THE PANOPTIC PLANTATION MODEL: GEOGRAPHICAL
ANALYSIS AND LANDSCAPE AT BETTY'S HOPE,
PLANTATION, ANTIGUA, WEST INDIES
______
A Thesis
Presented
to the Faculty of
California State University, Chico
______
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
in
Anthropology
______
by
© Catherine Davis 2016
Spring 2016 THE PANOPTIC PLANTATION MODEL: GEOGRAPHICAL
ANALYSIS AND LANDSCAPE AT BETTY'S HOPE,
PLANTATION, ANTIGUA, WEST INDIES
A Thesis
by
Catherine Davis
Spring 2016
APPROVED BY THE INTERIM DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
______Sharon Barrios, Ph.D.
APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:
______Guy Q. King, Ph.D. Georgia L. Fox, Ph.D., Chair Graduate Coordinator
______Antoinette Martinez, Ph.D.
______Dean Fairbanks, Ph.D. PUBLICATION RIGHTS
No portion of this thesis may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner unacceptable to the usual copyright restrictions without the written permission of the author.
iii DEDICATION
Missy
iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This thesis would not have been possible without the support I have received by so many friends, family, and colleagues. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Georgia Fox for her encouragement and guidance. It was only through her support and wisdom that this thesis became a reality. I cannot express enough gratitude to my Committee members for whom this thesis was so aided, which includes Dr.
Antoinette Martinez for her support and invaluable guidance in this process, and Dr.
Dean Fairbanks for helping me bring the GIS portion of this thesis to life and for never failing to provide hope that I could overcome user error.
This research project was made possible thanks to Dr. Reginald (Reg) Murphy and Nicola Murphy. Their support and encouragement created an environment of research and learning that allowed me to gain a cohort of researchers who gave a new depth to my work and understanding.
Very special thanks goes to Genevieve Godbout (for making me a better archaeologist), Alexis Ohman (for keeping us out of the taxi and providing support, laughter, and understanding), Charlie Goudge (for never turning away from adventure, and curiously enough, always jumping into the water), Cory Look (for guidance and an introduction to the wonders of mapping and GIS), and Marilla Martin (whose unfailing love and support carried me through grad school).
v Additionally, I would like to thank my parents Marc and Elisa Davis, to whom
I not only owe my success but have been the model of support and love I carry throughout life. To my sister Mellissa Chapman, who never stopped believing in me, thank you. To my family and friends who have supported me and cheered me on, I thank you, your support has impacted me immeasurably and gotten me through even the toughest writer’s block and latest nights.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Publication Rights ...... iii
Dedication...... iv
Acknowledgments ...... v
List of Tables...... ix
List of Figures...... x
Abstract...... xii
CHAPTER
I. Introduction...... 1
Chapter Summary...... 3
II. Background to the Study ...... 5
Introduction ...... 5 Pre-contact Expansion of the Caribbean ...... 9 European Colonization ...... 10 Betty’s Hope Plantation...... 21 Chapter Summary...... 34
III. Theoretical Framework ...... 36
Caribbean Plantation Studies...... 37 Landscape Theory ...... 39 The Panopticon and the Panoptic Plantation...... 46 Chapter Summary...... 58
vii CHAPTER PAGE
IV. Methodology and Data Collection...... 59
Introduction ...... 59 Archival Data...... 60 Geographical Information Systems ...... 66 Zonal Statistics ...... 73 Chapter Summary...... 75
V. Data Analysis, Results, and Discussion ...... 76
Introduction ...... 76 Discussion...... 82 Limitations to the Study ...... 86 Chapter Summary...... 87
VI. Conclusions...... 89
Introduction ...... 89 Conclusions ...... 90 Contributions ...... 94 Future Research...... 95
References Cited...... 96
Appendices
A. Contour Map of the Site ...... 107 A. Location and Mean Frequency Output Table...... 109
viii LIST OF TABLES
TABLE PAGE
1. Two-sample Wilcoxon Rank-sum (Mann-Whitney) Test...... 82
ix LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE PAGE
1. Map of Caribbean Showing the Greater and Lesser Antilles...... 6
2. Map of the Caribbean Highlighting Antigua and Barbuda in Red...... 8
3. Antigua, Showing Betty’s Hope Plantation Location with the Plantation Estate Outlined in Red...... 22
4. Map of 1710 Depicting the Layout at Betty’s Hope ...... 25
5. Close Up of the 1755 Map Highlighting the Second Slave Village in Red ...... 26
6. The Double Windmills at Betty’s Hope...... 27
7. Extant Portion of the Boiling House on Betty’s Hope ...... 28
8. Satellite Imagery of Betty’s Hope Showing Extant Structures ...... 31
9. Overview of the Estate Highlighting Areas of Excavation in Red...... 32
10. The Great House Excavation, Facing North...... 33
11. Excavation at the Edge of the Slave Village at Betty’s Hope, 2014...... 34
12. Structural Foundations North of the Great House...... 35
13. Close Up of the Estate Structures...... 61
14. The 1755 Showing the Extent of the Plantation Boundary ...... 63
15. The Map of 1710 and 1755 Betty’s Hope with the Earliest Slave Village Outlined in Red ...... 64
16. The Cisterns at Betty’s Hope Viewing Southeast ...... 66
17. Showing Ground Control Points Used for Digitization ...... 68 x FIGURE PAGE
18. The Digital Elevation Model of Betty’s Hope...... 69
19. Map of Digitized Plantation Elements Based on the 1755 Estate Map.... 70
20. Layout of 100m Stratified Point Samples of the Estate...... 73
21. Map of Viewshed from the Great House Complex ...... 77
22. Viewshed Results from Chosen Slave Village Locations ...... 78
23. Image of the Cumulative Viewshed Output with the Great House Location and Slave Villages Overlaid...... 79
xi ABSTRACT
THE PANOPTIC PLANTATION MODEL: GEOGRAPHICAL
ANALYSIS AND LANDSCAPE AT BETTY'S HOPE,
PLANTATION, ANTIGUA, WEST INDIES
by
Catherine Davis
Master of Arts in Anthropology
California State University, Chico
Spring 2016
Archaeologists have applied geographic information systems (GIS) to research questions throughout the Caribbean. One model that utilizes GIS, the panoptic plantation, tests the theory of panoptic control. Some archaeologists propose the systematic plantation layout and use of the plantation landscape was designed to reinforce hierarchical control. Through building placement, and manipulation of vantage points, archaeologists have applied the panoptic design to the plantation layout, stating this system of design acts to reinforce power. Through constant surveillance and a centrally located Great House, plantation owners could observe all activity on the plantation, at once surveying the inhabitants and curtailing subversive behavior.
The purpose of this thesis is to test the panoptic plantation model on Betty’s
Hope Sugar Plantation, Antigua, West Indies. Betty’s Hope was a large sugar plantation
xii credited with revamping the sugar industry on Antigua. Portions of the records of the plantation through its existence were made available for research, including two maps of the estate. Using archival documents, maps, and field research, a model of the plantation layout was created. This model was then used to test the theory that plantations were designed as panopticon, thus aiding in the control of large slave populations.
The information was combined in GIS and tested using viewshed and cumulative viewshed analysis. Observer points were chosen from the Great House and slave village locations to determine if building placement on the plantation coincided with the model of the panoptic plantation. Applying the panoptic model to Betty’s Hope, additionally aided in understanding the plantation layout and use of land at Betty’s Hope.
xiii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The study of power and spatial relationships in historical archaeology of the
Caribbean is an area of research that explores economic and social spheres of interaction
(Delle 2002:341). Investigations into the landscape of power relations is a recent area of research in Caribbean studies, and has already offered valuable insights into the nuances of everyday life within the plantation system. This thesis examines a model of spatial and power relations, incorporating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and theoretical perspectives of power and social relations on a plantation landscape, adding to the growing body of work that is being done within this field.
My research focuses on Betty’s Hope, a former sugar plantation in Antigua, as a case study in examining and testing the panoptic plantation model through the application of ground (gumshoe) survey, GIS, historical documents, and archaeological excavation in order to reconstruct the plantation landscape and examine this theory of power relations imprinted on the landscape. Of the historical documents employed in this thesis, chief among them are maps that are part of the Codrington Papers, housed in the
National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda. One map, the map of 1755 drawn, by Samuel
Clapham, is a survey of all the acreage of the estate, including the cane fields, sugar works and Great House complex. Distances and acreages are also given in the map’s legend. This map was used to spatially locate areas of interest. These areas include the
1 2
Great House complex and slave village locations of the site. An earlier map, the map of
1710, was also used in this study.
In addition to the Samuel Clapham map, elevation data collected from various sources have been applied to the understanding of the landscape of Betty’s Hope
Plantation in order to apply the surveillance theory. Surveillance and lines-of-sight are determined through the use of geographical information systems, which employs elevation data when running analysis; therefore, an understanding of Betty’s Hope topography is vital to this research.
Data collected for this thesis was made possible through the Betty’s Hope
Project and Field School, led by Dr. Georgia Fox in the Department of Anthropology,
California State University, Chico, with the support of Dr. Reginald Murphy of the
National Parks of Antigua and Barbuda. Data employed here was obtained over the course of two field seasons in the summers of 2011 and 2012. The map used to establish the plantation layout, along with other documents detailing life at Betty’s Hope are found in a collection known as the Codrington Papers, housed in the National Archives of
Antigua and Barbuda. All of the original papers are on microfilm and made available for research purposes; to date, the original Codrington Papers have been unavailable for research since their purchase in 1980. The GIS analysis portion of this research was conducted in the GIS lab of the CSU Chico Geography and Planning Department in the fall of 2014.
Chapter II provides a brief overview of initial colonization of Antigua and the
British Caribbean. Included in this chapter is an overview of how the British established a plantation and labor systems that displaced thousands of Africans, forcing them to
3 survive in harsh and tragic conditions. I will also cover the history of Betty’s Hope plantation and why understanding this plantation aids in our broader understanding of
Caribbean history.
Chapter III provides a theoretical basis for the analysis done in this thesis.
This chapter begins with work in the related fields of labor and social relations and the establishment of surveillance as a form of social control. This chapter also provides a brief overview of work that has been done in Caribbean archaeology and will elaborate on themes such as the panoptic plantation, social and labor relations, and understanding the plantation system. Chapter III also addresses social and labor relations and how they are systemized. Following the establishment of the panoptic model, Chapter IV covers the methodology, data collection, and avenues of investigation that are commonly used in this kind of study. This chapter expands on the nature of the data used for my specific analysis, and how it was collected.
The analysis and the results of my research are discussed in detail in Chapter
V. In this chapter I discuss how effective the model is by analyzing how the landscape manipulates sight. I will also discuss how Betty’s Hope fits within the larger system of colonial expansion that defines the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of Caribbean history. Chapter VI concludes with discussing the salient points of my research and the contribution of my research to historical archaeology and anthropology.
Chapter Summary
This chapter introduced the Panoptic Plantation Model and the research objectives this model is employed to investigate. It is the goal of this research to gain a
4 better understanding of the nature of the plantation system at Betty’s Hope. Through the use of Geographic Information Systems to analyze information about the project location in conjunction with archival research and material remains, this model has the potential to reveal power and social relationships in this Caribbean frontier. An outline of the following chapters highlighting the content of each follows this introduction and concludes this chapter.
CHAPTER II
BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Introduction
The following chapter provides an overview of the topography and environment of the Caribbean islands, as well as, a very brief history of Caribbean settlement and expansion. Both the geology and the inhabitants living in the Caribbean at the time of European contact play an important role in the course of European colonization. To understand how the landscape may have been modified for the purpose of the plantation, it is first important to understand the landscape of the Caribbean, and
Antigua and Barbuda especially. How the islands were both agriculturally viable places for the growth cash crops and modified by European expansion are important factors to consider in understanding the systems of slavery and economic success that followed.
The Caribbean islands (Figure 1) are characterized by a variety of sizes, environment, geological, topography, and climatic factors and span from the southernmost tip of Florida in North America, to Northern Venezuela in South America.
The region is traditionally divided into three groups: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser
Antilles, and the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. The Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola,
Puerto Rico, and Jamaica), is comprised mainly of the larger islands representing the northwestern section of the Caribbean chain and spans 194,000 sq. km. The smaller island chain referred to as the Lesser Antilles, is comprised of the Windward (southern
5 6
Figure 1. Map of Caribbean showing the Greater and Lesser Antilles. Created by Catherine Davis, made with Natural Earth maps.
portion) and Leeward islands (northern portion), and make up about 12,000 sq. km of land (Fitzpatrick and Ross 2010:2-4). The islands consist of three main geologic formations: volcanic, coral, and limestone. The Caribbean region also comprises 2.3 percent of the world’s endemic flora species and 2.9 percent of the world’s endemic vertebrate species, accounting for 0.15 percent of the Earth’s surface (Fitzpatrick and
Ross 2010:1). The tropical geographic region of the Caribbean islands quickly proved more than advantageous for the success of sugar cane production and the geography and pre-Columbian expansion must be taken into account when considering the success of
7
British Colonization and rise of sugar production and success of this crop and plantation system.
At the height of their power, the British Crown held the greatest number of islands in the region. These islands included Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the
Bahamas, Barbados, the Bay Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands,
Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos
(Niddrie 1966:70).
Antigua and Barbuda
Betty’s Hope Plantation is located on the island of Antigua. Antigua and its neighboring island, Barbuda, are united as one country located in the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles as part of the Leeward chain (see Figure 2). Antigua and Barbuda received independence in 1981, and are now part of the British Commonwealth of
Nations. Separated by about 25 miles, these islands vary in geology and land use patterns but are uniquely linked historically.
Barbuda, consisting of 62 square miles, represents a uniform geological formation of Pleistocene coral limestone with highlands reaching a height of 147 feet
(Harris 1965:13, 19). Contrary to this straightforward geology, three main geological regions make up the island of Antigua (Harris 1965:13). The island is characterized by flat topped volcanic mountains to the southwest reaching a peak of 1,319 feet. A floodplain separates this mountainous region from the central plain, which stretches diagonally northwest to southeast across the entire island (Harris 1965:14). Soils on the central plain consist of Pleistocene clay and sedimentary tuffs. The central plain in
8
Figure 2. Map of the Caribbean highlighting Antigua and Barbuda in red. Modified by Catherine Davis made with Natural Earth maps.
