Seventeenth-century reports of the suffering of European indentured servants and the fact that many were transported to Barbados against their wishes has led to a growing body of transatlantic popular literature, particularly dealing with the Irish. This literature claims the existence of "white slavery" in Barbados and, essentially, argues that the harsh labor conditions and sufferings of indentured servants were as bad as or even worse than that of enslaved Africans. Though not loudly and publicly proclaimed, for some present-day white Barbadians, as for some Irish and Irish-Americans, the "white slavery" narrative stresses a sense of shared victimization; this sentiment then serves to discredit calls for reparations from the descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States and the former British West Indies. This article provides a detailed examination of the sociolegal distinctions between servitude and slavery, and argues that it is misleading, if not erroneous, to apply the term "slave" to Irish and other indentured servants in early Barbados. While not denying the hardships suffered by indentured servants, referring to white servants as slaves deflects the experiences of millions of persons of African birth or descent. We systematically discuss what we believe are the major sociolegal differences and the implications of these differences between indentured servitude and the chattel slavery that uniquely applied to Africans and their descendants.

The island of Barbados provides an ideal case study to explore the beginnings of slavery and definitions of slave status in England's early American colonies. Africans and Europeans confronted each other earlier and on a larger scale in Barbados than in any other English colony. By tracing the development of slavery from the colony's settlement in 1627 this article argues that the legitimization or legalization of African slavery and the status of slaves were established in custom long before any slave laws were passed. Focus is on slave status as a point of analysis, implicitly defined by three major features: chattel property, lifetime (or permanent) servitude, and inheritance of slave condition from an enslaved mother. In examining the evidence for these features, the article contends they were part of the culture of the Euro-Atlantic world and English worldview by the time the island was settled. None of the features was ever defined in any law; rather, they were implicit in any Barbados law that mentioned slaves.

Formerly British and French colonies, the eastern Caribbean islands of Barbados and Martinique were major players in the early development of European overseas empires dependent on African slave labor and the large-scale production of sugar. Utilizing documentary and archaeological data we discuss and compare the independent production activities or household economies of plantation slaves on these two islands. The household economy was one of the more prominent aspects of plantation slave life throughout the Caribbean, and in this paper we examine the multiple adaptive production strategies slaves employed to ameliorate the poverty of their material and economic lives.

More than two and a half centuries after it was first outlawed in Jamaica in 1760, obeah remains illegal in most territories of the former British West Indies. Yet, opinions on the meaning and essential nature of this controversial Afro-Caribbean spiritual phenomenon vary widely. While many contemporary West Indians hold negative views of obeah, viewing it as evil witchcraft or sorcery, others point to its widespread use in healing, protection from harm and solving a wide range of everyday problems - positive views that were also commonly held by enslaved West Indians in earlier generations. Despite the scholarly attention obeah has received, relatively little has been written about the many laws enacted against it in different territories at different periods. Offering a perspective on obeah that challenges conventional conceptions of this widely misunderstood aspect of West Indian society and culture, the core of this book is a detailed examination of anti-obeah laws, and their socio-political implications, in seventeen jurisdictions of the English-speaking Caribbean from the period of slavery to the present. Aside from chronologically tracing in each territory the development of these laws and their major provisions, the book also examines how anti-obeah legislation has helped to create and perpetuate cultural distortions that resound into the present. Anti-obeah legislation, particularly after the end of slavery in the nineteenth century, played a central role in creating public misunderstandings of the meaning and role of obeah among the West Indian masses, and led to the stigmatization and devaluation among future generations of African-derived spiritual beliefs and practices.

