An Archaeology and History of a Caribbean Sugar Plantation on Antigua
Georgia L. Fox (editor)
This volume uses archaeological and documentary evidence to reconstruct daily life at Bettys Hope plantation on the island of Antigua, one of the largest sugar plantations in the Caribbean. It demonstrates the rich information that the multidisciplinary approach of contemporary historical archaeology can offer when assessing the long-term impacts of sugarcane agriculture on the region and its people.Drawing on ten years of research at the 300-year-old site, the researchers uncover the plantations inner workings and its connections to broader historical developments in the Atlantic World. Excavations at the Great House reveal similarities to other British colonial sites, and historical records reveal the owners involvement in the Atlantic slave trade and in the trade of rum and other commodities. Artifacts uncovered from the slave quartersceramic tokens, repurposed bottle glass, and hundreds of Afro-Antiguan pottery sherdsspeak to the agency of enslaved peoples in the face of harsh living conditions. Contributors also use ethnographic field data collected from interviews with contemporary farmers, as well as soil analysis to demonstrate how three centuries of sugarcane monocropping created a complicated legacy of soil depletion. Today tourism has long surpassed sugar as Antiguas primary economic driver. Looking at visitor exhibits and new technologies for exploring and interpreting the site, the volume discusses best practices in cultural heritage management at Bettys Hope and other locations that are home to contested historical narratives of a colonial past.A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
Категорії:
Рік:
2019
Видавництво:
Univ Pr of Florida
Мова:
english
Сторінки:
317
ISBN 10:
168340128X
ISBN 13:
9781683401285
Файл:
PDF, 8.02 MB
IPFS:
,
english, 2019