University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations Spring 2020 Shaftesbury's Atlantis Andrew Agha Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Agha, A.(2020). Shaftesbury's Atlantis. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5822 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SHAFTESBURY'S ATLANTIS by Andrew Agha Bachelor of Science College of Charleston, 1998 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2004 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2020 Accepted by: Kenneth G. Kelly, Major Professor David Simmons, Committee Member Conor M. Harrison, Committee Member Joanna L. Casey, Committee Member Gail E. Wagner, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Andrew Agha, 2020 All Rights Reserved. ii DEDICATION I dedicate this work to Mr. Palmer and Crystal B. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was made possible through many institutions, programs and, most importantly, people. First I must thank my dissertation committee: Ken Kelly, David Simmons, Joanna Casey, Gail Wagner and Conor Harrison. Thanks to the Anthropology department faculty and staff. To my mentors, Leland Ferguson, and Martha Zierden and Ron Anthony of The Charleston Museum, I love you all! Thanks to the Historic Charleston Foundation and the Bratton family for the Lord Ashley Project, and Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site for support. Thanks to the students and faculty of the College of Charleston and Salve Regina University! Much thanks to Bob Welch and Jason Walker. Thanks to Richard Samways, Suzannah Fleming, Christine Jackson- Holzberg, Patrick Müller, Francis Mahon, Jane and Barb Aldrich, Jon Marcoux, Tariq Ghaffar and David Jones. A sincere thank you goes to the Twelfth Earl of Shaftesbury and his family. I extend thanks for the grant from the Archaeological Society of South Carolina and my fellowship with the Institute for African American Research at USC. Thanks to John Jones and Justine McKnight for their botanical analyses and Wm. Matthew Tankersley for his GIS analyses. A huge heartfelt thank you goes to Mattie Atwell, my dearest friend and cohort colleague. A lot of love to my sisters Anissa Terpstra and Amanda Agha. Love and thanks to my mom Martha Agha. Truly, I owe everything to my wife and best friend I have ever known, Nicole Isenbarger. You are a constant beacon of light in my life and you kept me motivated when everything seemed impossible. The only reason anyone can read this dissertation is because of you. iv ABSTRACT This research posits that seventeenth century natural philosophy as purported by the Royal Society of London had a major impact on the way the First Earl of Shaftesbury directed the settlement of the English colony Carolina. When Carolina was first settled in 1670, the colonists were ordered by Shaftesbury and his Lords Proprietors of Carolina cohort to test experimental exotic crops like cotton, sugarcane, grapes, olive trees, and indigo, but since those crops did not produce exportable surpluses, they have been labeled as failures. Instead, this study recognizes those failures as integral components to the scientific process of experimentation. That process was derived from the concept of English improvement, which in the seventeenth century was the idea and belief that anything could be made better through science, natural philosophy and experimentation; this concept became paradigmatic through the incorporation of the Royal Society. This dissertation identifies Shaftesbury's St Giles Kussoe, his 12,000-acre Carolina estate, as the material manifestation of a Royal Society-influenced laboratory. This dissertation identifies Locke's labor theory of property as a product of improvement literature, and, as a theory to be tested through St Giles Kussoe in 1674. I argue that Shaftesbury used improvement to modernize enslaved African labor within the laboratory that Locke's theory constructed. The archival and archaeological data suggest that those enslaved Africans became technicians who employed traditional tasks augmented through English improvement and philosophy. Utilizing archaeological sites v at the 1670s town site of Charles Towne and within St Giles Kussoe, I define a materiality of improvement from my interpretations of colonial documents, seventeenth century improvement literature and specific artifacts through a property-oriented historical political ecology theory. I argue that Shaftesbury sought a vineyard at St Giles Kussoe because he purposefully procured enslaved Africans from an Old World wine merchant and North African trader. The realization of Shaftesbury's plan was the materiality of improvement, where the enslaved were coerced to become research technicians trapped within the prison of the plantation laboratory. vi PREFACE "For the several employments and offices of our fellows, we have twelve that sail into foreign countries under the names of other nations (for our own conceal), who bring us the books and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light. We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call Depredators. We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery-men. We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call Pioneers or Miners. We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call Compilers. We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call dowry- men or Benefactors. Then after diverse meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider the former labors and collections, we have three that take care out of them to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into Nature than the former. These we call Lamps. We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators. Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms and aphorisms. These we call Interpreters of Nature." -The employments of Salomon's House. Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis, 1627. _____________ "Experience is called the Perfecter of Arts, and the most sure and best teacher in any Art: Contemplation and Action are the two legs whereon Arts run steedily and strongly, and the one without the other can but hop, or go lamely: They are the two Eyes wherewith men see Natures secrets clearly, but the one alone discerns but dimly. And hence it follows, that vii some who were only Contemplators of nature without experience, and would needs adventure to write, and give instructions touching the Practique part of Planting Fruit-trees, have in many things (as the aforesaid Author sayes) presented us with smoak, instead of the lucide flames of light: They have indeed shewed us a comly and beautiful body, Painted according to Art, but yet lifeless and without a spirit, and have offered us shells and husks instead of kernels. But now, speculation and action, are as Soul and Body united, which labouring together, work out both Profit and Pleasure, many advantages to our selves and others. Experience (as a Philosopher says) is the Root of Art, and it may well be so called, from which springs a numerous multitude of new Experiments: for from one Root, or single Experiment, (though perhaps a poor and mean one in it self) if throughly weighed with reason and judgment, may arise many rich and rare inventions: And its most true, which the Lord Bacon sayes to this purpose: As through a small hole or cranny, a man may see great Objects; so through small and contemptible instances, men may see great Axioms, singular secrets of nature. Men will labour hard, and a long time in some labours full of hazard and danger, and perhaps unjust too, and all for a little profit; but here, in this employment, men may with a little labour, in a short time, without hazard or danger, and that justly, obtain great and many profits, and those with pleasures superadded." -Except from "To the Reader." Ralph Austen, A TREATISE OF FRUIT-TREES, SHEWING The manner of Planting, Grafting, Pruning and ordering of them in all respects, according to Rules of Experience, 1657. _____________ “All our Artificers are designed, and appropriated, to unlock all the Repositories of Nature, To draw out her most concealed Operations and Rarities, To produce them with their best Advantages, and in their fairest Ornaments, for all good occasions.” -Henry Oldenburg, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Monday, 11 March 1666, "A Preface to the Third Year of These Tracts", pp. 413-414. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication