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 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."

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.


-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of ned
heite
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 9:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Colono label


The problem with a "ware" called "colono" is that the term has been
applied to dozens of totally different ceramics, with totally differrent
histories.

Every ethnic (racial, national) group in Colonial America had a
tradition of hand-built, finished, unglazed, low-fired pottery.  A Dane
or an Irishman could make such a pot, drawing on his own national
tradition;  so could an African or a Native American.  Up and down the
coast of North America, fundamentally different pottery types have been
bunched under the label of "colono," even though they may have resulted
from different cultural origins.  Even within a single region, different
"colono" wares existed simultaneously but clearly came from radically
different sources.

Most importantly, we have totally failed to realize the possible
European origins of some "colono" traditions. Both Ferguson and Noel
Hume, to name but two of the researchers, dismissed the possibility of
European origins without so much as a glance at the record.   Europe
was thick with local hand-built pottery traditions during the
seventeenth century, and they are well documented.

I think it's been pretty well shown that, for example, the Virginia and
South Carolina "colono" traditions are as different as creamware from
porcelain. Yet we cram them into this same phony category.

Until we start treating each locality's pottery as a distinct craft
tradition with its own history, we are never going to even approach
understanding what these ceramics mean.




Edward F. Heite
Heite Consulting, Inc.
Archaeologists and Historians
P O Box 53, Camden, Delaware 19934
www.heite.org