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Surplus and Access: Provisioning and Market Participation by Enslaved Laborers on Jamaican Sugar Estates

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Surplus and Access: Provisioning and Market Participation by Enslaved Laborers on Jamaican Sugar Estates University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2015 Surplus and Access: Provisioning and Market Participation by Enslaved Laborers on Jamaican Sugar Estates Lynsey Ann Bates University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Bates, Lynsey Ann, "Surplus and Access: Provisioning and Market Participation by Enslaved Laborers on Jamaican Sugar Estates" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1013. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1013 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1013 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Surplus and Access: Provisioning and Market Participation by Enslaved Laborers on Jamaican Sugar Estates Abstract Examining the variability of enslaved life across the Atlantic World during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries is increasingly possible with the availability of comparable data. This project explores the complex networks that slaves developed between the fields of the plantation and spaces beyond its borders. Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, enslaved people living and working on sugar estates across the Caribbean cultivated their own subsistence food crops. In Jamaica, planters implemented this cost-cutting system of self-provisioning in areas unsuitable for sugar cane agriculture. A comparative, quantitative approach elucidates the conditions that facilitated enslaved people's cultivation of surplus in these areas and their access to markets that fostered Jamaica's internal market economy. To systematically examine surplus and access, this project integrates documentary and archaeological sources germane to provision ground suitability and the acquisition of costly market goods. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) analysis of cartographic data drawn from historic survey maps of sugar estates defines the areas available for provision cultivation. Assemblages recovered from slave village contexts on four estates provide a broad sample of goods that enslaved people acquired in the market. The results suggest that the hypothesis that enslaved people with access to a larger amount of provision grounds with favorable conditions had greater access to the markets holds for this dataset. While the areas for surplus production were poor relative to the cane fields, ariationv between estates in conditions and observable artifact attributes indicate the investment in ceramic vessels based on cost. More broadly, the evidence demonstrates the connections that enslaved people established to turn an exploitative system to their advantage. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Anthropology First Advisor Robert L. Schuyler Keywords Caribbean, Ceramics, Historical Archaeology, Jamaica, Landscape, Slavery Subject Categories History | History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1013 SURPLUS AND ACCESS: PROVISIONING AND MARKET PARTICIPATION BY ENSLAVED LABORERS ON JAMAICAN SUGAR ESTATES Lynsey Ann Bates A DISSERTATION in Anthropology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Supervisor of Dissertation ______________________ Robert L. Schuyler Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology Graduate Group Chairperson ________________________ Clark L. Erickson Professor, University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology Dissertation Committee Deborah A. Thomas Professor, University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology Lauren Ristvet Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology SURPLUS AND ACCESS: PROVISIONING AND MARKET PARTICIPATION BY ENSLAVED LABORERS ON JAMAICAN SUGAR ESTATES COPYRIGHT 2015 Lynsey Ann Bates To Sue and Lee Bates, for their love and support iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The success of this project would not have been possible without the following people and organizations. First is my advisor and committee chair, Robert L. Schuyler. I appreciate Dr. Schuyler’s encouragement to pursue the research that I was interested in and his support of my path through the graduate program. I am proud to be counted among the many Ph.D. students you have guided at the University of Pennsylvania. I also express my gratitude to my other committee members. As professor, graduate group chair, and committee member, Deborah A. Thomas consistently challenged me to expand my perspective on anthropology and history in the Caribbean and beyond. I thank Dr. Thomas for her support and guidance through the grant application, proposal, and dissertation processes. Lauren Ristvet graciously contributed her time and effort to work through my initial chapters and provide a timeline which was an invaluable resource for writing. I thank Dr. Ristvet for her patience and encouragement. This project was made possible by generous financial support of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Art and Sciences, the UPenn Anthropology Department, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. The archival research at the basis of this project was made possible by the staff at the National Library of Jamaica, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, the University of the West Indies (Mona), Jamaica Archives and Records Department (Spanish Town Archives), and the National Archives (TNA). I especially thank Yvonne Fraser-Clarke and Bernadette Worrell at the NLJ Special Collections; Dorrick Gray, Audene Brooks, Anne-Marie Howard Brown, Rosie Whittaker, and Michelle Topping at the JNHT; and James Robertson, Kathleen Monteith, and Karen Spence in the UWI Mona History Department. Thanks also to Douglas V. Armstrong for allowing me to reanalyze the Drax Hall and Seville estate records and collections. I am grateful to Suzanne Francis-Brown and Ivor Conolley for facilitating my research in Jamaica and encouraging me to pursue the integration of history and archaeology. Thanks to Rim Patterson, Clive Grey, and Chris Graham for being my island guides! iv I would not have continued my career in anthropology and archaeology without the support of Stephen Plog, Rachel Most, Fraser D. Neiman, and Jillian E. Galle. Thanks to Dr. Plog for seeing my potential, cultivating my interest in archaeology, and allowing me to work on the Chaco Digital Initiative. Thanks to Dr. Most for being a wonderful friend and mentor throughout my time at the University of Virginia and graduate school. Thanks to Dr. Neiman for tolerating my ignorance in the way of statistics and consistently assisting my independent research. Thanks to Dr. Galle for giving me an opportunity to develop my research in Jamaica and for your guidance throughout my graduate career. Numerous friends and colleagues have also supported my endeavors during this time. I am grateful for the assistance and friendship of current and former DAACS and Monticello archaeology staff: Leslie Cooper, Beth Sawyer, Michelle Sivilich, Beth Bollwerk, Bea Arendt, Sara Bon-Harper, Derek Wheeler, and Jesse Sawyer. Thanks also to my phenomenal cohort (GOAT) who frequently eased my concerns during course work and beyond. I appreciate the support of Robert Philpott and Matt Reilly for their willingness to respond to frantic emails and phone calls. I am grateful to Carrie Heitman, Abby Holeman, and Emily Cubbon, for accepting a hist arch in their midst – we’ll always have Bonito! Thanks to Jordan Pickrell, Kristen Fellows, and Elizabeth Clay, for being the best friends an archaeologist could ask for. None of this would have been possible without the love and support of my family and friends. I am lucky to have friends like Caitlin Golden and Laura Clark to listen to the ups and downs of graduate student life. I am also grateful for the love and support of Beau Burwell during this process. Thanks to my siblings for never asking too many questions about the progress of “my paper” and for excusing my infrequent attempts at communication. Finally, to my parents, thank you for inspiring me to be the best that I can be and accepting me for who I am. v ABSTRACT SURPLUS AND ACCESS: PROVISIONING AND MARKET PARTICIPATION BY ENSLAVED LABORERS ON JAMAICAN SUGAR ESTATES Lynsey Ann Bates Robert L. Schuyler Examining the variability of enslaved life across the Atlantic World during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries is increasingly possible with the availability of comparable data. This project explores the complex networks that slaves developed between the fields of the plantation and spaces beyond its borders. Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, enslaved people living and working on sugar estates across the Caribbean cultivated their own subsistence food crops. In Jamaica, planters implemented this cost-cutting system of self-provisioning in areas unsuitable for sugar cane agriculture. A comparative, quantitative approach elucidates the conditions that facilitated enslaved people’s cultivation of surplus in these areas and their access to markets that fostered Jamaica’s internal market economy. To systematically examine surplus and access, this project integrates documentary and archaeological sources germane to provision ground suitability and the acquisition of costly
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