Excavating the Histories of Slave-Trade and Pirate Ships: Property, Plunder and Loss

235 Pages·2022·10.29 MB·English

by  Lynn Brenda Harris, Valerie Ann Johnson

Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology
Lynn Brenda Harris
Valerie Ann Johnson   Editors
Excavating
the Histories
of Slave-Trade
and Pirate Ships
Property, Plunder and Loss
Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology
Series Editors
Kathryn Sampeck, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Illinois State University, Normal, USA
Luis Symanski, Dept of Anthropology and Archaeology
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Editorial Board Members
Márcia Bezerra de Almeida, Federal University of Para, Belém, Brazil
Heather Burke, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Tania Manuel Casimiro, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Alfredo Gonzales-Ruibal, Institute of Heritage Studies of the Spanish National
Research Council, Madrid, Spain
Ellen Hsieh, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Laura Ng, Grinnell College, Grinnell, USA
Innocent Pikirayi, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Maria Ximena Senatore, University of Buenos Aires, Viamonte, Argentina
Tsim Schneider, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
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In light of this burgeoning interest, this book series is designed as a venue for
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anthropology and history of the modern era, such as slavery, gender, race,
industrialization, consumerism, and urbanism. The contemporary relevance of
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oppression, violence, and authoritarianism as well as heritage, memory, and the
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Lynn Brenda Harris • Valerie Ann Johnson
Editors
Excavating the Histories
of Slave-Trade and Pirate
Ships
Property, Plunder and Loss
Editors
Lynn Brenda Harris Valerie Ann Johnson
Prog Maritime Studies, History Dept School of Arts, Sciences, Humanities
East Carolina University Shaw University
Greenville, NC, USA Raleigh, NC, USA
ISSN 1574-0439
Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology
ISBN 978-3-030-96232-6 ISBN 978-3-030-96233-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96233-3
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
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A woodcut from A General History of the Pyrates (1725) showing an enslaved man escorting
Captain Every. (Public Domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Every,Henry.JPG)
v
Acknowledgments
The scope and range of the research findings described in this book is wide, inter-
disciplinary, and international. On behalf of all the authors, we would like to express
thanks and appreciation to the many institutions and departmental colleagues who,
over many years, have variously supported, encouraged, facilitated, and contributed
to these investigations, and especially to: North Carolina Department of Natural and
Cultural Resources (NCDCR) – Office of State Archaeology (OSA) – QAR
Conservation Lab, North Carolina African American Heritage Commission
(NCAAHC), East Carolina University (ECU), Shaw University, University of
California in Berkeley, Archives Départementales de Loire-Atlantique, Colonial
Williamsburg, UK Pewter Society, Society for Historical Archaeology, and Institute
of Museum and Library Services Grants for African American History and Culture
Program – for grant (2018–2021) to NC AAHC for a project entitled: “A Tale of
Two Ships: Developing a Collections Research & Interpretation Plan for Revealing
Hidden Histories of One ship with Two Identities” (TOTS). We would also like to
include thanks and appreciation to all the reviewers (anonymously) for their efforts,
constructive comments, and encouragement with this volume.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Lynn B. Harris
2 Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Opportunities
for (Il)legal Trade in the British West Indies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Benjamin D. Siegel
3 Blackbeard: A Rebel’s Intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Baylus C. Brooks
4 Maritime Miscommunication: La Concorde’s Final Voyage . . . . . . . . 49
Hannah J. Francis
5 Artifacts of Restraint and Enslaved African Women
of the Eighteenth Century Transatlantic Slave Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Kelsey K. Dwyer
6 Gold and Glass: Seeking West African Expressions
of Industry and Creativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Lynn B. Harris
7 Pewter Discovered on Shipwrecks of Early Eighteenth
Century Slave-Trade and Pirate Vessels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Sarah C. Watkins-Kenney
8 Foodways, Global Markets, and Inclusivity Reflected
Through the Ceramics Aboard a Ship with Two Names . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Linda F. Carnes-McNaughton
9 Marine Art as a Research Tool for Investigating Casks
as a Form of Material Culture Found on Historic
Shipwrecks Identified as Slave-Trade and Pirate Ships . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Sarah C. Watkins-Kenney and Lynn B. Harris
10 Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Valerie A. Johnson
ix
Chapter 1
Introduction
Lynn B. Harris
Abstract Until the last decade, maritime archaeology of the slave trade was a
neglected research theme within the discipline. Pirate histories were more popular
and appealing topics to the public. Shipwrecks of the slave trade in the eighteenth
