Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-b4m5d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-18T06:46:17.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Continuity, Adaptation and Resistance: The Cultural Contexts of The Manufacture, Distribution and Use of African American Pottery in Eighteenth-Century Charleston, South Carolina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Brian D. Crane ,
James Blackman  and
Pamela B. Vandiver
Brian D. Crane
Affiliation:
Anthropology Department, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560 Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560 Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
James Blackman
Affiliation:
Anthropology Department, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560 Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560 Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
Pamela B. Vandiver
Affiliation:
Anthropology Department, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560 Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560 Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
Get access

Abstract

Analysis of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century earthenware sherds found on the site of the Heyward-Washington House in Charleston, South Carolina has provided important clues concerning the manufacture, trade and use of a poorly understood tradition of African American pottery. These hand built, low-fired earthenwares, which archaeologists call colono wares, are abundant on archaeological sites, but they are virtually unknown in the historical record. Analyses included neutron activation analysis, xeroradiography, and petrographic analysis in addition to visual inspection. These data suggested that colono wares were transported to Charleston from rural plantations, where their manufacture was part of a widespread, informal cottage industry. The manufacture and use of this pottery appears to reflect the development of African American culture as a creole culture which drew upon a wide variety of traditions, reinventing and recombining these elements in ways designed to cope with the rigors of slavery.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 352: Symposium – Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology IV , 1995 , 539
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1 Ferguson, Leland, “Lowcountry Plantations, the Catawba Nation, and River Burnished Pottery.” in Studies in South Carolina Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Stephenson, Robert L., edited by Goodyear, Albert, and Hanson, Glen, (Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, Anthropological Studies 9, 1989); Patrick H. Garrow and Wheaton, Thomas R. “Colonoware Ceramics: The Evidence from Yaughan and Curriboo Plantations.” in Studies in South Carolina Archaeology, edited by Goodyear and Hanson, 1989.Google Scholar
2 Ibid.Google Scholar
3 Herold, Elaine, Preliminary Report on the Research at the Heyward-Washington House, Manuscript on file, Charleston Museum, 1978.Google Scholar
4 Crane, Brian, Ware, Colono and Ware, Criollo Pottery from Charleston, South Carolina and San Juan, Puerto Rico in Comparative Perspective. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. (Ann Arbor, University Microfilms International, 1993).Google Scholar
5 Vandiver, Pamela, Ellingson, William A., Robinson, Thomas K., Lobick, John J., and Séguin, Fredrick H., “New Applications of X-Radiographic Imaging Technologies for Archaeological Ceramics. Archeomaterials 5(2):185–207. 1991.Google Scholar
6 Crane, Brian, Ware, Colono and Criollo Ware Pottery.Google Scholar
7 For a discussion of the phosphorite, see Force, Eric R., Grosz, Andrew E., Loferski, Patricia J., and Maybin, Arthur H., “Aeroradioactivity Maps in Heavy-Mineral Exploration- Charleston, South Carolina, Area,” U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1218 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1982), p. 14.Google Scholar
8 Rice, Prudence, Pottery Analysis, A Sourcebook. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 411.Google Scholar
9 Munsell soil color charts, (Baltimore, Md: Munsell Color company, 1975).Google Scholar
10 , Ferguson, “Lowcountry Plantations;” Garrow and Wheaton, “Colonoware Ceramics.”Google Scholar