In a message dated 6/10/2004 4:57:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
I do not think that this post accurately reflects what Leland Ferguson
said about "Colono Ware," some 20 years ago. Initially, he was reacting
to Noel-Hume's identification of the type as, simply, a continuation of
pre-contact and contact-period Native American ceramic traditions into
the colonial, or the post-contact period of the 18th and 19th centuries,
and the unthinking application of this ceramic description to rice
plantation sites along the Carolina coast. In that area and at that
time, the largest group of people making hand-built, finished, unglazed
low-fired pottery were enslaved Africans, who were continuing basically
African ceramic traditions, using local clays. This was regarded as
perhaps an overly-revolutionary idea because archaeologists were just,
then, beginning to think of Africans and African Americans as producers
rather than recipients of material culture. Ferguson also does not
exclude contributions from other ethnic groups into this ceramic
tradition--principally, again along the "rice coast," from Native
Americans who were also at times enslaved by planters in that area
during the early-to-mid 18th century.
In his original definition (1978) of the ware he likened it to "creamware."
On page 18-22 of Uncommon Ground he gives the genesis of his definition,
pointing to wares made by Native Americans, and explaining why the term
"colono-indian" is too limited. He concludes by saying "The Colono Ware concept covers all
these possibilities." (Ferguson, Uncommon Ground 1993: 22)
In other areas, especially the Chesapeake, "Colono Wares" reflect the
different experience those areas had with slavery and indentured
servitude, and a more complex mix of Native American, African and
European traditions. With a greater level of Native-American/European
interaction early on, a slower establishment of plantation slavery and a
use of Euro-American (principally, British, Scots and Irish) indentured
servants that was more central to the development of the plantation
economy than it was in South Carolina, a different, more syncretic,
tradition in low-fired unglazed earthenwares was developed, reflecting
the differing history and class structure of that colony. To the best
of my memory, much of this is stated in Ferguson's "Uncommon Ground."
>>You are correct, but this is all stated as a caveat, and then promptly
forgotten in all subsequent discussions. This is in a book which is, after all,
subtitled "Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800" Further, the fact
that up to 30% of the slaves in SC before 1730 were Indians is completely
ignored. I have made the case, backed by documentary evidence, that Indian women
were preferred as slaves and specifically sought to work in the kitchen. Since
Indian women made the pottery in their societies (most of the time) isn't it
logical that they continued to do so in captivity? Wouldn't they have passed
this knowledge along to their children and neighbors? At the very least, wouldn't
this result in a local culture where pottery making was seen as an every day
thing, where everyone that wanted a bowl might participate?
AS for Danes making "Colono" pottery--they could, but DID they? In
America? And, not at L' Anse aux Meadows? (Where, I know, the Norse
where Greenlanders, Icelanders and Norwegian, in that rough order, and
no Dane would, probably have been caught there in any state other than
dead!).
D. Babson.
>> I believe Ned's point was that when people began to apply the term outside
of the SC Lowcountry, where it is most applicable, that all other
possibilities were set aside...
Carl Steen
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