century are often linked to pirate history, and an integral part of a more complex and
challenging social narrative. Biographies of ships, crew members, voyage logs,
cargo inventories, trader correspondence and contextual analysis of the artifact
assemblages have potential to yield new insights into the microeconomics and mari-
time traditions of these floating prisons. This compilation will include several case
studies that inform these narratives. Slave ships like La Concorde and Whydah had
multiple utilities during a life span, such as privateers or pirate ships. Likewise, the
illustrious biography of Captain Edward Thache (aka Blackbeard) reveals past iden-
tities as a naval officer, slave trader, and pirate. Categories of artifacts in archaeo-
logical collections represent cultural connections and traditions of enslaved Africans
and pirates. Others reflect the supply and demand of trade goods, revealing proto-
cols and decisions of the crew and captors in a fluctuating and volatile commodities
market. Examples include beads, clothe, pipes, trade bracelets or manillas, gold
ornaments, fishing weights, ivory, pewter and ceramics. Delving into the historic
imagery of slave trade and diagrams of slave ships provides dramatic visuals of the
middle passage, depictions of trade goods, and events at ports-of-call. Within the
larger context of slave trade during the eighteenth century, authors explore legal and
illegal trade in the British West Indies. These studies also address the plethora of
social, political, and environmental impacts on these island communities that played
an integral and strategic role in slave trade economics. This volume will the present
up-to-date research of professional maritime historians, artifact curators, and marine
archaeologists drawing upon primary source documents and material culture. The
research collaborators aim to reconstruct the international spheres of pewter and
ceramics. Delving into the historic imagery of slave trade and diagrams of slave
L. B. Harris (*)
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2022
L. B. Harris, V. A. Johnson (eds.), Excavating the Histories of Slave-Trade and
Pirate Ships, Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96233-3_1
2 L. B. Harris
ships provides dramatic visuals of the middle passage, depictions of trade goods,
and events at ports-of-call. Within the larger context of slave trade during the eigh-
teenth century, authors explore legal and illegal trade in the British West Indies.
These studies also address the plethora of social, political, and environmental
impacts on these island communities that played an integral and strategic role in
slave trade economics.
Until the last decade, maritime archaeology scholarship of the slave trade was a
neglected research theme within the discipline. One of the first scholars to call atten-
tion of practitioners to the neglected or hidden histories was Fred McGhee. In 1997
he noted that the “…emergence of a nautical archaeology from the standpoint of the
‘victims’ is inevitable: the reality is simply too stark to continue to ignore. The
almost utter neglect by nautical archaeologists of slave ship archaeology, for
instance, is a moral disgrace. One would think that a discipline approaching its fifth
decade of formalization (particularly a discipline that came of age in the 1960’s)
would have confronted this contentious issue by now, especially since it constituted
such an overwhelming part of the developing hemisphere’s maritime commerce.”
Nautical Archaeology scholarship was Eurocentric – yet had not critically engaged
colonialism and was out step with the contributions and enquiries of their terrestrial
counterparts and current maritime historical research (McGhee, 1997).
The call galvanized nautical archaeologists, and currently slave ship archaeology
research is an integral part of the discipline starting with the scholarship of Webster
(2008) who collated information about wrecked slaving vessels discovered or
sought by maritime archaeologists since 1972. At that time only a handful of firmly
identified, active slave ships were excavated, but since then, additional work was
carried out on wrecks of former slave ships and possible slavers. The article noted
that the impending 200th anniversaries of the abolition of the British and US slave
trades (2007 and 2008, respectively) appear to have stimulated a new wave scholar-
ship (Svalesen, 1995, 2000; Swanson, 2005, Andrews, 2007; Malcolm & Moore,
2008; Harris & Richards, 2018; Harris, 2020). Collaborative digital initiatives, like
the Slave Wrecks Project (2008), a partnership between the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of African American History and Culture, Iziko Museums of South Africa,
the U.S. National Park Service, the South African Heritage Resource Agency,
Diving With a Purpose, and the African Center for Heritage Activities, seek to bring
greater awareness to the study of sunken slave ships and build capacity for research
and education in the field of maritime archaeology. Digital platforms of huge value
to the maritime historians and archaeologists studying the slave trade are the Slave
Voyages Database (2009), Slave Images (2017) and Society for Historical
Archaeology Maritime Archaeology of The Slave Trade: Perspectives, Prospects,
and Reports from the Slave Wrecks Project (2016). Media projects bringing this his-
tory to the public include the National Geographic series (2018–2020) Search for
Histories Lost Slave Ships and podcasts series Enslaved.