Nevis, and St. Lucia), persons of African descent continue to manufacture earthenware pottery, generally somewhat loosely and variously referred to by modern Caribbean archaeologists as Afro-Caribbean pottery or ceramics (e.g., Petersen et al. 1999). 2 These small-scale industries have always played an insignificant role in insular national economies and at present they seem to have a very limited chance for long-term survival. Today they produce largely for the tourist market and are disappearing to varying degrees. Several of these industries have been ethnographically reported over the years, 3 and these reports provide a base line from which to examine the changing demands and pressures confronting local potteries. Diachronic studies of these industries permit researchers to chart changes as these industries decline, and also provide a lens through which archaeologists can understand the ways in which local craft industries have confronted changing economic landscapes. Moreover, traditional locally made earthenware is today found in historical archaeological sites in the West Indies and ethnographic knowledge about local industries helps interpret the archaeological data. The following information on the little-known industry in the small island of Antigua, a former British colony in the Leeward island chain-today an independent member of the British Commonwealth-is based on limited field work, published literature, and personal correspondence with persons possessing first-hand knowledge. Synthesizing and comparing different accounts presents some difficulties including inconsistencies in identifying the number of potters, varying attention to manufacturing details, and distinct analytical agendas.

This article describes the transformation of an image depicting an unnamed, enslaved African man wearing a metal facemask, a common form of punishment in colonial Brazil, into the iconic representation of the martyred slave AnastAcia/Anastasia, the focus of a growing religious and political movement in Brazil. The authors trace the image to an early 19th century engraving based on a drawing by the Frenchman Jacques Arago. Well over a century later, Arago's image increasingly became associated with a corpus of myths describing the virtuous suffering and painful death of a female slave named AnastAcia. By the 1990s, Arago's image (and variations of it), now identified as the martyred AnastAcia/Anastasia, had proliferated throughout Brazil, an object of devotion for Catholics and practitioners of Umbanda, as well as a symbol of black pride.

Scholars of the Atlantic slave trade have not systematically addressed the question of what material objects or personal belongings captive Africans took aboard the slave ships and what goods they may have acquired on the Middle Passage. This topic has implications for the archaeology of African descendant sites in the New World and the transmission of African material culture. This paper reviews the evidence for clothing, metal, bead, and other jewelry, amulets, tobacco pipes, musical instruments, and gaming materials. In so doing, the paper provides an empirical foundation for the severe limitations placed upon enslaved Africans in transporting their material culture to the New World.

The disease environment, health problems and causes of mortality of enslaved Barbadians are described. Data are derived mainly from documentary sources; also included are bio-archaeological data from analyses of skeletons recovered from Newton Plantation cemetery. Major topics include infectious diseases transmitted from person to person, as well as those contracted through water soil, and other environmental contaminations, and diseases transmitted by insects, parasites and other animals; nutritional diseases, including protein energy malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, anaemia, and geophagy or "dirt eating"; dental pathologies, lead poisoning, alcoholism, traumas, and other disorders, including psychogenic death or illness caused by beliefs in witchcraft or sorcery.