Antigua is also the flattest region of the island and was considered to be the most advantageous for cane agriculture (Harris 1965:15). Marked by a clear contrast in vegetation and topography, the Northeastern portion of the island is characterized by limestone hills that rise to a height of 400 feet.
Antigua is a dry island with little rainfall. Most streams and waterways are seasonal and occur during the wet season that lasts from August to November (Harris
1965:7, 18). The average annual rainfall on the island is 43.37 inches with a majority of the rainfall occurring during this wet season. The island also experiences easterly trade winds year round due to the island’s position on the outer edge of the Northern Leeward
9 islands (Harris 1965:7). These factors play an important role in the nature of development during colonization and prehistoric settlement on the island. High winds resulted in the dependence of wind powered mills that dotted the landscape during the height of imperialism on the island.
Pre-contact Expansion of the Caribbean
Prehistorically, the Caribbean is characterized by “rapid leaps of exploration.”
This intermittent settlement pattern characterizes pre-Contact expansion, and has forced researchers to rely on more generalized trends in establishing a chronological framework for the Caribbean (Agorsah 1993:129; Wilson 2007:27). The majority of research done within the Caribbean has focused on distinguishing differences in pottery, technology, and trade, creating a comparative study of the islands (Agorsah 1993:138; Wilson
2007:27; Fitzpatrick and Ross 2010; Keegan et al. 2008). Research in the Caribbean has established a time frame that sets the peopling of the Greater and Lesser Antilles in a series of migrations consisting of Pre-ceramic and Ceramic periods (Fitzpatrick and Ross
2010; Keegan 1986; Rouse 1964; Wilson 2007). Research conducted by Irving Rouse
(1964) was seminal in establishing a time frame for movement into the Caribbean. Rouse established a timeline of expansion through examining stylistic changes in pottery. The chronological periods of the Caribbean have been divided into five catagories, traditionally accepted by researchers today and are as follows: Lithc, Archaic, Ceramic, and Historic (Rouse 1992:31).
Prior to European colonization the earliest known occupation in this region dates to 4,000 B.C. on the islands of Cuba, and the Dominican Republic and Haiti
10
(Agorsah 1993:133; Wilson 2007:27). A second wave of migration is evidenced in the archaeological record around 2,000 B.C. known as the Archaic period (Wilson 2007:38).
Trends in lithic toolkit production have been closely studied to determine origins and movement of the archaic culture throughout the Greater and Lesser Antilles (Wilson et al
1998). Evidence of similarities with mainland lithic production technologies in the earliest sites found in the Greater Antilles suggest that archaic inhabitants first began populating the region from the Yucatan and Central America. These culture groups converged in the Northern Lesser Antilles or Puerto Rico (Wilson 2007:56; Wilson et al
1998). The Archaic Period would soon be replaced, or assimilated, by future waves of migrations from the Americas, each bringing with them lifeways and technologies that would initiate cultural change up until time of European Contact (Keegan 2000:135;
Rouse 1992:31).
At the time of European contact in the 1500s, indigenous settlements comprised settlements of avriosu sizes, with some quite large. (Rouse 1992:9). Villages were led by a local chief, with a political network of district and regional chiefdoms
(Rouse 1992:9). Most of the indigemous groups lived by foraging susbsistence utilzing marine resources as well as hunting small anmials and utilizng availabel resources.
European Colonization
Native peoples were not prepared for their eoncournters with Eueopeans.
From the first Euroepan encounters in the late fifteenth century to the subsequent colonization, the pattern in which the Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles were settled differed greatly. This created windows of expansion for Dutch, English, and French
11 colonization in the Lesser Antilles, decades after the Spanish discovered this region
(Willson 207:161). Conquest of this region by European colonists was aided by a few key factors, namely the introduction of European pathogens and disease. Also influential in destabalizing this population was the use gun powder warfare, resulting in great population loss of indigenous peoples inhabiting the Caribbean region.
Diseases proved devastating for New World populations after contact. These included small pox, measles, influenza, and yellow fever. Such illnesses reduced the
Caribbean population by 80 percent in the first 30 years of Euopeann contact (Wilson
2007:159). These groups also suffered from starvation due to great losses in population and land which prevented planting and harvesting of critical crops for survival (Saunders
2005:265; Wilson 2007:161). Caribbean inhabitants, however, did fight for survival launching attacks and raids on established colonies of the Greater Antilles, fleeing to the
Lesser Antilles, and by assimiliating into new culture systems (Wilson 2007).
British Colonization and the Plantation System
Colonization in the British West Indies began in the early 1600s, with a colony established on St. Christopher (St. Kitts) in 1623, and on Barbados in 1627 (Smith
2008). Although Columbus first sighted Antigua on his second voyage in 1493, he did not stop on Antigua. The island was reportedly named after the Church of Santa Maria la
Antigua in Seville Spain (Harris 1965:79; Tempany 1991:4). The Spanish made no attempt to settle the island due in part to the lack of water and inhospitable weather. It has been suggested that domestic pig, goat, and other livestock were left on the island for convenience and supplies, however, this remains unsubstantiated (Harris 1965:80;
Tempany 1911:4; Georgia Fox, personal communication, September 6, 2015). In 1528,
12 the British Crown granted the land to the Earl of Carlisle, but no attempt by was made by the English to colonize Antigua until 1632, when Englishman Thomas Warner first arrived in Antigua with the intention of starting a plantation (Dyde 2000; Tempany
1911:5). In 1666, the French briefly captured the island and was returned to the English in the Treaty of Breda the following year (Dyde 2000:22-24). The island was to remain a
British territory until its independence in 1981.
Unlike other Caribbean islands, by the time of Captain Thomas Warner’s arrival in 1632, the island was devoid of any indigenous inhabitants, making the way clear forWarner to establish the first sugar plantation on Antigua. .At the time of the first successful settlement led by Warner, Antigua was still heavily forested. Early colonization consisted of small-scale farmers and indentured servants (mostly Irish), with a population in 1640 of no more than 150 people (Dyde 2000:14). The early cash crop for these settlers was tobacco, which required little start up investment in equipment and had an established market in Europe (Dyde 2000:14).
The pattern of colonization evidenced in Antigua follows closely with the larger pattern of the English Caribbean, which started with small-scale farms experimenting in export crops such as tobacco, indigo, and cotton (Weaver 2002:2).
Sugar production in the British West Indies would eventually overtake small-scale farming to become a chief export of the islands. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the English, borrowing conventions from other European powers, created their own system of colonization, involving; the displacement of native peoples, clearing entire islands of natural flora and fauna, and establishing a mono-crop culture consisting of sugar plantations for the demanding consumer market overseas (Weaver 2002:2).
13
Initially, planters in Barbados and other Caribbean islands planted commodities such as cotton and tobacco with unreliable gains. Due in part to overseas market changes, planters running low on supplies and funds began to search for alternative sources of income (Gasper 1985:65). Barbados was the first island in British
Caribbean to undertake the production of sugar (Dunn 1972:62). Barbadian planters learned from successful Dutch sugar planters who had already established a system of sugar production mirrored from sugar plantations in Brazil. These were dependent on slave labor as a means to maximize profits while simultaneously providing the much needed labor force (Dunn 1972:61; Gasper 1985:65; Davis 2006:114). This system of slavery eventually came to embody the New World economic heavily reliant on slave labor until the abolition of slavery and emancipation throughout the 1800s. While dates differ for European powers, the British abolished the slave trade 1807 and emancipated slavery altogether in 1838 (Davis 2006:249).
This system of enslaved labor has its roots in a long history of enslavement and forced labor. New World slavery has been linked to ancient traditions dating back to the ancient near east, Greece, and Rome with the first mention of slavery dating from
2000 B.C.E. in Sumer (Davis 2006:32-37). Slavery has taken many forms and representations, from economic and political gains, to class and religious significations.
Throughout the various changing roles of slaves, Davis (2006) argues a universal similarity is the dehumanization of slaves. This dehumanization, has its origins in the domestication of wild animals and the notion of chattel (Davis 2006:32). Like domesticated animals, slaves could be bought, or sold at whim and their lives afforded little rights or free will. The notion that their lives were not theirs and their bodies owned
14 and controlled by others is what unites the notion of slavery throughout history (Davis
2006:39).
Atlantic slavery took its form through a previously established system of
African slavery and trade. As Davis points out, well before the slave trade reached the
Caribbean islands, the Atlantic Slave System was already in place, through Portugal’s increasing reliance on a slave trade with African nations and an historically established acceptance of the notion of slavery dating back thousands of years (Davis 2006:95). The first public slave auction took place in Portugal in 1444 and African slaves were being forced into labor in the New World as early as the mid-1500s (Davis 2006:103). The importation of African slaves through shipping began in Brazil, 140 years after they were first shipped to Portugal, marking a shift in labor reliance on the growing sugar industry in this region (Davis 2006:93, 103).
The success of the sugar plantation system in Brazil in the 1500s and early
1600s was brought to the Caribbean through Dutch farmers expelled from Brazil by the
Portuguese. Barbadian planters are the first in the English West Indies credited with establishing sugar plantations modeled from those successful Dutch planters (Davis
2006:114; Smith 2008). This system spread throughout the British West Indies, reaching the Leeward Islands including Antigua, and continued to follow the established pattern of the plantation system’s reliance on slave labor (Davis 2006:115).
As the sugar industry in the Caribbean took hold, so too did the notion of an efficient plantation system. Central to the plantation was always sugar. Cane fields dominated the landscape, with as much acreage as an estate could afford being cleared and dedicated to the growth of cane. Sugar production was at once an agricultural venture
15 and domestic space for those involved in the production process. Growing, harvesting, and processing of sugar cane was a difficult and tedious process. Sugar planters slowly developed a system with which to maximize production and wealth. Due to the fact that cane must be processed immediately after harvesting, planters developed “optimal” plantation layouts to aid in the maximization of crop yields. To successfully practice cane agriculture, a series of structures were required, including: the boiling, curing, and processing buildings, a minimum of one mill, slave villages, or workers camps (post-
Emancipation), the Great House, the overseer’s house, and other ancillary buildings including a slave hospital (hothouse), servants quarters, tradesmen’s post, and kitchen
(Mintz 1985:47).
Those present on such a landscape included the plantation owners or planter elite, the white indentured servants, usually domestic servants, and the enslaved African population (Dunn 1972:263). These populations were socially stratified in a hierarchy placing the plantation owners at the top and the enslaved Africans at the bottom. This stratification was present in every aspect of life on the plantation, from clothing and diets, to rights afforded to the various groups. Plantation owners set the rules for the governing of the slaves much to their advantage, not affording this population many human rights.
Indentured servants were in a class above the slaves working on the landscape and as white European settlers, were also afforded certain rights to protect themselves and their working conditions (Dunn 1972:263).
Slaves working on the landscape, however, had no rights and were considered human chattel. They were often worked to death as witnessed by the high mortality rates throughout this period of slavery (Gasper 1985:100). Horrors experienced by African
16 slaves began well before they ever made landfall on their new plantation home, as thousands were shipped on crowed slave ships, in horrendous conditions often with little room to move, and little air to breathe (Davis 2006:92). The average mortality rate for shipments of slaves to the New World was 15 percent but could range from 5 to 33 percent (Davis 2006:93). Those who survived the Atlantic Passage were then sold to planters who were trying to increase profits through increased production and labor. As property of their masters, slaves were often branded with their owners’ marks. A reference to such branding can be found in the Codrington Papers dating to 1715 in which Codrington directs his estate manager to choose “out of the whole number that is onboard and mark them on the right breast with WC” (Codrington Papers, National
Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, D1610:C1).
Slaves were divided into work gangs including the field gangs, skilled craftsmen, and domestic servants (Dyde 2000:67; Gasper 1985:99). Field gangs were responsible for the labor in the field and were broken up into groups of up to 50 or 60 slaves monitored by an armed overseer on horseback (Gasper 1985:102). These field gangs often contained as many women as men, if not more, since skilled labor was a solely male space. Field gangs were responsible for the hard physical labor of planting, hoeing, weeding, harvesting, and manuring the fields. These gangs often contained men in charge of the livestock (especially oxen) and were called upon to care for the livestock as well as direct the labor of these animals upon harvesting cane and transporting products throughout the plantation (Gasper 1985:103).
Upon harvesting, mill and boiling house work was required around the clock.
Often, these tasks were completed with inadequate farming implements, and the physical
17 labor required by these gangs took its toll, adding to the high mortality rates of enslaved laborers (Dyde 2000:66; Gasper 1985:100). As the sugar industry grew, so too did the demand for large gangs of slave labor and Antigua, and the rest of the sugar islands, were in constant need for a fresh supply of slave labor (Dunn 1972:230).
Skilled craftsmen make up another important part of the gang labor system.
These include tradesmen such as carpenters, wheelwrights, and especially important, the boilerman. Such a man was highly skilled in the process of sugar production and their labor determined the quality of sugar produced. Such skilled tradesmen were considered highly valuable to the plantation system in that their trade could not be replicated by untrained labor to the same degree (Dyde 200:67).
The final gang of the slave labor system was the domestic servants. These servants were mostly women and the most attractive female slaves at that. The the fields, sugar works, and slave villages were the primary spaces of the enslaved population. In these spaces, slaves greatly outnumbered the white population. However, the domestic servants worked in the space of the white elite alongside white indentured servants and were subject to abuse and mistreatment from their white counterparts, both male and female (Gasper 1985:105).
Domestic duties included housecleaners, cooks, butlers, launderers, waiting men, seamstresses, and additional positions throughout the household to ease the lives of the elite (Gasper 1985:104). As the demand for sugar grew, the slave population increased and planters expanded their acreage for sugar cultivation. Land available for indentured servants after their servitude decreased and domestic servants were
18 represented less and less by white indentured servants and increasingly by the black,
“colored,” and “mulatto” populations on the plantation.
