Current Research in the French West Indies

Water Wheel at Bologne Distillery

Since 2001 I have been conducting historical archaeological research on plantation slave village sites in the French West Indies. In May of 2001, I conducted an initial investigation into the archaeology of the African Diaspora in Guadeloupe, French West Indies (FWI), and have followed that initial survey with excavation campaigns in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.

Windmill

Basse-Terre Island

Grand-Terre Island

Guadeloupe is an archipelago in the Lesser Antilles, consisting of three main islands, Basse-Terre, mountainous and well watered; Grande-Terre, and Marie-Galante, both of which are low lying and receive less rainfall.

This study is the first concerted effort to try to identify archaeological remains associated with the living spaces of enslaved Africans in the FWI, and used historical cartographic data to identify, locate, and facilitate a preliminary survey of village sites associated with 17^th, 18^th and 19^th century plantation sites. Prior to my project, historical archaeological research into the plantation-era past of Guadeloupe had focused on the industrial remains of sugar, coffee, and indigo plantations, which are frequently prominent features on the present-day landscape of the island due to their massive and substantial construction (see my "Introduction" to Journal of Caribbean Archaeology Special Publication #1, 2004).

In contrast, the lightly built structures that housed enslaved Africans and their descendants on the plantations have not endured, and therefore archaeology is one of the few methods available to learn about the experiences and adaptations of the African population, as has been demonstrated in over 20 years of archaeological research elsewhere in the Caribbean, and in the former slaveholding regions of North and South America.

An important feature of this research lies in the fact that although the former French colonies of the West Indies were economic powerhouses of the region during the 18^th century, possessing well developed slave-based plantation economies home to more than one-half of all the enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, our current understanding of the conditions of slavery, and people’s responses to it, are based on research focused on the former British colonies of the region. Yet there were many differences between the colonies, most significantly, the impact of the French Revolution and the subsequent social upheavals it engendered. In the Caribbean, the French Revolution led to the uprising in St. Domingue that led to the establishment of Haiti, while in Guadeloupe, it resulted in the unprecedented abolition of slavery in 1794, followed eight years later by its re-establishment. It is in this unusual situation that historical archaeology may be able to contribute to a more complex and nuanced understanding of the social consequences of slavery in the French West Indies specifically and the Caribbean in general.

My goals for the initial research season were to 1) determine the historical sources that are available to facilitate the targeting of potential sites; 2) develop a methodology for locating such sites; and 3) determine that village sites associated with enslaved African were present and intact. In contrast to some other parts of the West Indies, such as Jamaica, the historical record for Guadeloupe is somewhat thin. In particular, the extensive series of maps and plans that exist for some of the British possessions apparently are not duplicated for the former French colonies. Indeed, for Guadeloupe, there are only a few such maps. However, one that does exist is extraordinary in its detail. This map, the Carte des Ingeneurs du Roi, produced in the 1760s following the Seven Years War, depicts the entire island, and shows every plantation present at the time. Furthermore, the level of detail on this map is remarkable. Each sugar estate is shown, with individual buildings noted, including the industrial works (marked by a symbol indicating the presence of a windmill, watermill, or animal mill).

  Also, the villages occupied by the enslaved Africans are indicated as collections of individual buildings that appear to actually  reflect the layout of each village, and are not depicted by a standardized symbol.  Thus, some are shown as parallel rows of houses on each side of a roadway, while others are shown as seemingly randomly distributed clusters, and yet others are shown as orderly villages laid out on a grid pattern. Roads and geographical features are well represented, and a comparison with modern topographic maps demonstrates a great degree of conservatism in the road network. By using the Carte des Ingenieurs du Roi in conjunction with modern topographic maps, I was able to select a number of target village sites for field visits.  I targeted other sites based upon industrial ruins recorded on present day topographic maps. I assumed that features on modern maps that do not correspond to estates on the CIR must post-date the 1760s. Employing my understanding of some of the  principles used in situating villages (typically on hilly or otherwise uncultivable land, reasonably close to the industrial complex, etc. [see also my paper with Douglas Armstrong in Ethnohistory 47(2): 369-397, 2000]) enabled me to predict the landforms likely to contain the sites. Subsequent field visits usually demonstrated these predictions to be valid. Lastly, target sites  were primarily located in regions of Guadeloupe that have not been substantially impacted either by the rapid urban growth of the past 20 years, or the spread of banana cultivation which also negatively impacts archaeological sites.