IntroductionIn this paper we describe both houses and household furnishings of enslaved people on Barbadian sugar plantations, and also trace development and changes in architectural forms over several centuries of slavery on island. We also treat housing policies of plantation owners/managers and explore possible African and European cultural influences on Barbadian vernacular housing tradition that emerged during period of slavery. It must be emphasized at outset that, as with so many areas of social, cultural and material life of enslaved people in Barbados, information in documentary sources is often very superficial, highly limited, fragmented and ethnocentric. Because of sparse historical and archaeological record, severe limitations are placed on amount of detail that can be captured with respect to topics treated in this paper.1Village Settlements and Plantation Housing PoliciesDuring period of plantation slavery in Barbados, from around 1640s to between 1834 and 1838, great majority of enslaved Barbadians lived on sugar plantations, in small villages or hamlets formerly referred to as Negro Yards. The villages were on an average of about five or less of land and were usually located not far from house of planter (the dwelling house) and plantation which contained sugar mill and factory, stables, and various outbuildings. During this period there may have been roughly 400 or such villages, though their numbers fluctuated over years. Villages on smaller plantations had fewer than 50 inhabitants, settlements on medium and large plantations held between 100 to 200 people. A significant number had populations in 200s while settlements exceeding people were relatively rare. On smaller plantations, or farms with few enslaved labourers, there were only a handful of houses, while on many others number of houses was closer to twenty-five. On a still larger number of plantations, with enslaved populations from 100 to 200, settlements usually contained from 25 to 50 houses, while a significant number of settlements with populations numbering in 200s contained up to around 75 houses. It is doubtful that many plantations had than 80 houses. In 1833, for example, Vaucluse, in parish of St Thomas, was among Barbados's largest plantations, consisting of 600 acres and more than 300 enslaved persons. At this time, less than four percent of island's enslaved population lived on plantations of this size, and Vaucluse settlement had nearly 80 houses. Finally, it can be noted that while planters determined actual locale of Negro yard, enslaved were generally free to choose their specific house sites within this area.2The slave code of Barbados, reflecting a general, British West Indian pattern, contained no provisions for housing, but by voluntary custom, a planter in 1780s reported, the masters generally allow them to build little cottages for that purpose.3 Even if Barbadian law had provided for shelter, it would probably not have been enforced, nor would it have had any significant impact on policies of plantation managements. In practice, Barbadian planters, in common with planters in other parts of West Indies, pursued different policies in providing housing materials and incurring expenses in construction and repair of houses. Moreover, these policies varied throughout period of plantation slavery.The legal code aside, little evidence exists that planters paid much formal attention to shelter during seventeenth century or for much of eighteenth; later (usually pro-slavery) sources indicate that slave houses were sometimes constructed and maintained at plantation's expense. The most common policy in Barbados was probably similar to that described by historian J. Harry Bennett for two Codrington plantations owned (from early eighteenth century until 1983) by Church of England's Society for Propagation of Gospel in Foreign Parts. …

The disease environment, health problems and causes of mortality of enslaved Barbadians are described Data are derived mainly from documentary sources; also included are bio-archaeological data from analyses of skeletons recovered from Newton Plantation cemetery. Major topics include infectious diseases transmitted from person to person, as well as those contracted through water, soil, and other environmental contaminations, and diseases transmitted by insects, parasites, and other animals; nutritional diseases, including protein energy malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, anaemia, and geophagy or "dirt eating"; dental pathologies; and lead poisoning, alcoholism, traumas, and other disorders, including psychogenic death or illness caused by beliefs in witchcraft or sorcery.

Anthropology TodayVolume 24, Issue 6 p. 24-24 Free Access Philip John CrossKey Dark (1918-2008) Jerome S. Handler, Jerome S. Handler Virginia Foundation for the Humanities jh3v@cms.mail.virginia.eduSearch for more papers by this author Jerome S. Handler, Jerome S. Handler Virginia Foundation for the Humanities jh3v@cms.mail.virginia.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 25 November 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8322.2008.00630.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume24, Issue6December 2008Pages 24-24 RelatedInformation

White clay pipes of European manufacture regularly appear in African descendant sites in the Caribbean and North America. They are usually recovered in the form of bowl or stem fragments. Many such fragments were found at Newton plantation cemetery in Barbados in the early 1970s (as well as at 13 other Barbados plantations where research was conducted). The cemetery also yielded 21 whole pipes, defined as a significant portion of the bowl and a section of the attached stem (Figure 1). These pipes were an important component of the cemetery’s grave goods and constitute what is still today the largest collection of whole pipes thus far reported in the archaeological literature for African descendant sites in North America and the Caribbean; it is possibly one of the largest, if not the largest, collection of whole pipes reported for any archaeological site in British America. Moreover, Newton also yielded one specimen of a very distinctive short-stemmed earthenware elbow/elbow-bend or stem/socket pipe of almost certain West African, possibly of Gold Coast (Ghana), origin (Handler and Lange 1978; Blakeman and Riordan 1978; Handler 1983; Handler 1997). It is rather remarkable that approximately 35 years after this pipe was discovered, as far as we are aware, nothing similar has yet been reported from African descendant sites in British America, despite the amount of archaeological research that has been