Over the next few decades of the late seventeenth century and into the eighteenth century, this profitable crop would become the chief export and an immensely valuable product to be shipped out of the British West Indies. Likewise, the slave trade expanded and African traders were exporting large numbers of slaves in attempt to meet demand. By 1820, 8.7 million slaves had been shipped to the New World (Davis
2006:80).
Sugar would quickly become the main commodity of the British Caribbean, exceeding all other crops in importance (Mintz 1985:38). The commodity entered the
British and European diets as a luxury spice affordable only by the elite and continued to permeate everyday life in the form of medicines, spice, and as a social signifier (Mintz
1985:80-84). The rise in demand for sugar coincided with the establishment of the
Caribbean sugar market and the simultaneous rise in popularity and consumption of coffee, tea, and chocolate throughout the British colonies (Mintz 1985:108, 38). As the demand for sugar increased, so did the supply, and by 1700, England was importing
50,000 hogsheads (upwards of 140 gallons per hogshead) of sugar only to double this number by 1730 (Mintz 1985:39).
As the sugar industry was maturing, slaves were initially provided by Dutch and English private traders. The sugar industry quickly became largely profitable, and the demand for slaves was ever increasing. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t long until the Royal
African Company, Chartered by Charles II, obtained a monopoly in the region. The company was the sole provider legally allowed to sell slaves to Barbados and the Lesser
19
Antilles and in their 40- year span of operation, the Royal African Company imported
120,000 slaves to the region (Dunn 1972:232). Although the numbers of slaves brought to the New World were staggering, the demand was never met by the supply (Dunn
1972:232). This inability to please the sugar barons eventually aided in the decline of the
Royal African Company.
Slave traders supplying the colonies with enslaved labor were obtaining these populations from certain regions in Africa. The major sources during the slave trade were the Gold Coast, the Slave Coast, and the Windward Coast (Dunn 1972:235; Thomas
1997). A large percentage of Africans brought over by the Royal African Company originated from the Guinea Coast (Dunn 1972:235). In Antigua, as sugar production became the monocrop of the island, numbers of imported slaves climbed into the thousands.
Throughout the period of slavery, enslaved peoples provided the much needed labor on the sugar plantations as well as supplementing the island with necessary provisions. Provision grounds and kitchen gardens allotted to slaves allowed them to grow crops such as pine apple, soursop, and avocados, as well as raise poultry, pigs, and much more. Some of these items were sold at the Sunday market and created an internal economy that served as both a method to placate the slave population and as a source of resistance in the face of complete oppression (Gasper 1985:146-147).
Slave resistance on Antigua was a constant fear for the planter class, who were outnumbered throughout the 1700 and 1800s. Slaves were worked to the bone, often without the proper rations. Additionally, this population was under constant threat of violence. The risk of accidents throughout the rigorous sugar production process was
20 high as malnourished and overworked slaves continued to work without rest. The enslaved population working on sugar plantations often experienced malnutrition and deprivation during droughts, when island- wide rations ran low and planters struggled to feed their large labor force (Gasper 1985:142).
Along with malnutrition, slaves were harshly punished through whipping, castration, and body mutilation for offenses such as theft, violence, or attempted runaways (Dunn 1972:240). Execution for greater offenses was not an uncommon occurrence. From a period of 1722 to 1763, compensation claims show slaves were executed in great numbers for running away, burglary, theft, violence towards whites, and felony (Gasper 1985:192). Poor rations, harsh treatment, and inadequate living conditions caused a high mortality rate on the islands (Gasper 1985:142; Dunn 1972:278).
While planters feared slave insurrections and rebellions throughout the sugar islands, slaves also lived in great fear of punishment and death. In the case of Antigua, research into resistance and revolt on Antigua reveals this culture of fear was very real for both parties. In 1736, Antiguan society was deeply shocked with the discovery of a planned slave revolt that would have meant death to all whites living on the island
(Gasper 1985:3). Discovered just days before the plan was implemented, the slave revolt revealed that it was planned and led by two trusted slaves. Court, a slave of Thomas
Kerby, justice of the Peace, and Tomboy, a merchant and planter’s trusted slave were quickly identified as the ringleaders of the revolt during the annual ball (Gasper 1984:4).
During the discovery of this plot, punishment was meted swiftly and harshly; slaves were burned, decapitated, and tortured for information. In total, 88 slaves, two of whom were from Betty’s Hope, were burned or tortured to death (Gasper 1985:30-34). The island
21 never fully recovered from the scale of the planned revolt as evidenced in correspondences and heightened legislation.
Once Antigua began to produce sugar on a large scale, the island economy changed drastically. The majority of white British planters and indentured servants became outnumbered by the great numbers of slaves brought to work on the sugar plantations that dominated the economy for over 300 years. Leadership of Antigua, like much of the Caribbean, remained in the hands of the plantocracy throughout much of its history. Turbulent governments, slave and civil unrest, and a great inequality and disparity in wealth and power represent this rule. From 1689-1704, leadership of Antigua was placed in the hands of plantation owners, Christopher Codrington II and III respectively (Carstensen 1993:4).
Betty’s Hope Plantation
Betty’s Hope Plantation is an important piece of the legacy of sugar cultivation and slave labor in Antiguan and Caribbean history. Established in the 1650s,
Betty’s Hope was owned by the Codrington family from 1674 until 1944. The plantation, residing in the favored central valley region, was the largest sugar plantation on Antigua
(Figure 3). Established in 1651, Betty’s Hope was first owned by Governor Christopher
Keynell. After Keynell’s death in 1663, his wife, Joan Hall, inherited the estate. In 1666-
67 during the sole French invasion of the island, Joan Hall fled for Nevis, leaving behind the estate and the reportedly 60 slaves living and working there (Dyde 2000:29).
On her return Antigua, Hall lost Betty’s Hope. Instead, the plantation was granted to Christopher Codrington II, the son of an established plantation owner on
22
Figure 3. Antigua, showing Betty’s Hope Plantation location with the plantation estate outlined in red. Boundaries determined by the 1755 map of the estate. Created by Catherine Davis.
Barbados, Christopher Codrington I. Betty’s Hope remained in the Codington family’s land holdings until 1944, when it was sold to Antigua and Barbuda Syndicate Estates
Limited. Betty’s Hope -- was therefore one of the longest-running sugar plantations on
Antigua and in the Caribbean region. For over 300 years, the plantation produced sugar and its by-products from 1651 until 1970, when Antigua and Barbuda Syndicate Estates
23
Limited was divested in 1969-1970 (Georgia Fox, personal communication, September 6,
2015).
At the time that Christopher Codrington II was granted Betty’s Hope, his goal was to establish Betty’s Hope and his other land holdings on Antigua as major players in the British West Indies sugar trade (Dunn 1972:58; Dyde 2000:32). Codrington II was also well established in the African slave trade on the island (Dunn 1972:59). Upon obtaining Betty’s Hope, Codrington II quickly built up his interests, and in addition to
Betty’s Hope, Codrington also owned adjacent plantations including the Cotton, Cotton
New Work, and Garden estates. Codrington also acquired neighboring Barbuda, which led to lucrative activities, such as, providing supplies for the plantations and salvaging shipwrecks off Barbuda’s coast (Dyde 2000:140). In these attempts Codrington proved to be quite successful and is attributed with reviving the sugar industry on Antigua (Dyde
2000:32).
By 1751, there were 277 documented slaves at Betty’s Hope alone
(Carstensen 1993:14). The prominence and success of the sugar estates owned by the
Codrington family in the West Indies led to two successive reigns as Governors General of the Leeward Islands, by Christopher Codrington II and III, respectively, from 1689 to
1704 (Carstensen 1993:4; Dyde 2000:37-50). The administrative duties and requirements led to extensive travel and time spent off island, away from Betty’s Hope and the
Codrington’s other plantations. Much of the daily governing of the plantation was left to overseers and managers. After the death of the third Christopher Codrington, the last of the Codrington’s to live on the estate, the governing of Betty’s Hope was done through
24 letters and correspondence, with lawyers overseeing the Codrington estates (Dyde
2000:51).
Plantation Life
Betty’s Hope Plantation consisted of both an industrial component and the residence for the Codrington family, estate managers, and those working and supporting the everyday functions of the estate (Figure 4). Enclosing the Great House was a large stone wall containing a structure at each of the four corners. These structures housed the overseer, the doctor, the accountant, and the tradesman’s quarters.
Surrounding this central compound were the ancillary buildings of the plantation. To the north, and adjacent to the Great House was the kitchen, a domestic servants’ quarters, a blacksmith shop, and the stable. To the northwest was the manager’s house and further northwest was the earliest slave village. Southwest of the Great House stood the sugar works. These consisted of the boiling house, curing house, and still house, where rum, a profitable by product of sugar production, was made. Initially, these structures are depicted as separate buildings.
Further southwest, was the location of the second slave village only depicted after the map of 1710. This slave village appears on the 1755 map, reflecting the growth of the plantation and increased sugar production on the estate (see Figure 5). Also depicted in the 1755 map is the appropriation of the former slave provision ground to the extreme southern end of the estate for further cane production.
Provisions for the plantation as well as for Codrington’s five other plantations on Antigua, were partially provided by the island of Barbuda, which the Codringtons
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Figure 4. Map of 1710 depicting the layout at Betty’s Hope. Codrington Papers, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, Microfilm CC 451.
leased from the British Crown from 1677 to 1870 at a price of one sheep per year
(Carstensen 1993: 21; Dyde 2000:37-38; Gasper 1985:66).
26
Figure 5. Close up of the 1755 map highlighting the second slave village in red. Codrington Papers, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, P-4, Microfilm Roll 1
Directly south of the Great House complex resides the two windmills of
Betty’s Hope (Figure 6). As the island caught the easterly trade winds year round, these winds were harnessed to power the sugar mills and provide cool breezes in the Great
House. Owing to the windy nature of the island, it is reported to have housed more windmills per square mile than any other island, with about 178 windmills on the island
(Carstensen 1993:9; Gasper 1985:98). Antigua, as a dry island with frequent periods of drought, required plantations to store water. To meet the needs of the estate, four large cisterns were built directly east of the Great House complex after 1710.
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Figure 6. The double windmills at Betty’s Hope. Image by Catherine Davis.
Surrounding both the industrial and residential aspects of the site were extensive cane fields of the estate.
Sugar production at Betty’s Hope depended on slave labor throughout the process and followed the tedious, grueling and exhausting pattern of planting, harvesting, and processing cane. Sugar cane stalks were planted during the wet season by digging 4-foot to 8-foot squares in a process termed “holeing.” Cane stalks were laid horizontally in squares and then covered with soil. Sprouts from these sections of cane would grow on either end of the planted segment and take a little over a year to mature (Mintz 1985:21).
28
Harvesting began during the dry season and lasted for several months. Stalks of cane were cut in segments and carted off for processing at the windmills. Cane was fed into the crushing rollers of the windmills, with each windmill processing up to two acres worth of harvested cane a day (Carstensen 1993:6-9; Mintz 1985:21). The field gangs in
Antigua were in large part female- dominated (Dunn 1972:315). These gangs bore the brunt of the physical labor, and women both pregnant and nursing were not spared from the harsh demands of sugar production.
Juice extracted from the cane was sent to the boiling house, where it was placed in a series of large cast iron pots (Figure 7). Calcium oxide was then added to the juice and the mixture was boiled until it reached the crystalized stage, known as
Figure 7. Extant portion of the boiling house on Betty’s Hope. Photo by Catherine Davis.
29 muscovado sugar, which had the consistency of molasses. Fires for this boiling process were stoked constantly while the juice was ladled from the largest to the smallest pots.
Once cooled, this mass of sugar was transferred to large clay sugar pots, where the extraneous liquid could evaporate. The molasses by-product was added to large vats of water located at the backside of the Still House, where the rum was made at Betty’s
Hope. The crystallized sugar was packed in large hogsheads (barrels), and then transported to nearby wharfages on the island, such as the one at the village of Parham.
(Carstensen 1993:12; Mintz 1985:21).
Slavery at Betty’s Hope
To plant, harvest, process the sugar, and make rum, a large labor force was required. African slave labor in Antigua became the backbone of the sugar economy. The system of slavery increased to meet the needs of the growing sugar industry on the island.
This growth is reflected in the records kept on the island. In 1646, Antigua’s population accounted for about 750 people, mostly English plantation owners and indentured laborers, many of whom were Irish. By 1678, in the span of only 30 years, the population reached 4,480 of which 2,172 were recorded as black (Gasper 1985:67). By 1720, slaves accounted for 84 percent of the Antiguan population at upwards of 19,000 slaves (Gasper
1985:78; Carstensen 1993:14). The number of slaves imported to Antigua tripled in the years from 1722 to 1726, demonstrating the complete transition to production of sugar on the island (Gasper 1985:78).
Betty’s Hope Today
Betty’s Hope was sold by the Codrington family in 1944. In 1972, the
Antiguan government officially shut down all sugar production at the estate (Carstensen
30
1993:17). Today, Betty’s Hope serves as a stop on the tourist route, and is the subject of ongoing research. The Betty’s Hope Trust was formed in 1990 to preserve the site with the goal of restoration and to create an open air museum to assist in the process for
Antiguans and Barbudans coming to terms with and reconstructing their history
(Cartensen 1993:1). Betty’s Hope serves a local center for learning about the island’s history through school field trips, as well as an interpretation center for locals and tourists. A structure that continue to be used well into the 1900s, just west of the Great
House complex, has been converted into an on-site interpretation center with interpretive exhibits, including artifacts from the sugar production era. The 50-acre site also includes interpretive signage at key points of the immediate area near the Great House remains, which were excavated from 2007 to 2012.
Extant Structures
Few of the structures that made up Betty’s Hope Plantation survived into the present day. Today, the remains of the former manager’s house, a small cistern, and large stone structure, which possibly served as a stable, remain standing to the west of the
Great House complex (see Figure 8). The remains of the rum distillery, known as the Still
House, also stand, though partially collapsed, to the southwest. The site is known for its two iconic windmills. In 1990, 2012, and 2015, the north windmill underwent a series of restorations, and serves as an important landmark at the site. Also remaining are the four large cisterns east of the Great House, two of which remained in use well into the latter half of the twentieth century.
