Susan, I can't speak for Alabama, but I'm sure that there is lots of archaeological evidence of what slaves were choosing to buy for themselves scattered across sites in the American South and the Caribbean. Historians have been looking at this issue for quite awhile. Two good sources are Ira Berlin and Philip Morgan's edited volume on slave economies, and Roderick? McDonald's comparative study of slave economies in Jamaica and Louisiana--sorry, I don't have a bibliography handy. Ann Smart Martin has been looking at merchant's ledgers in Virginia to determine what 18th century slaves (and others) were buying from local stores. Following her lead (since one of her merchants, John Hook, operated a store just down the road from where I work), I compared Hook's shop accounts for slaves (from 1771-1776 and from 1801-1810) to objects we excavated at a slave quarter at Poplar Forest. It is impossible to be certain of how individual people acquired individual objects in the past, but there were some interesting similarities between the historical and archaeological data. The store accounts indicate that Bedford County slaves purchased primarily cloth, clothing accessories, clothes, and foodstuffs (including alcohol). Slaves purchased a range of other goods including tools, cooking pots and ceramics, padlocks, and gunshot. Archaeologically, we found a number of adornment items (beads, over 100 buttons, shoe, hat, and knee buckles) and scissors, thimbles and straight pins related to sewing and clothing. We also found coopers' and carpenters' tools, gun shot and gunflint, and a number of other objects which could easily have been purchased, as well as several coins. If you want more detail, I'd be happy to send you a copy of the paper I gave at the 1997 SHAs on the subject. There's also lots of information out there about slave gardens and livestock ownership (mostly poultry and pigs in the southeast). The store accounts are great sources of information about what slaves were producing for sale and about their economic connections within a much broader community than the plantation itself. In central Virginia from the 1770s to the 1810s, some slaves were growing and selling tobacco, wheat, corn, apples, and garden produce. Others were performing a host of services for members of the local community (waggonage, "physicking" horses, making furniture, to name just a few) in exchange for merchandize at the store. Slaves were working cooperatively within the plantation, and between plantations, to bring goods to market. How might some of this be manifested archaeologically? We should be looking for evidence of house-yard gardens, storage sheds or cellars for keeping surplus goods for sale, tools, etc. It's important to note that only a small percentage of the slave population in central Virginia appear to have kept formal shop accounts. However, the accounts probably reflect a much broader, though less documented, involvement of slaves within the economies of individual plantations, and in local economies through city markets, purchases from peddlars and at auctions, informal trade between plantation communities, etc. Great stuff!! Barbara Heath