Archaeology of Plantations, Race & Racialization

Question 1

What is a plantation?

Answer 1

an estate on which crops are cultivated by resident labor

Question 2

What crops were common at plantations? (5)

Answer 2

• tobacco
• rice
• indigo
• cotton
• sugar

Question 3

Where was African enslaved labor extensively used? (4)

Answer 3

• American colonies
• Caribbean
• Americas
• European-occupied Africa

Question 4

What was the profitability of plantations based on?

Answer 4

free or extremely cheap labor

Question 5

What happened as the plantation economy expanded?

Answer 5

the slave trade grew to meet the growing demand for labor

Question 6

When and where were the earliest known plantation excavations?

Answer 6

1931 at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s plantation home

Question 7

What excavation began at Mount Vernon in 2014?

Answer 7

Mount Vernon Slave Cemetery

Question 8

What is plantation archaeology inevitably tied to?

Answer 8

African American archaeology

Question 9

How do the material remains found with these burials tell us about the lives of enslaved people on plantations?

Answer 9

helps interpret class and race in the historical and archaeological record

Question 10

What is status patterning?

Answer 10

determination of potential socioeconomic status based on archaeological frequencies, such as the amount of certain ceramic types, shapes, or forms

Question 11

What is an example of status patterning?

Answer 11

colonoware

Question 12

Who is the author of Slavery Behind the Wall?

Answer 12

Teresa Singleton

Question 13

What makes Slavery Behind the Wall special?

Answer 13

rare English-language historical archaeological study of 19th-century Cuban coffee plantation (cafetal)

Question 14

What is the study of Slavery Behind the Wall framed around?

Answer 14

anomalous walled settlement where enslaved people lived at Cafetal Biajacas

Question 15

What was Cuba’s role in the slave trade? (4)

Answer 15

• capital of the illegal slave trade after it was abolished in the Americas
• largest slave-importing colony of the Spanish Empire until 1880s
• world leader in coffee production 1817-1830
• led in sugar production from the 1830s

Question 16

What was Cafetal Biajacas? (4)

Answer 16

• coffee plantation from 1815-1846
• “showplace plantation”
• approximately 200 acres cultivated
• records indicate that in 1822 Cafetal Biajacas produced 52 tons of coffee using 102 enslaved laborers

Question 17

What historical documents explain the role of Cafetal Biajacas in the slave trade? (6)

Answer 17

• Igancio O’Farrill’s genealogy, inventory, and will
• Spanish records
• estate records after O’Farrill’s death from 1838-1853
• comparisons with other plantations in Cuba
• travel diaries and letters from visitors to Cuba
• national archives of Cuba

Question 18

What does the inventory of Ignacio O’Farrill reveal? (2)

Answer 18

• showplace plantation

- disparities between how the plantation owner lived and how the enslaved lived and worked

Question 19

What made Cafetal Biajacas unique?

Answer 19

wall around slave quarters

Question 20

Why was there a wall around the slave quarters at Cafetal Biajacas? (4)

Answer 20

• restricted slave movement
• showplace plantation
• create artificial distance
• highlights status difference

Question 21

Why was there an absence of religious artifacts at Cafetal Biajacas? (2)

Answer 21

• made out of organic material; decayed

- owner was Catholic; converted his slaves and/or suppressed their culture/religion

Question 22

What items were found at Cafetal Biajacas that could be assigned a religious context? (2)

Answer 22

• machetes found in slave enclosure

- other items could have been found, but were not thought of in that context