31
5.
3. 4.
1. 2.
Figure 8. Satellite imagery of Betty’s Hope showing extant structures: 1) Sugar works, 2) Twin windmills, 3) Four cisterns, 4) Exposed Great House foundations, 5) Managers building (ESRI).
Archaeological Investigations at Betty’s Hope
Archaeological investigations at Betty’s Hope have been ongoing with the establishment of the Betty’s Hope Archaeological Field School and Project in 2007
(Figure 9). In 2007, Dr. Georgia Fox from the Department of Anthropology at California
State University, Chico, began excavations at the Great House( see Figure 10), with permission from the Antiguan government and oversight provided by Dr. Reginald
Murphy. Dr. Reginald (Reg) Murphy serves as Director of Heritage Resources, Research, and Archaeology for Nelson’s Dockyard National Park and also as the Secretary General for the National Commission for UNESCO for Antigua and Barbuda.
32
Slave village c. 1710
Figure 9. Overview of the estate highlighting areas of excavation in red. Map Modified by site plan created by Cory Look.
In 2012, excavation of the Great House and kitchen ended, and attention shifted to the rum distillery and the edge of one of two main slave villages in 2014 (see Figure 11). In
2015, excavations were conducted in the heart of the slave village to the northwest of the
Great House. These excavations offer information into the daily lives and activities of those who lived at Betty’s Hope and offer important insights into a sugar estate that is a critical part of Antiguan and Caribbean history and cultural heritage. Prior to the Chico
State excavations, research conducted at the site includes an investigation done by Edith
33
Figure 10. The Great House excavation, facing north. Photo by Catherine Davis.
Gonzalez-Scollard (Gonzalez-Scollard 2008), which focused on a post-Emancipation living quarters.
In 2011 and 2012, Geneviève Godbout (University of Chicago) and Catherine
Davis (California State University, Chico) conducted test excavations north of the Great
House. In an attempt to better understand the stratigraphy and activity centers north of the great house, eleven shovel test units were excavated in 2011 with five additional shovel test units opened in 2012. The wealth of material recovered from these excavations along with structural foundations (Figure 12) confirmed this location as a high activity area as depicted in both the 1710 and 1755 maps of the estate.
34
Figure 11. Excavation at the edge of the slave village at Betty’s Hope, 2014. Photo by Georgia Fox.
Chapter Summary
This chapter explained the nature of plantation life, British expansion, and enslaved labor systems. The geographical setting, pre-Columbian history, and the nature of colonization, were used to examine how the British Caribbean islands provided an environment ripe for successful growth of the sugar industry. The chapter then discussed the site specific location and setting for this research, detailing the plantation location and extant structures, creating the setting of Betty’s Hope as the center for this investigation
While production of sugar was not unique among various planters, the plantation systems differed island to island and plantation to plantation, determined by the landscape, geology, technology, and prevailing ideas of social control, and individual planters
35
Figure 12. Structural foundations north of the Great House. Image courtesy of Geneviève Godbout and Catherine Davis, 2012.
preference. This chapter discusses the nature of colonization and of sugar production on
Antigua, laying the necessary foundation for understanding how the plantation system may have been manipulated to enhance control.
CHAPTER III
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Introduction
The following chapter examines theoretical development of Caribbean archaeology in the plantation setting, placing the Panoptic Plantation Model within the lager field of landscape theory. Investigations in Historical Archaeology of the Caribbean strive to understand the extent of social and cultural patterns and processes that have driven both European expansion and human adaptation in the early modern world. Hall and Silliman (2005) have identified several themes or dimensions including; scale, identity, materiality, agency, meaning, and representation, that drive the questions archaeologists tackle and the methods through which these questions are investigated
(Hall and Silliman 2005:9-14).
The progression of archaeological investigations, in both historical and pre- contact eras in the Caribbean, evolved from the earliest investigations, which were primarily artifact typologies and descriptive work. This research soon gave way to analytical and interpretive research. Such consisted of the investigation of forts, plantations to better understand aspects of creolization, European contact and settlement, the subjugation of indigenous peoples, capitalism, consumerism, and slavery, among a wide range of topics.
36 37
In regards to plantation archaeology in the Caribbean region, theoretical developments have included: 1) the plantocracy (top down perspective), 2) the plantation as a system, 3) power relations and economics, and 4) studies of the African Diaspora and the lower classes or a bottom up perspective (Watters 2001:88). Archaeologists traditionally focused on the Great House structure and the surrounding complex as part of a greater industrial landscape (Watters 2001:88). Plantations were viewed as small functioning systems in a network of a much larger British colonial system (Mintz
1974:60; 1985:50-55).
Caribbean Plantation Studies
Although initial investigations in Caribbean plantation archaeology were initially focused on the Great House and the plantocracy, the end of the twentieth century marked a time of theoretical growth and reexamination. The 1990s marked a change in focus on other aspects of plantation life. Trigger states that “Postprocessualism is the inevitable rediscovery of the concept of culture as a source of cross-culturally idiosyncratic variation in human beliefs and behavior” (Trigger 2006:452). In the
Caribbean, this is evident as research began to turn towards a study of multiethnic and diverse culture processes, rather than as an investigation of a closed and elite European system. How people adapted to life in the islands within a colonial landscape, and modified their surroundings both physically and socially, to create a uniquely Afro-
Caribbean or Creole experience becomes a new focus of work done at this time (Johnson
1990; Trouillot 1992). Slave narratives and marginalized experiences also began to come to the forefront. This included gender and power relations (Hodder 1992:26).
38
Traditionally, archaeology on the islands has tended to be site specific, or even constrained by island boundaries (Howson 1990). In recent years, more researchers have been calling for a global application of research, investigating overarching economic and political connections (Gilchrist 2005:332). This approach is looking to create an understanding of the connection all sites have in a larger network of sociocultural and economic relations.
One major influence in work of this nature done in the British Caribbean is that of Agorsah’s research in the African Diaspora. In one of many studies conducted,
Agorsah examines the cultural relationship between native African communities and slave built systems in the Caribbean. This is done through excavation and analysis of artifacts at Efutu, Ghana, a site in Africa that would have been one of the last stops for enslaved Africans before reaching the New World, and the maroon sites including one called Nanny Town, important in Jamaican history (Agorsah 1993:185).
Examining consistencies in the two culture groups, along with ethnographical and historical documents, Agorsah proposes that linkages between cultural life-ways can be identified (Agorsah 1993:192). This study propels our knowledge in understanding how African slaves coped with the harshness of Caribbean slavery, and how they held onto their cultural heritage in these extreme circumstances. Research into these slave societies is mainly focused on the plantation experience, but other work into maroon societies, or resistance groups, also aids in reimagining the Afro-Caribbean narrative, from one of passive acceptance to a study that acknowledges the rich and varied reactions to slavery.
39
As archaeologists have moved to understanding complex cultural systems through material remains, they have also turned questions of nuanced social and cultural relationships within groups of varied interconnectedness. In the Caribbean, researchers have made considerable efforts to break down plantation social circles, lifeways, and experiences through various themes such as the diaspora study mentioned above, as well as, asking questions of the implications that a rigid plantation system would have on all those impacted.
Landscape Theory
Although historical archaeology in the Caribbean is maturing as an area of research, investigations into the spatial dynamics of power have recently begun to gain attention from researchers in the field. Archaeologist studying the plantation system often turn to the Landscape framework to study labor and life on the plantation estate. In doing so, a more complete picture begins to appear of what daily life and the mental landscape of differing groups may have been.
The archaeology of plantations has often turned to analyzing entire plantation layouts to better understand ideas of power, social, and industrial relationships on these unique landscapes. In the Caribbean, many theories of social and working relations have focused around the location and material remains of the Great House and slave villages and what this information can reveal about the lives of those who inhabited them
(Farnsworth 2001; Hall and Silliman 2006; Higman 1987). In uncovering these landscapes, the focus of the Great House in relation to slave villages is often used to examine theories of a central power.
40
The sugar plantation, and especially large sugar plantations such as Betty’s
Hope, were at once domestic and industrial landscapes. By investigating such sites one must consider both aspects in understanding the life-ways of those living in this region.
Historically, plantations have been viewed as unique cultural systems. These systems were designed and perpetuated by a privileged elite expressing control over large amounts of land and people (Pulsipher and Goodwin 2001:200). Many have attempted to answer questions of how different groups experienced this landscape and how the landscape may have been constructed by the elite in such a way as to impress a hierarchical and industrially efficient enterprise.
Landscape archaeology focuses on the complex issues involved in the way people consciously and unconsciously modified the land around them and how place has effected human behavior (Branton 2009:52). Humans have shaped and changed the landscape for various reasons including but not limited to subsistence, economic, social, religious, and political purposes. Likewise, investigations in this vein approach landscape and space with the understanding that structures on the landscape are not randomly placed (Orser 1995:53). Space, therefore, becomes a reflection of human life and life- ways that archaeologists can study to aid in understanding cultural systems (Orser
1995:53; Ashmore and Knapp 1999:1-2). The study of interaction with landscapes has the potential to reveal how people perceived their landscape, as well as, various aspects of their lives and is a unique and powerful source of information.
Landscape, as a framework of study utilizing place to reveal agency, identity, and cultural processes, was first a geographical concept beginning in the early 1900s that eventually permeated many disciplines including archaeology, cultural anthropology, and
41 architecture (Sauer 1925:46; Anschuetz et. al. 2001:165; Cosgrove 2008:1). In archaeology, the landscape framework was first developed in the British school in the mid-twentieth century and archaeologists made connections between the material landscape and the mental place created by a community (Anschuetz et al. 2001:173-174).
Today, researchers investigate the interconnectedness of space and cultural place with no definite agreement on the definition of landscape as a framework.
Researchers often disagree over the degree to which place and space are interconnected
(Anschetz et al. 2001:158; Branton 2009:52). There are several unifying factors, however, for investigations under the landscape framework. These include the fact that landscape, as a method of study, is always referencing spatial data to ascertain specific relationships, for example: “access to resources, visibility, nearness or distance to other places, and such less ecological qualities as beauty, highness, lushness, color, or relative height in comparison to other places” (Branton 2009:52). Included in these are four premises identified by Anschuetz et al. (2001), that provide a foundation for landscape as a paradigm and are as follows: 1) landscapes are not merely the physical world, they are comprised of cultural systems influencing the way people interact with the natural world;
2) landscapes are cultural constructs; 3) Landscapes are comprised of the entire extent of individual and cultural exchange, not merely the physical expression ; and 4) they are dynamic, changing with time as lifetimes pass and cultural change occurs (Anschuetz et. al. 2001:160-161).
Landscapes are not solely the natural environment and the people living within; rather they consist of cultural systems that impact the way people interact with the natural environment (Cosgrove 1985:13; Anschuetz et al. 2001:160). The idea of
42 landscape as a cultural system is one that looks at landscape as a result of how daily lives and the cognitive landscape transform the land into places of cultural meaning on several scales, from the individual to the community (Anschuetz et. al. 2001:160-161). Tilley
(2006) argues that the nature of place is strongly and inexorably tied to identity; who we want to be, surround ourselves with, and whom we would like to exclude or define a distance between (Tilley 2006:14-15).
In the Caribbean, this framework has added valuable insight into how
European systems of place collided with a new world economy to create a frontier landscape revealing notions of identity on the plantation. Archaeologists have studied how plantation owners purposefully designed their landscapes and the intent in which this layout was designed. As the sugar industry grew, many optimal plantation layouts were defined and promoted as a design template for owners of the day. Accounts of effective plantation guidelines can be found in many writings from this period. These guidebooks, log books, pamphlets, personal accounts, and maps of the time are heavily utilized in understanding social and economic factors at play in the plantation system (Lenik
2011:52).
One such guidebook was that written by plantation owner Samuel Martin in
1773, in which he describes the best places to plant crops, when to harvest, how to treat the enslaved labor force to maximize profits, and what provisions should be kept on the estate (Martin 1773). Martin, the owner of the Greencastle estate on Antigua, writes in detail of the treatment of slaves and benefits and securities provided to the enslaved population on sugar estates (Martin 1773:vi). Martin explains that while punishment may be necessary, it need not be severe (Martin 1773:x). Proper treatment of slaves in this
43 guide book cautions for benevolence, to ensure that slaves are provided with necessary means for survival, and are well clothed and fed (martin 1773:4). This treatment is viewed as a necessity for the production of a healthy sugar harvest, and is described in a way that is akin to investing into one’s self interest, rather than caring for the humanity and rights of slaves in question. Martin explains that not only should the physical realm of the slave be kept comfortable and clean, but that they should be treated with tenderness to imbue a sense of duty, and to ensure healthy and productive slaves (Martin 1773:6).
Through such guidebooks and investigations into the plantation system, archaeologists have begun to understand how the plantation system was constructed in a manner that defined and perpetuated authority, power, and a hierarchical class system in the minds of all who lived and worked on plantations (Delle 1998:159; Upton 1988:362).
Throughout the Caribbean region, how people, both elite and marginalized, created, recreated, and negotiated this rigid system is a topic that has been studied by many with the aid of multiple lines of inquiry.
The Landscape of labor, as a critical process in establishing and negotiating social and economic relations is an area of study that offers valuable insights into the plantation system. Investigations into the systems of labor and society allows for insights on the way “administrators, overseers, capitalists, Managers, and supervisors structured and imposed labor and the ways those laboring, accommodated, resisted, made use of, and lived through labor situations” (Silliman 2006:149). Silliman also points out that labor investigations are not solely investigations into the machinery and the industrial complex of the labor setting, but are also at once, investigations into the social milieu of
44 those within this labor system (Silliman 2006:149). Labor, in this way, is viewed as a process that aided in the ways people shaped the world around them.
