Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE December 2018 Putting Forts in their Place: The Politics of Defense in Antigua, 1670-1785 Christopher Kurt Waters Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Waters, Christopher Kurt, "Putting Forts in their Place: The Politics of Defense in Antigua, 1670-1785" (2018). Dissertations - ALL. 980. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/980 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract Between 1670 and 1785, the plantation elite on the British island of Antigua built and maintained at least fifty-four fortifications to protect the island from other European competitors. Rather than being commissioned, engineered, and defended by the metropolitan government in London, the defense of the island was the sole purview of the Antiguan legislature. Money, designs, and locations for these defensive sites came from internal deliberations on the island making them unique places to study iterations of seventeenth and eighteenth century British colonialism, elite thinking, and the impact on the landscape. To interpret these sites, I use archaeological, archival, and spatial analyses to investigate their ability to provide the types of external defenses they were designated for, as well as test the corollary explanation that the forts played a role in providing internal security for the island. Neither paradigm, however, adequately explains the spatial distribution, architectural decisions, or addresses the heterogenous fort societies revealed in this research. Therefore, to better interpret Antigua’s fortifications, I develop the concept martial landscape as an explanatory framework whereby the island elites manipulate defense policy to better reflect their own social standings, rather than considering a holistic defensive structure. I conclude by showing how blanket assumptions about military sites like fortifications and the historic trajectory of colonialism in the Caribbean are concepts which need considerable tempering by a more local, island scale, perspective. Putting Forts in their Place: The Politics of Defense in Antigua, 1670-1785 by Christopher K. Waters B.A., St Olaf College, 2010 M.A., Bristol University, 2012 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology. Syracuse University December 2018 Copyright © Christopher K. Waters 2018 All Rights Reserved Table of Contents Chapter 1: In Defense of an Island Colony 1 Introduction 1 “Water, Water, every where”; what’s an archaeologist to think? 6 Local Colonialism, Global Imperialism: a Sliding Scale 9 Antigua’s Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Colonial Context 12 Tableau Vivant: Staging the Martial Landscape 21 The Royal Army in Antigua 23 The Royal Navy and the Antiguan Naval Dockyard at English Harbour 27 The Antigua Militia 33 Defining the Martial Landscape 36 Progression 37 Chapter 2: An Overview of Antigua’s Fortifications 39 Introduction 39 Physical Antigua and Prehistory 41 Sugar, Demographics and Defense: Politics of Colonial Antigua 45 Antigua’s Fortifications 59 Great George Fort on Monk’s Hill 60 Fort James and the Defense of St. John’s Harbour 66 Coastal Defense: Forts, Platforms, and Coastal Batteries 70 Guard Houses 74 Conclusion 77 Chapter 3: Islands, Gunpowder, and Defensibility 80 Introduction 80 Historical GIS and its Application 81 Establishing New Variables: Historic Sailing and Coastal Defense 84 Bathymetry 87 Sailing Rigs and Wind Direction 90 Local Knowledge 98 Historic Artillery 105 Calculating Defensibility 113 Identifying Coastline Vulnerability 113 Depth of Water 114 Combining Affordances 118 Wind Direction 123 Results 126 Conclusion 140 Chapter 4: Antigua’s Fortifications as External Defense 141 Introduction 141 What an Artillery Fort Should Look Like 142 Assessing Defensibility 150 Reevaluating and Contextualizing Defensibility in Gunpowder Warfare 151 Assessing Antigua’s Fortifications 154 iv Assessing Defensibility at an Island-Wide Scale 166 The Defensive Landscape 171 Additional Defensive Considerations 179 Caliber 183 Ordnance Quality 189 Elites and their Ability to Deploy Cannon Effectively 194 Conclusion 195 Chapter 5: Antigua’s Fortifications as Internal Security 198 Introduction 198 Coercion, Violence, and Security in Slave Societies 200 Surveillance and Caribbean Plantations 203 Surveillance Technologies in Antigua 206 Fortification in Service of Surveillance 210 Fortifications as Loci for Internal Control 216 Architectural Decisions 219 Open Forts and Enslaved Communities 229 Conclusion 230 Chapter 6: Peopling the Fortifications 233 Introduction 233 Peopling the Martial Landscape 235 Recruiting Gunners and Matrosses 237 Enslavement in the Martial Landscape 245 Fort Families 246 