly, K.. 2000. Settlement patterns and the origin of African Jamaican society. Ethnohistory 47(2): 368397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, D.V., Hauser, M.M., Knight, D. & Lenik, S.. 2009. Variation in venues of slavery and freedom: interpreting the late 18th century cultural landscape of St. John, Danish West Indies using an Archaeological GIS. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 13(1): 94111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armstrong, D.V., Hauser, M.M., Knight, D. & Lenik, S.. 2008. Maps, matricals, and material remains: archaeology of late eighteenth-century historic sites on St. John, Danish West Indies, in Reid, B.A. (ed.) Archaeology and geoinformatics: case studies from the Caribbean: 99126. Birmingham (AL): University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Ausherman, B. (ed.) 1982. St. John sites report 1981-2. United States Virgin Islands, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas: Division of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. Bill of Rights. 1689 (2009 edn.). Bill of Rights: An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown. Parliament, December 1869. The Constitution Society, Austin Texas. Available at: http://www.constitution.org/eng/eng_bor.htm, accessed on 7 July 2009.Google Scholar
Benjamin, G.H. 1981. Me and my beloved Virgin and more tales of me and my beloved Virgin. United States Virgin Islands: Dorrance Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Colrain Committee of Correspondence. 1774. In Sylvester, N.B. (ed.) History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations. Volume 2: 224226. Philadelphia (PA): Lewis H. Everts and Company.Google Scholar
Declaration of Colonial Rights. 1774. Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, October 14, 1774, Philadelphia. Manuscript reproduced by The Avalon Project, Yale University Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, New Haven Connecticut. Available at: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/resolves.asp, accessed on 11 September 2009.Google Scholar
Declaration of Independence. 1776. Declaration of Independence. Manuscript dated 4 July 1776, Philadelphia. National Archive and Records Administration, Washington D.C. Available at: http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/, accessed on 1 May 2007.Google Scholar
Delle, J.A. 1998. An archaeology of social space: analyzing coffee plantations in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everts, L.H. 1879. Colrain – revolutionary reminiscences, in Sylvester, N.B. (ed.) History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations. Volume II. Philadelphia (PA): Lewis H. Everts and Company. Available at: http://www.franklincountyhistory.com/colrain/everts/05.html, accessed on 11 November 2007.Google Scholar
Goveia, E.V. 1965. Slave society in the British Leeward Islands at the end of the eighteenth century (Caribbean Series 8). New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Green, W.A. 1976. British slave emancipation: the sugar colonies and the great experiment 1830-65. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hall, N. 1985. The Danish Virgin Islands: empire without dominion, 1671-1848 (Division of Libraries, Museums and Archaeological Services, US Virgin Islands, Occasional Paper No. 8). Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands: Division of Libraries.Google Scholar
Handler, J. & Lange, F.. 1978. Plantation slavery in Barbados: an archaeological and historical investigation. Cambridge (MA):Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, M.W. 2008. An archaeology of black markets: local ceramics and economies in eighteenth-century Jamaica. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Haviser, J.B. & Mcdonald, K.C. (ed.). 2006. African re-genesis: confronting social issues in the diaspora (One World Archaeology 23). Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Higman, B.W. 1996. Danish West Indian slavery in comparative perspective: an appreciation of Neville HalL's contribution to the historiography, in Tyson, G.F. (ed.) Bondment and freedmen in the Danish West Indies, scholarly perspectives: 117. Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands: Virgin Islands Humanities Council.Google Scholar
Higman, B.W. 2002. Montpellier. Mona, Kingston: University of the West Indies PressGoogle Scholar
Johnson, S. 1759. The history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. London: Whittaker & Co.Google Scholar
Knight, D.W. & de T. Prime, L.. 1999. St. Thomas 1803: crossroads of the Diaspora. St. Thomas: Little Nordside Press.Google Scholar
Lawaetz, H.C. 1999. Peter von Scholten: West Indian period images from the days of the last Governor General. Herning: The Poul Kristensen Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Leone, M.P. 2005. The archaeology of liberty in an American capital: excavations in Annapolis. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J. 1690 (1952 edn.) The second treatise on civil government in Peardon, T.P (ed.) The second treatise on civil government. New York: Library of Liberal Arts, Bobbs- Merrill Compan. Available at: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke2/2nd-contents.html, accessed on 7 November 2007Google Scholar
Muccino, G. (Dir.) 2006. The pursuit of happyness starring Smith, Will, Smith, Jaden, Castellaneta, Dan and Newton, Thandie (Film).Google Scholar
Mill, J.S. 1869. On liberty. London: Longman, Roberts & Green. Available at: www.bartleby.com/130/, accessed on 7 November 2007.Google Scholar
Oxholm, P. 1780. Map of St. John, Danish West Indies. Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen, Denmark.Google Scholar
Paine, T. 1774 (2003 edn.). Common sense, the rights of man. New York: Signet Classics.Google Scholar
Turner, M. (ed.) 1995. From cattle slaves to wage slaves: dynamics of labour bargaining in the Americas. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Resolution A/RES/217 (United Nations General Assembly, Palais de Chaillor, Paris, 10 December 1948).Google Scholar