An example of investigations into one such cultural system is found in historian Philip D. Morgan’s work understanding the task system and slavery in the low country of South Carolina and Georgia (1988:203-232). In his research, Morgan examines the labor system used in low country rice plantations of the antebellum South and how this task system allowed for a culture and economy unique to the slave population to thrive (Morgan 1988:205). Rice plantations in the South had a different labor requirement than sugar or tobacco plantations and therefore allowed for an alternative labor system to flourish (Morgan 1988:206). The task system employed in rice plantations examined in this work is unlike the gang system of plantation labor employed throughout the Caribbean, and other parts of North and South America, in the sense that it allowed for slaves the ability to complete daily tasks followed by time for personal tasks (Morgan 1988:205).
This task system is portrayed as a system in which slaves were given daily tasks or goals to complete, both in the field and throughout the rice plantation, such as a set number of poles to split for fence mending, or certain amount of acreage to work.
After completing these clearly defined tasks, both time consuming and physically rigorous, the slaves were allowed to self-govern their remaining time, as well as, given land to plant crops for personal gain (Morgan 1988:205). Comparing the task system labor requirements with how it allowed for a private slave economy to flourish is the focus of Morgan’s study. Concluding with the view that the task system and this
45 domestic economy was a key factor in the adaptation of the post emancipation population to freedom in the low country South (Morgan 1988:225).
As Morgan demonstrates in his work, this system of labor, and land use is important when understanding the complex social and physical aspects of everyday life on a plantation system. Although the labor system on British sugar plantations differs from that of the low country south, this work highlights the importance of the interplay between landscape, and labor in establishing social systems. This is done through examining the nature of the industry, the demands of the crop, the labor system that grew from these factors and social and economic cultural systems that sprang to life in the enslaved population.
This theoretical framework offers important insights into the daily lives on the frontier of European expansion and colonization of the New World. Through the analysis of place, labor, and social relations, insights into how people negotiated this environment can aid the understanding of this complex and global system. Investigations into how the landscape was employed in this setting offers important insights into the process of colonization and how people in this system were enforced, controlled, and exploited, and how they negotiated and resisted in an unequal, rigidly structured class system that was both local and global (Silliman and Hill 2006:153).
These investigations are integral for understanding colonial economies, capitalism, and class structures that are some of the hallmarks of European colonization
(Silliman 2006:153-155).Labor and the production of raw goods was a crucial drive of
European expansion, and in the Caribbean frontier, this labor demand was met with a
46 burgeoning society composed of vastly different cultural groups establishing new patterns of coexistence and survival in this unforgiving region.
The Panopticon and the Panoptic Plantation
The panoptic plantation model tested in this paper is derived from work into panoptic plantation layout from authors mentioned throughout this text. The Panoptic
Plantation views the plantation as a landscape that manipulates space and lines of site to provide a social, mental, and physical superiority to the planter class (Higman 1987:24;
Bates 2007:66; Randle 2001:109; Lenik 2011:54). The theory of the panoptic plantation can be traced back to social theorist, Jeremy Bentham, and his writings on Panopticon beginning in 1786 (Brunon-Erst 2012:8). Bentham began writing about the Panopticon as a method of prison reform. Throughout his life, the Panopticon would take several forms, but it is this early writing that is widely interpreted and forms the foundation for the
Panoptic Plantation Model examined in this thesis.
The Panopticon as a theory of prison reform was developed by an eighteenth century social reformist Jeremy Bentham, in which he aimed to improve the prison structure of the time. Writings on the Panopticon, appearing in the latter half of the eighteenth century, focused on reforming the way jailors monitored inmates and the system with which inmates were treated and therefore reformed. Bentham’s Panopticon proposed a form of building structure and placement that could be used to manipulate the internal and social construct of the inmate and a manner of jailing that stressed extreme control over the inmate’s daily life and sensory input to create a desired effect (Bentham
1843:498). In creating the “perfect prison,” Bentham believed that such constant and
47 present surveillance and control instilled a power relationship in the prisoners in such a way that whether or not they were being watched at any moment in time, they were constantly recreating the power relations imposed on them, thus creating an unequal and weakened place for themselves in their own mental universe (Miller and Miller 1987:6).
There are three main aspects to the panopticon Bentham proposed: 1) a circular structure with the guard tower rising high in the center; 2) an unobstructed view of the prisoners by the guard in the tower; and 3) A prison structure, in which the prisoners were unaware of whether or not they were being watched. The construction would be in such a way that at any one moment in time the guard could freely and easily observe his prisoners while always remaining unseen. This idea of carefully crafted sight established an internal power relationship in the prisoner’s mind, reestablishing the inequality of power and superiority of the guard in his tower (Miller and Miller 1987:27).
While Bentham’s theory of the Panopticon would eventually take four forms, this early interpretation is the most widely known due to Foucault’s writings on the topic in Discipline and Punish (Foucault 1977). Foucault examined Bentham’s Panopticon through a social and widely applicable lens (Foucault 1977:196). Foucault theorized that this form of mental control could be used to exert power on all aspects of society in which surveillance could be applied (Foucault 1977:205; Brunon-Ernst 2012:18).
Foucault viewed Bentham’s panoptic structure as form of oppression, not only limited to prisoners, but applicable in varied social contexts and propels this idea of control into the social realm to examine how relationships can be created and manipulated using visibility to create a form of a surveillance society (Semple 1993:114). Foucault viewed the effects
48 of the panopticon a method of “disindividualizing” power and creating an automatic and unfaltering source of both authority and punishment (Foucault 1977:202).
This theory, when adapted to the plantation landscape, proposes that a plantation landscape was designed in such a way that the central and most prominent feature on the landscape was the Great House, which symbolized the elite power structure. Representing power and control over the landscape. Such power was created and perpetuated in such a way that the constant visibility of all surrounding lands and opportunity or possibility for surveillance at any moment in time created a mental prison for those working on the plantation (Randall 2011:106-108). In the works referenced in this section, the panopticon is studied through the use of an established panoptic plantation design (Epperson 2000; Delle 2002; Higman 1987; Delle 1998; Randle 2011:
Bates 2007) and implement GIS to test the applicability of panoptic control (Bates 2007;
Randle 2011; Delle 2002).
The model derived from this theory places the Great House and overseer’s houses in locations that optimize visibility and place the working centers and slave villages in locations of optimal visibility (Bates 2007:66; Delle 1999:52; Upton
1988:362). These locales serve to enforce labor and social relations in the minds of those living on the landscape and aid in control over daily functioning of the plantation system for the planter elite. Investigations into the applicability of a model based on this theory to plantation archaeology have shown promising results. Historical archaeologists such as, James Delle (1998, 2002), Terrance Epperson (2000), Barry Higman (1987), Dell
Upton (1998), and Lynsey Bates (2007), and geographer Lisa Randle (2011), have
49 applied this theory into investigations of social control and plantation systems throughout the Caribbean and North America.
Panoptic Plantation Model examines the plantation system through the lens of power relations as imposed on an ingrained social structure that stems from manipulation of the landscape. The landscape is modified in such a way that lines-of-sight (a line of unobstructed vision) and building placement reinforce the plantation hierarchy and impose an oppressed mental state on the slave and working populations. This model, therefore, aims to examine how the landscape was manipulated to enforce control over the enslaved populations and how carefully crafted spaces of interaction may define behavior (Delle 2002:343; Upton 1988:362). Inherent in this model is the notion of intent. Plantations were intentionally crafted in such a way as to maximize power and subjugate by surveillance (Delle 2002:343). Through examining plantation layouts and documentary evidence, the following authors attempt to reveal how plantation owners intentionally manipulated the landscape creating at once a population of disempowered people and unquestioning authority.
Higman (1987:29) examines plantation layouts through such a lens, when he investigates spatial relationships on Jamaican sugar plantations through the use of cartometry to analyze movement-minimization and social control factors on plantation estates (Higman 1987:17). In his investigation, Higman draws measurements of spatial relationships from 132 plans and maps of large sugar estates that list boundaries, cane fields, works, supporting structures, laborers villages, and the Great House (Higman
1987:18). To test the movement minimization and social control theories, Higman uses measurements of distance taken from land-use elements on the landscape from their mid-
50 points including: works to the nearest and furthest property boundaries, the furthest cane field, pasture field, field under Guinea grass, slave housing, Great House, and provision grounds. Higman also takes measurements from the midpoint of the Great House to the laborers villages (Higman 1987:18-19).
Movement-minimization would place the works in a central location in the estate to minimize movement necessary on the landscape. The movement-minimization theory stems from the notion that planters would want their works in a central location for the efficiency of cane processing (Higman 1987:22). In his analysis, Higman finds considerable variation in placement of works, concluding that several factors need to be taken into consideration along with movement-minimization (Higman 1987:28).
Higman posits that another factor to consider in the spatial arrangement of plantations is social control, stating that “An alternative explanation of the location of the estate close to the works lies in the planters’ desire to maintain surveillance over the comings and goings of their laborers…in this interpretation the village is seen to be tied to the location of the Great House” (Higman 1987:29). In this theory, the planters desire to maintain surveillance over the laborers on the estate in both the works, where they would spend long hours and in the slave village, creates a correlation between the Great
House and these locations. This idea of surveillance is also central to the theory of the panoptic plantation utilized in this thesis.
Delle (1998; 1999; 2002) used Jamaican coffee plantations to examine social space, concluding that plantations as a true “Bentham panopticon” established control through the idea of surveillance and visibility (Delle 1999:161). Delle states that the plantation layout was designed for the maximization of panoptic viewscapes (Delle
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1999:152). Methods applied to his research include viewshed analysis through geographical information systems (GIS) software. Using this software, Delle creates observer points on the landscape in keeping with his theory of central power and social relations.
Delle (1999:153) investigates the line of sight from these observer points to the landscape and concludes that surveillance played a part in the plantation’s design. He also investigates locations of elite’s domestic spaces after emancipation and suggests that changes in these locations reflect changes in social relations of the time. Viewscapes changed from overseeing places of labor as well as domestic locations, to the sole supervision of the manufacturing of goods on the plantation (Delle 1999:152). This evidence further serves to strengthen his argument that elites did use surveillance as a form of control in the period of enslaved labor.
In a later work, Delle (2002) re-examines his theory of social space and power, expanding on the theory behind social control and intent. Delle likens the manipulation of space to enforce control to the social and cultural spaces of relevance that effect behavior today, such as whispering in a museum (Delle:2002:343). Addressed in this paper is the impossibility of a plantation estate to constantly survey the entire population, thus the necessity for a system in which people self-regulate behavior becomes ever more important (Delle:2002:343). Delle uses GIS to conduct a regional study of plantations in Jamaica, specifically in the Negro River Valley region.
The use of several tools in the GIS suite of analytical tools creates an output in which Delle concludes that plantation houses were visible from at least four other houses on the landscape, further reinforcing the panoptic or surveillance enforced control on the
52 landscape (Delle 2002:350). In understanding the lines-of-sight on the plantation landscape Delle also looks at an individual plantation, the Clydesdale plantation, and assigned two viewscapes from the overseer’s location on the plantation. The results of these viewscapes indicate a layout in which the overseer’s house was specifically designed so that they may survey slaves at work and to and from their villages (Delle
2002:353).
Randle (2011) applies Geographical Systems Analysis (GIS) to answer if the use of visibility, distance, and location of plantation elements supports the panoptic model of plantation design on a regional scale (Randle 2011:108). Randle focusses on intervisibility between slave settlements and big house locations to identify the applicability of control through visibility (Randle 2011:108). Randle’s study area lies in the Lower Coastal Plain north of Charleston South Carolina characteristic of swamplands, creeks where rice plantations flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Randle 2011:108).
In following with the plantation layout, Randle asserts, that the cartographic analysis of this region portrays a “typical panoptic plantation layout” with the big house located centrally surrounded by the remaining structures of the plantation and overlooking the extent of the estate (Randle 2011:110). In her study, Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) is used to analyze the relationship between plantation layouts and panoptic control through viewshed and cumulative viewshed analyses. Randle tests intervisibility between the big houses at several plantations in the region with their accompanying slave settlements through selecting observation points in the center of both the big houses and slave settlements.
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The assessment of viewsheds for ten plantations in the region results in two clusters. Cluster I, which follows the panoptic plantation model and a second (Cluster II) that seemingly does not. Geographical information systems analysis results indicate that
Cluster I plantations contain high visibility of the slave settlements from the estate big houses and even on occasion, neighboring big houses (Randle 2011:119-122). The level of intervisibility of these two locations on these estates would support the Panoptic
Plantation Model that estate owners used sight to control populations on the estate. The second cluster is representative of a group of plantations that seemingly placed more importance of visibility of waterways than slave settlements. Through the use of GIS and cartographic data, Randle has identified areas of interest and targeted areas future research. She points to several limitations of the study and the need for further research and analysis but has demonstrated the utility of GIS viewshed analysis in identifying patterns falling within the panoptic plantation model (Randle 2011).
Likewise, Lynsey Bates (2007) applies GIS to employ a cumulative viewshed technique to aid in testing the centrality of surveillance at Stewarts Castle Estate in
Jamaica. For this study she creates a grid of points with which to calculate viewsheds assigning the entire landscape within the scope of the project a ranking for intervisibility.
The output of this model displays the landscape in various degrees of visibility, showing optimal locations of visibility on the landscape (Bates 2007:40). Bates uses the output of this cumulative viewshed to determine the role lines-of-sight may have played at
Stewart’s Castle, testing the centrality of surveillance as a determining factor in site layout.
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Epperson employs the panoptic plantation model to two gardens of power,
Gunston Hall and Monticello and examines their designs using this theory of surveillance and power (Epperson 2000:58-77). Epperson suggests that since these gardens were created in the mid-1700s around the time the panopticon and Bentham’s theory was being applied and discussed in English architectural realms, that the ideas employed are very present in these constructions. He states that the power and status is employed through control of vision and command of landscape. Much like the plantation landscape,
Epperson draws comparisons from the panopticon and the engineering of elite spaces that activity control viewscapes and manipulates how various people experience the landscape
(Epperson 2000:60-71).
Epperson (2000:70) also touches on the results of a location of obstructed slave villages in his interpretation of the landscape at Gunston Hall and Monticello. In his research, the ability to manipulate of lines-of-sight itself is a form of panoptic control, whether the slave villages can be seen or not and the internal social structure likewise, places the planter or elite class at the top, with command over the landscape and those living and working there as objects to control, own, and manipulate at the owners whim.