Materializing Life on the Fortifications 249 Spatial Organization 249 Martial Culture 253 Individuality in the Material Record 260 Conclusion 263 Chapter 7: The Politics of Defense 265 Introduction 265 The Decision Makers 267 Monk’s Hill: The Planter’s Retreat 271 How the Antiguan Legislature Seized Absolute Control 280 The Shifting Martial Landscape 283 Fort Hamilton, The Cripplegate, and the Defense of St. John’s Road 284 Shifting Defensive Patterns on the East Coast 289 Defending the South Coast 293 The Rise of St. Mary’s and the West Coast 295 Not with a Bang, but with a Whimper: The Collapse of the Fortification System and the End of the Martial Landscape 301 Conclusion 307 Appendix A: Primary Source Identification and Methodology 309 v Appendix B: Applying Bockinski’s (2014) Defensibility Model to Antigua 321 Appendix C: Critical Reflection on Defensibility Model 327 Bibliography 334 Curriculum Vitae 367 vi Illustrations Figures 1.1 Caribbean Location Map 3 1.2 Antigua Map with Historically Known Forts 4 2.1 Antigua Topography Map 41 2.2 Antigua historic political divisions 48 2.3 Demographic trends to 1774 54 2.4 Monk’s Hill, Horneck (1752) 62 2.5 “Planting the Cane,” Clark (1823) 65 2.6 Fort James, Horneck (1752) 67 2.7 Loblolly Battery Masonic Keystone 69 2.8 Corbinson’s Point Horneck 71 2.9 Guard House, Thomas Bay 75 3.1 “Shipping Sugar,” Clark (1823) 87 3.2 Upwind “Race” 92 3.3 Idealized Sailing Courses into Muddy Bay 97 3.4 Idealized Sailing Courses into Parham Harbour 98 3.5 Baker Close Up detail 100 3.6 Baker Close Up detail of Channels 101 3.7 Antigua Bathymetry 114 3.8 Antigua with Effective Cannon Ranges Buffer 117 3.9 Distance between Fort James and St. John’s Road 118 3.10 Depths impacted by 800-yard effective cannon range from Antigua’s Coastline 119 3.11 Depths impacted by 400-yard effective cannon range from Antigua’s Coastline 120 3.12 Depths impacted by 300-yard effective cannon range from Antigua’s Coastline 121 3.13 Sailing at 45° to an easterly wind around Antigua 124 3.14 Sailing at 60° to an easterly wind around Antigua 125 3.15 Intercepts of different sailing rigs and draughts around Antigua 126 3.16 Vulnerable Coastline Index for Fore-and-Aft rigged vessels 127 3.17 Vulnerable Coastline Index for Square rigged vessels 128 3.18 Coastline Vulnerability detail of the South Coast 129 3.19 Coastline Vulnerability detail of Willoughby Bay 130 3.20 Coastline Vulnerability detail of the East Coast 131 3.21 Coastline Vulnerability detail of the North Coast 132 3.22 Detail map of Crabb’s Peninsula and Parham Harbour 133 3.23 Detail map from Barnacle Point to Hodges Bay 134 3.24 Detail map from Wetherill’s Point to Fort Bay 135 3.25 Detail map from Loblolly Bay to Deep Bay 137 3.26 Detail map of Five Islands Harbour 138 3.27 Detail map from Pearne’s Point to Old Road 139 4.1 Idealized Eighteenth-Century Fortification Cutaway 145 4.2 Idealized Eighteenth-Century Fortification Plan 146 4.3 English Harbour with the locations of its defensive batteries 156 vii 4.4 Fort Berkley 1752 157 4.5 Johnson’s Point Fort with firing ranges 162 4.6 Fort Charlotte 163 4.7 Road Fort 1752 165 4.8 Total Coastline Vulnerability 167 4.9 Runaway Beach Coastline Vulnerability with hypothetical firing ranges 168 4.10 Effective and Maximum Cannon Ranges around Antigua 170 4.11 State of Antigua’s Fortifications in 1704 172 4.12 State of Antigua’s Fortifications in 1729 172 4.13 State of Antigua’s Fortifications in 1750 173 4.14 State of Antigua’s Fortifications in 1778 173 4.15 Cannon distribution in 1729 and 1754 175 4.16 An exploded 24-pounder at Blockhouse, Antigua 190 5.1 Cumulative viewshed from the state of Antigua’s fortification in 1704 212 5.2 Cumulative viewshed from the state of Antigua’s fortification in 1729 213 5.3 Cumulative viewshed from the state of Antigua’s fortification in 1752 214 5.4 Cumulative viewshed from the state of Antigua’s fortification in 1778 215 5.5 Fort James with cumulative cannon ranges 222 5.6 Fort William 1752 223 5.7 Fort Christian 1752 224 5.8 Fort Byam 1752 226 5.9 Cross section of Fort Hamilton and Fort Byam 1752 227 5.10 South Guard House 228 6.1 Feature UC 004 profile, Great George Fort 254 6.2 Fort William profile 254 6.3 Artifact assemblage from Fort Christian, Museum of Antigua 257 6.4 Artifact assemblage from Johnson’s Point Fort, Museum of Antigua 258 6.5 Artifact assemblage from Thomas Bay Guard house, Museum of Antigua 259 6.6 Afro-Antiguanware with triangle stamps, Johnson’s Point Fort 261 6.7 Ceramic plate bases with personalization marks 262 7.1 Feature UC 004, Great George Fort 272 7.2 Photo of UC 004, Great George Fort 273 7.3 Fort Hamilton, 1752 285 7.4 Landward defenses for Fort James 287 7.5 State of the defenses around St.