In many regions of the developing world millions of people live in rural environments in highly stratified societies - India, for example, is a case in point. As population size increases, pressure on the land grows and the land itself becomes degraded, how can populations adapt over the long run? Through the examination of historical cases researchers can examine such processes over the course of decades. This project gains general significance within that context.
With an international team, Dr. Mark W. Hauser will conduct two field seasons of archaeological excavations in Dominica, British West Indies. The team brings together experts in archaeology, history, and environmental research to study slave settlements following the introduction of sugar plantation agriculture. The acquisition of new colonial territories, including Dominica, by Britain in 1763, was one moment where an entrenched population was confronted with new political and economic regimes. Within 20 years the primary colonial economy had changed, as population increased by a magnitude of 10 and many plantations began to produce crops like sugar and coffee destined for the European markets. Changes often degraded the island environment and created a crisis in food supplies. The team hopes to understand with a rich archaeological record of finds (both important and locally made everyday objects and food remains) how enslaved Africans and their children contributed and accommodated to new economic, political and environmental regimes. Specifically the team will compare the diet, market activities, and household architecture of slaves before and after Britain took over Dominica.
The nature of the research questions requires basic data principally in residential areas that allow the identification of slave households, their diet, and the economic networks that were employed to furnish their households. Once these data are recovered, dating on the ground of the political transition into empire can be worked out by using time specific objects known from many previous studies. With the rich and specific archaeological collections, we hope to reconstruct the organization of plantation settlements in which owners, slaves, and managers each had important roles to play. Specific tasks are 1) completely survey map the region of Soufriere and the surrounding rural settlements, 2) conduct test excavations and larger excavations of house areas for a sample of houses at the settlements, 4) complete the analysis of all artifacts collected, 5) to integrate the documentary data with the survey and excavation data for academic publication and popular presentations to both American and Dominican audiences.
The colonial slave life project will provide much needed substantive information that will help investigate important theoretical topics of the colonial experience. The intellectual merit of the research will be to test social and economic theories of power and methods of identifying the material contributions of ordinary people, two issues confronting contemporary archaeology. The broader impacts of the study are that it will produce new information about Caribbean history. Since no project has focused solely on how environmental and economic changes associated with sugar cane production affected common people, the substantial increase in knowledge will provide the possibility major revisions in the scientific understanding of colonization and slavery. Caribbean and U.S. students will participate in the project to enhance their training and increase their knowledge of Caribbean history and the material and intellectual contributions of Africans in the Americas.