Like Bentham’s prison, where social control is exhibited in limiting lines-of- sight, in the gardens of power, Epperson portrays a landscape in which the elite has command of view and control in similarly limiting lines-of-sight (Epperson 2000). Since the structures themselves do not command the same awe as castles or structures built to impose by their presence, power comes from viewing the landscape and the ability to survey the extent from one vantage point, while simultaneously choosing what is hidden.
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The architects of these gardens of power make the choice to hide unsightly or undesirable structures from view by careful placement and construction of obstructions to their line of sight. The source of power in this case is in control of vantage point along the landscape. Epperson compares this control with the panopticon plantation in which the Planter’s power comes from control of surveillance. The connection thus lies in the status and power difference inherent in this access and command of the landscape.
Unequal power dynamics on the landscape are obvious to those who study the plantation landscape. That the plantation Great House served as a symbolic structure of power on the landscape is unquestioned in the research of many. Theories to test power relation have attempted to prove these notions of power on the landscape and the dominating factors behind them. In these studies, authors explain how power is imprinted on the landscape. The authors show the value in research into these forms of control and their potential social signifiers. In these landscapes, surveillance is viewed as enforcing a power structure in which those of privilege and power control and retain optimal positions on the landscape and these positions are tied directly to control of surveillance.
Concluding this control over surveillance reinforces an unequal power dynamic in the minds of those working on the landscape. Effectively stripping the marginalized of power by the subconscious communication that they are not in control, that their lives and daily movements can be viewed and directed at the discretion of the elite, and that punishment is both severe and assured.
The panoptic plantation design has been adopted by several authors as a way to exhibit how the plantation layout was intentionally designed to create and reinforce a complete and disempowering social stratification that subjugated the slave population.
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While there are many merits to this theory, there are several issues that go unaddressed.
While slave resistance spaces is often acknowledged, these do not get addressed in the creation, or manipulation of the panoptic plantation model. The degree of control on a plantation landscape is not fully addressed in the papers explored in this chapter.
Power on a panoptic plantation is solely in the hands of the elite estate owners and overseers and the layout is one that is designed to disempower the slave population to a point of internal reorganization and self-governance in accordance with the plantation system. This theory does not explain the constant fear of the plantation estate holders over the threat, and actualized slave revolt. This also lets micro or resistance cultures go unaddressed. Slave societies developed in this region carried unique culture traits and practices that were above the purview of the oppressor’s scope of knowledge and control.
How these spaces may affect panoptic control or aid in the subjugation or resistance of the panoptic plantations needs further attention.
Likewise, this theory establishes places of surveillance and power in a fixed position from the Great House and overseer’s house without a way to test the oversight and control faced through the gang labor system. Slaves were constantly monitored in the slave labor system established on sugar estates and not solely from the fixed position this model establishes. The mobility of surveillance does not factor into the model developed from the above works. How the model may change to factor in mobility of surveillance, unique culture systems, and spaces of resistance are important to consider when applying this model to a plantation landscape.
Finally, the plantation layout and its effect on the slave population in regulating behavior is the focus of this model with minor if any attention placed on the
57 effects this plantation design had on the elite classes and subjugating forces. How this landscape hierarchy enabled, aided, and reinforced the slave-master system in the minds of the planter elite is a promising and under examined portion of this model.
This thesis further examines the theory of panoptic plantation, through careful testing of the model developed through several bodies of work examined above. The purpose of testing this model is twofold, to examine the ways in which the landscape was designed to enforce a socially stratified and controlled system of enforced labor, and to attempt to understand the limitations of such a study.
These studies employ landscape systems to reach conclusions about power relations that cannot be derived at without the aid of historical documentation. Maps, accounts of daily lives, and personal communications offer further insight into the motivation of those carving out these lands. The British colonial landscape was fairly well documented and these documents, along with archaeological investigations are employed test the theory of panoptic plantations of Betty’s Hope. These studies have attested to the applicability of historical documents, maps, ground survey, GIS, and satellite imagery to examine landscapes of power.
For the purpose of this research, the panoptic model was tested at Betty’s
Hope, using two historical maps gathered from the Codrington papers. In addition, satellite imagery was used to create and run analyses using geographical information systems technology. The results of this analysis will aid in determining the applicability of the panoptic model as a determining factor in the layout of Betty’s Hope plantation and add to the growing body of work done in this field.
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Chapter Summary
The previous chapter demonstrated the utility of landscape theory, and labor relations in investigating the British plantation system. The chapter also covered the nature of the model employed in this thesis, the premise of surveillance as a form of control and the imprint this may leave behind on the landscape. The chapter briefly introduced historical archaeology and the theoretical and investigative progress within in the field. Following the introduction this discipline, this chapter introduced Caribbean archaeology and development in this sub-discipline. Landscape and labor relations were defined and research within these theoretical frameworks were discussed as they pertain to my research at Betty’s Hope. Finally, the Panoptic Plantation Model was covered in depth detailing the development of this theory from a form of prison control to an idealized form of social control and finally as a way to understand how surveillance and manipulation of the landscape is thought to have affected the behavior of slaves, working class, and elite alike.
CHAPTER IV
METHODOLOGY AND DATA
COLLECTION
Introduction
The methodology applied to this research combines geographical information systems analysis (GIS), selections from the Codrington papers, and fieldwork to test the panoptic theory of plantation layout at Betty’s Hope. The research applied to this model is based upon an estate layout as portrayed by the 1755 map of the estate. The 1755 map was created by a surveyor of the British Crown, Sam Clapham (Codrington Papers,
National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda P-4, Microfilm Roll 1).
The map originates from the Codrington Papers. As absentee landlords for over 150 years, accounts, log books, and correspondence were vital to the Codringtons for controlling and running the estate from overseas. The Codrington Papers comprise 36 rolls of microfilm and the original papers housed in the National Archives of Antigua and
Barbuda. Although no one has had access to the original papers since their sale in 1980 by the Codrington family, access to the microfilm has been possible, and the microfilm copies serve as an essential avenue of research when understanding the functioning of
Betty’s Hope and the lives of those with worked there. The microfilm copies date from the early 1700s to the 1930s and half of the Codrington Papers are now available online through Simon Fraser University.
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Archival Data
The map of 1755 obtained from the Codrington papers serves the basis of determining building placement on Betty’s Hope Estate for this analysis (see Figure 13).
The utilization of such cartographic information has been attested to in similar research using plantation estate maps. In Higman’s (1987) study of plantation layouts in
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Jamaica, he utilizes 132 plans of sugar estates.
These plans were selected due to certain requirements: they must contain a layout of the internal structures of the site and a legend that defines the function of these structures
(Higman1987:18).
Higman’s assessment of the accuracy of such plans when compared point by point with modern-day topography maps finds that “a premium was placed on the accuracy of representation and measurement, and a low value on decorative qualities”
(1987:18). He also identifies a range of error for a sample of these maps to be less than two percent in distance measurements and boundary lines (Higman 1987:18). In his research Higman also notes these estate plans are typical of estate maps produced throughout this region during this period (Higman 1987:37). This research does point to factors to consider when using an estate plan for analysis, echoed by many who have used these documents in their research.
While both the map of 1710 and the maps of 1755 were used as references in understanding the plantation layout, the map of 1755 was used as the primary basis for building and slave village locations. The map of 1710 was not used because is portrayed a more stylized interpretation of the estate, depicting the aspects of the plantation without much accuracy in distances between elements. While this map does contain a key
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Figure 13. Close up of the estate structures. (aa) Double Windmills, (b) Boilinghouse, (c) Stillhouse, (d) Curinghouse, (e) Great House, (f) Doctor’s rooms, (g) Bookkeeper, (h) Overseer, (i) Tradesman, (k) Cisterns, (l) Servants rooms, (m) Hothouse, (n) Kitchen, (o) Blacksmiths shop, (p) stable. Map of 1755, Betty’s Hope Estate. Codrington papers, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, P-4, Microfilm Roll 1.
62 detailing the structures depicted the buildings are in no discernable scale. In contrast, the map of 1755 appears more accurate in location and scale of elements depicted on the map.
The map of 1755 also follows the criteria Higman (1987:18) employed in his research of historic plantation estate maps, whereby the most reliable scale and measurement with plantation maps are the cane fields (Higman1987:18). While the presentation and accuracy varies with a mapmaker’s intentions, both the map of 1710 and
1755 are less accurate when depicting support structures of the plantation. While both maps contain a key, the depiction of the cane fields and the general location of the plantation structures, the map of 1755 is only closer in scale. Additionally, this map is more accurate in its depiction of the plantation after the growth of the sugar industry following the rising demand of sugar. The map, dated to 1755, represents a period after expansion and growth of the plantation and sugar as an industry on the island as a whole, and contains both slave villages, the cisterns used to support the plantation, and a more accurate representation of the ancillary structures and Great House locations (Figure 13).
The layout of the 1755 map depicts the total extent of the estate for this time period, and identifies individual cane fields, sugar work locations, slave villages and the buildings of the Great House complex (Figure 14). To date, there are features at Betty’s
Hope that have been identified through archaeological survey that do not show up on either map; therefore the 1755 map is only a snapshot of the plantation in time and space.
The Great House complex is situated roughly in the center of the complex and delineated by a stone wall that surrounds it, part of which a remnant is visible today at the site. On the map, ancillary structures are situated at the corners of this stonewall and large
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Figure 14. The 1755 showing the extent of the plantation boundary. Codrington papers, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, P-4, Microfilm Roll 1.
cisterns that are the main water catchment system for the estate are situated directly behind this complex within a second stonewall. The cisterns are visible today; however, the four buildings for each corner have not been archaeologically substantiated. Shovel
64 test excavations have indicated some artifact assemblages that might be related to a blacksmith’s shop and stable, but more work remains in investigating these areas near the
Great House.
The northwest corner structure is labeled as the manager’s house on the maps key. To date, there is no archaeological evidence for a manager’s house at this location.
According to the 1755 map, the servants’ quarters lie to the north of the Great House, and to the east is the animal pasture (Figure 14). The windmills and sugar works are located to the southwest of the Great House and reside near a third, smaller cistern. This map also depicts the various locations of the two slave villages.
The earliest slave village appears to the Northwest of the Great House on both the 1710 and 1755 maps (Figure 15), while the second slave village does not appear until
Figure 15. The Map of 1710 and 1755 Betty’s Hope with the earliest slave village outlined in red. Codrington Papers, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, Microfilm CC 451 (left) and P-4, Microfilm Roll 1 (right).
65 the 1755 estate survey to the Southwest of the Great House. The slave village appearing on the earlier map is referred to as the older or first slave village in this thesis. The increased demand for sugar in the 1750s and subsequent expansion of the Betty’s Hope
Plantation to meet this demand, reflects a general trend throughout the region. This change includes additional buildings, increased acreage, and the acquisition of more slaves. These also include the addition of four large cisterns that would support the estate’s increased need for water on an island that experienced severe droughts, and another slave village. By 1755, Bettys Hope had 543 acres and over 400 slaves.
Locations of the two slave villages at Betty’s are key to creating the model with which to test the panoptic plantation theory.
Creating a testable model in GIS requires spatially georeferencing locations within the plantation to a real world coordinate system. Locations of the structures on the landscape were determined primarily by the 1755 map and ground excavation and survey. Although the 1755 map is the basis of information for the plantation layout in this study, excavation, survey, and satellite imagery, have aided in determining the accuracy of this map. The Gonzalez-Scollard (2008) excavation recovered a domestic assemblage from a location near the oldest identified slave village (also appearing on the 1755 map), showing this area was indeed an activity center. Likewise, excavations conducted at the
Great House have revealed a building layout concurrent with the placement of the Great
House and to a lesser degree, for the Great House complex on the 1755 map.
The cisterns were also a key structure that aided in building placement. Water was scarce on the island and rainwater had to be collected by cisterns, as is the case today. These structures and their location on the estate were of paramount importance.
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The cisterns at Betty’s Hope were situated directly behind the Great House complex and this placement is reflected on the 1755 map with great attention to detail (Figure 16). The cistern location, along with excavation data and standing structures aided this investigation in regards to understanding and assigning spatial location. The windmills were also of importance in the plantation estate.
Figure 16. The Cisterns at Betty’s Hope viewing southeast. Photo by Catherine Davis and Genevieve Godbout, 2012.
Geographical Information Systems
The methods for testing the panoptic plantation model included the spatial or georeferencing of the 1755 map, the digitization of map elements. The creation of a digital elevation model (DEM) of the landscape, and the implementation of spatial
67 analysis tools including viewshed and visibility were vital in testing the model. All data was projected in the WGS 1984 UTM Zone 20 coordinate system. To begin, the locations of mapped elements were established through georeferencing of the data. The GIS analysis portion of the project was completed over the course of the spring semester of
2014 with the aid of the Geography and Planning department ArcGIS software.
Georeferencing is a term used to describe the process of applying a coordinate system to a cartographic map and spatially referencing known features of this map to real world ground control points on the landscape. This can result in a skewed or shifted view of the 1755 map as those identifiable features are spatially referenced (ESRI). Control points used with modern satellite data is limited to identifiable geographic elements, such as reservoirs, roadways, and structures whose locations have not changed, such as the windmills and cisterns. As such, 37 ground control points were identifiable between the
1755 map and a 2011 Ikanos satellite (ESRI 2014) image of the landscape (Figure 17).
A DEM is a raster data model created from available topographic contours and point spot height to create a base layer of continuous ground elevations. Elevation data is stored as a value for each cell in the grid. Data for the construction of the DEM for
Antigua was gathered through three main resources: open source data available online
(eros.usgs.gov/elevation-products) was selected from NASA’s shuttle radar topography mission (SRTM), which covered the entire island; An available digital contour provided by the National Park’s division of Antigua and Barbuda, in an existing file formatted for
GIS; and a contour map of the site itself created by civil engineers in 2008 during the ongoing field research (see Appendix A). The data listed above was interpolated using
Topogrid (ESRI) to create the DEM surface. The resulting DEM produced from this data
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Figure 17. Showing ground control points used for digitization. Created by Catherine Davis.
had a ten meter horizontal resolution and one meter vertical resolution. The elevation model is essential in the application of visibility tools available in GIS since the tools employed in this research rely on surface data encoded in the DEM layer (Figure 18).
Once the 1755 map was georeferenced and projected, a process of digitizing the map features was conducted. The estate map clearly defines cane fields, sugar work structures, the Great House complex, slave villages, and other geographical features on the landscape (e.g., roads, streams, ponds, etc.). GIS vector files were created for features on the landscape including sugar cane fields, estate boundaries, cisterns, roadways, slave villages, mangers and Great House locations, and the sugar works (Figure 19). While
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Figure 18. The digital elevation model of Betty’s Hope. Created by Catherine Davis, 2014.
digitization is important to further understand the layout of the site, more importantly, it also provides observer points to run the viewshed analysis.
Viewshed Analysis
Two methods of visibility analysis are employed in this study and both are tools that can be found in GIS software, these methods involved running a cumulative viewshed, as well as, simple viewshed analyses. Viewshed is a tool that calculates lines-
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Figure19. Map of digitized plantation elements based on the 1755 estate map. Created by Catherine Davis, 2014.
of-sight from a specific point on the landscape. This tool is used to determine what is visible from locations on the landscape through the use of a DEM and produces a raster output quantifying cells by two values 0, not visible, and 1, visible from the selected vantage point.
For analysis at Betty’s Hope, viewsheds were conducted from two point layers consisting of the identified points of interests. These include Manager’s house, the Great
House which were combined to create one layer, and from a randomly sampled set of points generated from the slave villages in the second layer. These viewsheds enumerate
71 locations on the landscape that are both visible and not visible from these selected features. The viewshed locations were chosen to identify lines-of-sight from those of the elite class and lines-of-sight of the slave villages. Discrepancies in these lines-of-sight and the scope of the visibility from these locations aided in the analysis of the panopticon plantation theory at Bettys Hope.
Intervisibility on the landscape was established using the chosen observer points for the Great House and manager’s house. To aid in a more accurate depiction of visibility, these observer points were given additional height data by creating a height offset attribute and assigning the Manager’s house and Great House location an addition height of nine feet. This height was determined due to lack of knowledge of actual structure height. Although actual height of the house is not available at this time, the most precise height data was determined by averages of known factors that would affect viewer height, in this case, the average height for a man on horseback. These observer points were for the slave villages were randomly chosen through the Sampling Design
Tool (ESRI) and also given a height value through the height offset. The heights assigned to the slave village observer points were five feet ten inches. This height was chosen based off the known average height of men today.
Cumulative Viewshed
Another method that aids in the understanding of the relationship of location and visibility is the tool termed cumulative viewshed. Cumulative viewshed, as Wheatley
(1995:2) has defined it, is a tool that is used to understand the intervisibility of points across the entire extent of the site. Intervisibility is defined as the ability of one location
(observer point) to view another (Wheatley 1995:2). Wheatley states “In situations where
72 the intervisibility within a group of sites is of interest, it is possible to obtain a viewshed for each site location” (Wheatley 1995:2). A cumulative viewshed, therefore, is the combination of several viewshed maps to create an understanding of surface visibility through the creation of an output that highlights the frequency with which each location on the landscape is viewed from all other locations. Each cell within this raster is given a value based on frequency it is visible from all other cells within the extent of the cumulative viewshed. It is then possible to determine the relationship of sight location and visibility (Wheatley 1995:2).
A cumulative viewshed of Betty’s Hope, can aid in the interpretation of this site and its reliance of surveillance as a form of social control. A grid of the extent of the estate was created to create a neutral random model of the landscape. Points were stratified at 100m intervals (Figure 20), resulting in 192 points on the landscape. This distance was chosen to account for degradation of eyesight over the landscape as identified in Randle’s (2011) study. Randle investigates the ability of the human eye to see at varying distances determining that the human eye is capable of seeing another person’s head at a distance of 154 meters, or 500 feet (Randle 2001:118). For the purpose of my research, I have created a cumulative viewshed with a distance well within this established capability of the human eye.
Each point was chosen once and a viewshed for each point was created. These viewsheds were then added together to create a cumulative viewshed map that highlighted cell visibility frequency. Each cell in the DEM was given a value based on how many points in the total grid it was visible from. The highest frequency therefore, represents the cells that were visible from the highest number of points and thus
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Figure 20. Layout of 100m stratified point samples of the estate. Created by Catherine Davis, 2014.
demonstrating places of optimal visibility on the landscape. The results of this cumulative viewshed at Betty’s Hope identified places on the landscape of maximum visibility.
Zonal Statistics
To further test the results, the digitized elements of the map were then overlaid onto the cumulative viewshed. These elements include the structures of the
Great House as well as the slave quarters locations. Both of these locations are represented as point data for uniformity. As previously discussed, the two groupings of buildings, slave villages, and planter housing, are seemingly placed in locations of differing visibility. The cells falling within these habitation groups were isolated and
74 frequency data was gathered for each of the cells that comprised of the Great House and
Slave Village locations. The function used to complete this was the zonal statics tool in
ArcMap.
Zonal statistics as a table is a tool that calculates statistical values for each cell in an identified location and outputs tabular data. In this case, the locations are slave villages and the Great House. The values calculated are based on the cumulative viewshed layer as the input raster, where frequencies were assigned to each cell within the estate.
The output table consisted of 50 points in the slave village locations and 30 points around the Great House complex. These locations frequencies were then exported into a Microsoft Excel workbook, where a table was created consisting of two columns: location and mean frequency. These locations were analyzed statistically using SPSS software to determine if visibility differences in the layout for these two location types were significant (see Appendix B). The test utilized for this was the Mann-Whitney U test. This nonparametric test was used due to the small and unequal sample size of points as well as the fact that the distribution is not normal. The Mann-Whitney U tests a null hypothesis that the two sample sizes have the same distribution.
Understanding the plantation layout in terms of intervisibility and optimum visibility on the landscape is an important piece of the puzzle when looking at plantations as possible panopticon. The model states that a plantation Great House and/or manager’s house would want to command a view of the entire landscape. This supremacy of visibility allows for those in power the ability to view any spot on the landscape where the enslaved are living and working. Locations of visibility for this theory would be the
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Sugar works, the cane fields, the servant’s quarters, and the slave villages. If surveillance was a major driving factor in the plantation design, then the expected layout would place the slave quarters main working area in locations of optimum surveillance by the
Manager’s and Planter’s houses.
Chapter Summary
This chapter detailed the methodology used when applying the panoptic model to Betty’s Hope Plantation. The chapter also detailed the objectives of the study and outline various aspects of the model used in this thesis. Utilizing viewshed analysis along with a cumulative viewshed allows for a better understanding of the spatial layout at Betty’s Hope Plantation. Statistical analysis of this output is also used to further test the model of panoptic control. How this layout influenced the populations living on the landscape and the implications of these models is discussed in the following chapter.
CHAPTER V
DATA ANALYSIS, RESULTS, AND
DISCUSSION
Introduction
In testing the possibility of panoptic control, the model creates an output detailing the degree of visibility of various points on the landscape. Data analysis and interpretation can either support or reject the theory of panoptic control and point to further avenues of investigation. Data outputs are produced as information portrayed over the landscape in visual representations. Results from this analysis include two viewshed maps, as well as one cumulative viewshed display and a statistical analysis. Results that support the panoptic theory, that plantations were panoptic in design, would indicate a high rate of viewable land from places of importance and a low rate of visibility or weakened vantage point from the slave villages. This is due to the notion that plantations, acting as a panopticon, created unequal distributions of power through this manipulation.
The results of the viewsheds are shown below in Figure 21 and Figure 22, with an output of either visible or non-visible locations represented by different colors.
The results of this viewshed reveal a visibility map in which the overseers and plantation owners were able to survey the extent of the landscape, including the sugarcane fields and sugar factory to the exclusion solely of the slave villages (Figure 21). Only the very edge of the northwestern slave village is visible from these observer points.
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N
Figure 21. Map of viewshed from the Great House complex. Created by Catherine Davis, Archival Map Overlay [Codrington papers, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, P-4, Microfilm Roll 1]. Scale Not Given.
The output for the viewshed from the randomly sampled slave village is shown in Figure 22 and reveals the visibility of the site from observer points in both slave villages. The slave village viewshed reveals a reverse pattern, in which the slave quarters were able to view the Sugar works, most of the cane fields, and the Manager’s House location. The According to this study, however, the Great House was not in view from the slave villages.
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Figure 22. Viewshed results from chosen slave village locations. Created by Catherine Davis, Archival Map Overlay [Codrington papers, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda, P-4, Microfilm Roll 1]. Scale Not Given.
The village locations were also not able to view the cisterns behind the Great
House, which were in direct line of site from the planter’s home. The slave village viewshed reveals that those enslaved Africans living and working on this landscape were able to view the areas of cane field and the industrial aspects of the landscape without possessing view of the Planter’s private spaces. Following the individual viewshed analysis, a cumulative viewshed was completed (Figure 23).
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Figure 23. Image of the cumulative viewshed output with the Great House location and slave villages overlaid. Created by Catherine Davis.
Figure 23 shows the results from the cumulative viewshed from low to high frequencies. The maximum and minimum outputs are listed in the key, and the frequencies range from 0-180. This means cells were viewed by as little as zero points to maximum frequency of 180 points, or 93 percent, out of a total of 192 points in the grid.
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Both the cumulative viewshed and single viewsheds were analyzed against the panoptic plantation model. The results indicate the Great House complex was in a location viewable by only 26 percent of the total 192 locations, while the slave villages were both located in portions of the landscape viewable by over 76 percent of the total viewsheds.
The results of these viewsheds reveal a landscape in which the owner and overseer had command through a central and elevated location and were able to view several aspects of the plantation system with the exception of the slave villages. This visibility output indicates that surveillance of the working area of the site along with the industrial locations (e.g., the windmills and Sugar works) was possible but that only the edges of both slave villages were in view from the Great House Complex. The planters, however, did not have the ability to view the entire slave villages, indicating the areas of importance for surveillance and control were limited to the sugar fields, and cane processing locations.
This output differs slightly from the expected output outlined by the panoptic plantation model that, plantation owners and overseers would be able to command a view at any time of the slave location, thus oppressing the slave population and creating unequal control. However, the outputs do suggest a high amount of surveillance along the industrial grounds of the estate. The industrial grounds are important for control and regulation of work due to the fact that the majority of the time was spent processing, growing, or harvesting cane. It is interesting to note that while the industrial aspects may have been under constant surveillance, slave villages may have been afforded spaces of privacy away from the eye of the plantation owner or overseer. Also apparent in these
81 outputs is the fact that these different classes viewed the landscape from equally disparate vantage points.
These viewsheds indicate a landscape created by the planter elite and negotiated by the enslaved African labor force that produced vastly different experiences for these classes. These frequencies identify areas in the estate that were optimal for viewing and obstruction of view. When evaluating the cumulative viewshed, the results also reinforce the model of panopticon at Betty’s Hope. The center of the plantation, where the domestic and industrial structures lay, display an area of low visibility surrounded by an area of high visibility. As the model suggests, the Great House complex and Manager’s house reside in the area of low visibility from other locations, while the slave villages are placed firmly in the highest area of visibility. This would suggest that owners and Manager’s house locations reinforce the idea of supremacy and power through the placement of building in a place that commands an unequal and advantageous view of the landscape (Randle 2011:106; Delle 1999:156).
According to this output, the slave villages were highly visible from surrounding locations including the cane fields and industrial locations. This pattern of visibility could serve to reinforce the social hierarchy in the minds of the enslaved laborers. In positioning the slave villages in view of the cane and sugar works the cognitive landscape could place the laborer as one aspect of a working system that runs at the hands of those residing in the center.
Additionally, the statistical analysis further substantiates the notion of central power. The results are listed below in Table 1. For the test, I compared the outputs of the
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Table 1. Two-sample Wilcoxon Rank-sum (Mann-Whitney) Test
Test Statisticsa Frequency Mann-Whitney U 68.500 Wilcoxon W 533.500 Z -6.776 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .000 aP < 0.00001
cumulative viewshed for group of points representing Great House complex, with a group of points representing the slave villages.
The results of this analysis show statistically significant differences (p>
0.00001) in placement of the slave villages and Great House complex. This would indicate that the complex of the planter class was purposefully placed in this visually obstructed location, while the slave villages were located in a region around the planter complex that contain a high degree of visibility from locations around the estate. These results do point to a manipulation of spatial organization on the landscape. Intentionality behind this manipulation has been argued by many as a way to control enslaved people through surveillance, and a reinforcement of a hierarchical system (Singleton 2001;
Armstrong 1990; Epperson 1990; Delle 1999).
Discussion
The analysis done here investigates the theory of panoptic plantations and control through manipulation of lines-of-sight. Technology used in this thesis included the ESRI GIS suite of tools as well as SPSS statistical analysis. The results of this study reveal a system of enforced labor that was imbedded with a class system serving to dehumanize and weaken the enslaved societies. Mental landscapes and physical
83 representations of power reinforced the unequal status the planters and their enslaved laborers held.
In keeping with the parameters define by the model, the viewsheds of the
Great House complex and the slave village locations reveal that while planters were interested in surveying the landscape and monitoring the fields and industrial complexes the slaves inhabited, they chose not to view the living quarters. Likewise, the slave villages commanded a view of the sugar fields and structures where they toiled endlessly, these villages were placed in a location out of sight from the Great House. While villagers could be monitored on the landscape and watched as they worked, they could not in turn view the plantation house from their dwelling quarters.
There are several conclusions from this research that would support the
Panoptic Plantation Model. The plantation owners and overseers could survey the landscape from the Great House while occupying a location that seemingly allowed for privacy from the slave villages. The Great House complex is also situated in the center of the plantation, at the highest elevation. The extent of the estate they could view from this location covers the sugar works, and support structures necessary for the proper function of the plantation.
The results also support the notion that the planter estate house was placed on the landscape in a location that allowed for the survey of the working and industrial portions of the site. The slave villages were also in a location of optimal visibility, meaning the location on the cumulative viewshed they reside in is one of the areas of highest frequency and therefore an optimally visible location. The cane fields and sugar works were also placed in locations of relatively good visibility.
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While this model indicates a high level of visibility on the landscape from the
Great House and manager’s house location, certain factors were not taken into consideration and may affect the output. The cane fields are shown to be visible from the
Great House, but as the cane grew and the stalks reached their full height (8ft.), visibility across the entire plantation would seem less viable, although, not effecting the slave villages. Disruption of line-of-sight by buildings, or trees on the landscape was also not accounted for in this thesis. All of these aspects would need to be accounted for when considering the nature and level off panoptic control. While obstruction of sight must be considered, there are other factors that should be acknowledged such as the fluidity of surveillance on the plantation landscape.
The current model accounts for only fixed points of surveillance on the landscape, while gang labor systems had patrolling overseers that watched those working in the fields. This fluid surveillance played an important role in heightening the amount control on the landscape. This factor may serve to refute the theory of central power as surveillance was often left in the hands of trusted slaves or slave drivers, decentralizing the surveillance system.
Although the model has resulted in outputs that demonstrate a high visibility from the planters house to the industrial aspect of the estate and the edge of the slave villages, Betty’s Hope veers slightly away from the model and brings to light questions of possible activity places of interest. Much like Morgan’s (1988) research in the task labor system and the nuanced economic culture it allowed to flourish, these negative spaces at
Betty’s hope may result in a private culture, or culture of resistance.
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While several aspects of the model would seem to be supported by the clear variation in Great House and slave village locations, additional factors should be considered. In none of the previously mentioned studies, or in testing this model, are factors aiding in slave suppression calculated. These factors include the need for taxes levied on the white population of the islands in an attempt to ensure adequate population ratios, as well as, the constant fear of slave revolts plaguing the planter class. The panoptic plantation model assumes that the power inequality and surveillance was enough to completely disempower the slave population. How then, does one explain the attempted slave revolt in Antigua in 1736 (Gasper 1985:3).
This theory also looks almost solely at the effect this plantation system had on the slave laborers without much discussion of the cognitive effects on the plantocracy. It could be argued, and should at least be mentioned, that the effects of such a settlement pattern created a clear and severe distinction of rights reinforcing the plantation owner’s harsh and inhumane treatment of the enslaved society.
The threat of violence was a very real and daily occurrence and punishment was undoubtedly harsh. Additionally, slaves were malnourished, overworked, and given mind-numbing tasks with minimal free time. All of these factors undoubtedly played a major role in the slave owner’s ability to control such large populations. The applicability of this model to the Caribbean plantation system, therefore, is questionable. The merit to this model is that it identifies the possibility of surveillance as a form of control, however, the degree to which this control was expressed through surveillance, the effects this system may have had on other social groups, and the creation of slave cultures and
86 slave societies need to be addressed when understanding the role surveillance played on the plantation system.
Limitations to the Study
Limitations in this study are important to note and vary from user error to the accuracy and applicability of viewshed and GIS analysis when testing the panopticon theory of plantation layouts. Accuracy of data used to create the DEM is an important concern. Randle (2011:113) notes it is important to consider changing topography through time. Although the elevation and topography of the site may have been different in the eighteenth century, it is the present-day topographic information that is employed in the creation of a DEM.
When conducting viewshed analysis, it is also important to note that the outputs do not take into account the strength of the human eye, obstructions of trees from this period, height of sugar cane, and varying heights of observers and buildings. In regard to obstruction to lines-of-sight, the island of Antigua was largely cleared of trees and shrubs for the planting of sugar cane; at Betty’s Hope all available land was cleared with few decorative trees probably left on the site (see figure 5; south of the building complex) and obstruction of sight due to these factors requires further research.
Prior to data analysis it is also important to consider the dependability of historical documents and estate maps. Plans or estate maps carry a certain level of inaccuracy. All maps are representations of spatial relationships and representations can take many forms with varying degrees of accuracy. Maps were often stylized and used to portray a message, what that message is or the cartographer’s intention should be kept in
87 mind when utilizing this form of historical information (Harley 1968:68). Several authors have attested to accuracy of these British survey maps, stating it was of a personal interest to the absentee planter that these surveys be as accurate as possible (Higman
1987:18).
Higman (1987) notes that although estate plans represented a high level of accuracy in regards to boundaries and cane fields; they also presented the researchers with unreliable building placement within the domestic and supporting locations (Higman
1987:19). He attributes the varying degrees of accuracy to the need for record keeping of the absentee owners, as placing a weighted importance on acreage and available fields, while leaving the structures more open to interpretation (Higman 1987:19).
Another important factor to consider when reviewing the results of this model is the importance that while GIS analysis will produce an analytical output, it does not address the issue of human intentionality. Though location may match the outlined model this does not assure the model is accurate in motives, when used alone, this model can only test the possibility of panoptic control.
Chapter Summary
This chapter discussed the results of the panoptic plantation model at Betty’s
Hope Plantation. The results were discussed in depth including the viewshed results, the cumulative viewshed, and a statistical analysis of the data. Factors that could potentially affect these results were then introduced and discussed in this chapter. The chapter discussed the implications of the viewshed results, indicating the possibility that the plantation estate was indeed established in a way that utilized the landscape to create an
88 unequal and advantageous viewpoint from the planter’s estate from which he could survey the entire expanse of the plantation. Limitations inherent in the nature of the model and possible errors due to the sources of data employed in this thesis were also discussed. The expected outcome for Betty’s Hope was detailed in the above chapter using GIS. Geographical information systems and the nature of analysis and representation of spatial data in a two dimensional world was also discussed in depth in this chapter. Implications for further research were and areas that need further investigation were also discussed in this chapter.
CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSIONS
Introduction
Betty’s Hope plantation represents a small system within the scope of the larger British colonization attempts that began in the 1600s. How the colonizers and colonized negotiated a complicated, harsh, and unknown landscape is an avenue of research that can be studied through multiple perspectives. This research has focused on the implications of the slave trade and sugar production on how people perceive and modify the environment around them. Questions of labor and social relations, as well as, cognitive landscapes are addressed in how the creation of a space can influence actions, beliefs, and behaviors.
Answers to how planters and forced laborers viewed the worlds in which they lived and how they recreated their cultures in this New World can begin to take shape through analyses such as this one and offer a window into the obscure men of the time.
Examining one sugar plantation in the British Caribbean I have tested one model of understanding social control and a hierarchical system of relationships as it manifests on the landscape.
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Conclusions
The analysis done here investigates the theory of panoptic plantations and control through manipulations of lines-of-sight. Technology used in this thesis included the ESRI GIS suite of tools as well as SPSS statistical analysis. The results of this study coincide with the model hypothesis of a system of enforced labor that was imbedded with a class system serving to dehumanize and weaken the enslaved societies. Mental landscapes and physical representations of power reinforced the unequal status the planters and their enslaved laborers held.
In keeping with the parameters define by the model, the viewsheds of the
Great House complex and the slave village locations reveal that while planters were interested in surveying the landscape and monitoring the fields and industrial complexes the slaves inhabited, they chose not to view the living quarters. Likewise, the slave villages commanded a view of the sugar fields and structures where they toiled endlessly, these villages were placed in a location out of sight from the Great House. While villagers could be monitored on the landscape and watched as they worked, they could not in turn view the plantation house from their dwelling quarters.
The cumulative viewshed also serves to support the Panoptic Plantation
Theory by revealing that the Great House complex was placed in an optimal location for surveillance while remaining obstructed from view themselves. The villages were also placed in a location for optimal visibility on the landscape. This control over visibility created an unequal relationship in the minds of all present on the landscape. Clearly a hierarchical social structure was in place that positioned the planter elite on the top and the enslaved laborers at the bottom.
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Archaeological theory in the Caribbean has progressed from investigations of a one dimensional Eurocentric viewpoint of the plantation estate and labor economy. As scientists asking questions about the lives and experiences of those who lived and worked in this region during this time, it is important to remember there are many complicated factors at play. The panopticon theory of plantation settlement does not do enough to incorporate the agency and individual experiences, motivations, and actions of the people who lived on this plantation. There are also further complex mental and physical factors at play that make it difficult to truly compare a theory of social reform developed for prisoners raised, educated, and participating in a cultural system they have been members of since birth to a slave population originating in various parts of Africa with various disparate cultures forced to live in a place they have never seen under a completely foreign rule without attempting to understand the micro cultures that develop within the slave society.
That slave societies found ways to create unique culture groups is no doubt evident on the landscape. We know this through investigations such as Agorsah’s body of work. That surveillance and the threat of violence acted in suppressing the potential slave revolts and curb disobedience is not in question here. What Id o call into question is the notion that the structure of the great house in the center of the plantation and further careful selection of location and placement for ancillary structure reinforced a status or class system in the minds of slave leaving them mentally and physically submissive and accepting of their new culture class. British plantation owners were constantly in fear of an uprising as seen in the famous Antiguan revolt.
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What is never questioned in this model is the planter’s position at the top of this cultural hierarchy. It could be argued that this careful placement of buildings and settlement pattern served the British colonists more so in reassuring them of their place in their cultural hierarchy, separating them from other groups living and working on the same land. This system could have also silenced questions in how inhumanely the slave population was treated. In relegating this population to the lowest part of the plantation in a place with no imbued cultural importance or significance may has served to quiet the minds of those doling out harsh punishments and life sentences of endless labor.
Testing the Panoptic Plantation Model at Betty’s Hope was aided by the several factors making Betty’s Hope an excellent case study for this theory. To begin, the wealth of archival information existing for the plantation during its time as a major sugar producer of the island was invaluable. Containing maps, surveys, records, and documentary evidence of the experiences and conditions of those living and working at
Betty’s Hope aided in determining the original and subsequent layout of the Plantation as well the size of the estate and the importance in sugar production on the island and for the
British Crown. This thesis was only possible through the ongoing research of the Betty’s
Hope Research Project and data collected over several field seasons and made available for research. Ongoing excavation aided in the identification of structures and in the understanding the layout of the site, establishing the accuracy of the survey maps made available in the Codrington Papers.
While building use may have changed through time, the accuracy of the actual location of the industrial complex in relation to the residential structures of the plantation with their depicted location on both the 1710 and 1755 maps used for this thesis allowed
93 for the testing of the panopticon plantation model. Although issues of scale were expected, the result of the accuracy of each of these maps was surprising and aided in the interpretation and understanding of the site. Although Betty’s Hope and the archival data available provided the necessary components to test the panoptic model, the research can be aided by additional information not accounted for in this thesis.
If future applications of this model were possible at Betty’s Hope Plantation there are a few additional questions I would account for. In accounting for visibility I believe this model would benefit from the inclusion of several points of surveillance throughout the landscape to account for the patrolling enforcement of power that existing on the plantation. This research could be aided by an in-depth analysis of private spaces within the slave villages, out of sight of the owner or overseers. How the material culture changes has the potential to reveal the depth of effect surveillance may have had on the population.
This research could also be aided in obtaining the heights of the buildings in order to create a viewshed that accurately depicts the vantage point of an observer from the second story, rather than a general assumption. I believe it would also be important to gather additional elevation data to further refine the DEM used in this thesis. While these avenues of future research have the potential to strengthen the analysis done in this thesis, the conclusions arrived at in this work have come from careful calculation and reveal a landscape rich in social, and power dynamics governing the everyday lives on the plantation landscape. These results have the potential to contribute to future endeavors into power and spatial dynamics on the landscape.
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Contributions
This thesis contributes to the growing body of work investigating the spatiality of power. In previous works authors have investigated power on the landscape through viewshed and cumulative viewshed tools in ArcGIS. This thesis applies these methods and uses statistical analysis to further demonstrate the differences in habitation spaces on the landscape. This statistical analysis along with archival data may go a long a way to show intentionality of landscape manipulation for surveillance and power as well as class and hierarchical distinctions.
One of the major contribution to come from this research is a more complete understanding of the layout of Betty’s Hope and how this layout was modified throughout its history. This allows insights into how various groups experienced the landscape at Betty’s Hope. In understand how the plantation was designed and how the design changed along with use; we can more fully understand how people are actors on the landscape and how we interact with the world around us leaving a meaningful pattern of land use behind.
Such land use patterns and analysis in this thesis were arrived at through the application of GIS technology through the use of ArcGIS. This thesis highlights the applicability of GIS in understanding landscapes in archaeology. In understanding the abilities of ArcGIS as a tool that aids in analyzing and recreating the landscape, research into landscape and historical archaeology have a springboard for future investigations.
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Future Research
Future research for Betty’s Hope includes the further excavation of slave housing to further understand the marginalized population living within the slave village.
It is important to understand Betty’s Hope through this avenue of investigation so that a more complete history of the plantation can be written. In further testing the Panopticon
Plantation Theory, it is important to understand the distribution of material goods and within the slave villages at Betty’s Hope. Were there spaces of resistance? How does the material evidence vary throughout the slave village and does this coincide with changing visibility on the landscape. How the planter class managed to exert control over such large enslaved populations has begun to taken shape with studies such as this, and leading to promising future endeavors investigating how these populations developed ways in which to cope and find some autonomy.
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APPENDIX A
108
APPENDIX B
Location and Mean Frequency Output Table
Location FREQ a 25 a 61 a 37 a 2 a 18 a 36 a 4 a 54 a 27 a 0 a 26 a 47 a 41 a 48 a 1 a 2 a 58 a 2 a 17 a 7 a 2 a 2 a 2 a 36 a 36 a 58 a 23 a 3 a 2 a 5 b 37 b 36 b 72 b 76
110 111
Location FREQ b 18 b 56 b 69 b 100 b 59 b 69 b 78 b 90 b 101 b 123 b 71 b 74 b 66 b 75 b 82 b 79 b 49 b 38 b 79 b 117 b 114 b 103 b 84 b 69 b 43 b 73 b 103 b 97 b 112 b 113 b 97 b 96 b 84 b 85 b 89 b 82 b 76 b 65 b 51 b 46
112
Location FREQ b 49 b 83 b 59 b 83 b 72 b 70