Using these strategies, Ivisited nearly 30 village sites on Basse Terre, Grande Terre, and Marie Galante. Nearly 20 of these locations were found to contain features, artifacts, or other indications of largely intact village sites.

All observations were based on surface artifacts and indications: no excavations were conducted at this stage. Most of the sites dated to the mid to late 18^th century, and the early to mid 19^th century. Artifacts and other indications at several of the sites suggest that some villages may have been abandoned around the end of the 18^th century, probably in the upheavals associated with the French Revolution and the abolition of slavery. On one estate, artifacts associated with two separate village sites suggest that the earlier village was occupied during the 18^th century, and the second nearby village was associated with the 19^th century.

Stone walls at the site

of another village

The results of this initial survey were promising on all fronts. A useful strategy for finding village sites was developed, the presence of largely intact village sites was confirmed, and the potential of such sites to yield archaeological data that will substantively influence our understanding of the similarities and differences in French colonial slavery was demonstrated.

Excavations were begun in 2002 on two sites identified during the survey, Habitation La Mahaudière and Habitation Grande Pointe. At each site, a base map of the village area was constructed, and tied into existing maps of the industrial works. Then, test excavations were placed inside and adjacent to house platforms, ruins, and foundations in order to determine the subsurface integrity of the archaeological deposits. In the case of both estates, the results were highly favorable, and led to some initial observations about the nature and organization of the slave villages, and how they changed through time. Among the findings were that the components of the villages that appeared to date to the 19th century were laid out in a very orderly fashion, with the houses being placed in evenly spaced rows. This seems to contrast with the earlier 18th century village remains at La Mahaudière, which appear to be more randomly placed across the hillside. Another result of this work has demonstrated that the 19th century structures appear to have been much more substantially built than earlier buildings in the villages. Both the Grande Pointe and La Mahaudière villages exhibited stone built dwellings in the 19th century, whereas earlier houses were much more lightly built of wattle and daub.

In 2003, 2004 and 2005, I chose to focus our efforts on the village site at La Mahaudière for several reasons. One, we were finding a very interesting set of superimposed village structures that would allow us to begin to investigate change through time, instead of simply describing conditions at one point in the history of the estate. Two, local interest in developing an interpretive center at the site meant that our results would reach the public more rapidly than at Grande Pointe. Demonstrating this are several articles published in France Antilles, the principal newspaper of Guadeloupe.

Our excavations have concentrated on the area of three 19th century masonry foundations, and the “yard” areas between these buildings in an effort to learn about the variety of ways enslaved people created their world in the village, and to learn how people used the open spaces between structures for aspects of their daily life. During the course of our excavations inside and between structures, we have found abundant evidence of the early component of the village. This period is principally indicated by the presence of post holes excavated through the shallow soil of the village area, and into the limestone bedrock. The fill of many of these postholes is completely free of artifacts, demonstrating that they date to the earliest occupation of the area, before refuse had built up in the village area. Some post holes have one or two artifacts in their fill, and they date to the late 18th century, again showing that the structures predate the 19th century.

Our excavations also have yielded extensive evidence of foodways in the slave village, though the recovery of faunal remains and the ceramic vessels used to prepare food. Preliminary indications suggest that pork was an important food, and that people supplemented their diets with wild shellfish from the nearby coasts. The ceramics recovered are almost entirely of French origin, and include the glazed cooking pottery that was produced in vast quantities in 18th and 19th century France. What is interesting is that there has been very little of apparently hand made, locally produced pottery that would be similar in function to the “yabba” wares of Jamaica or the colonoware of the Southeast US.

We have now finished the fieldwork at La Mahaudière and are beginning the big job of making sense of all the data we have accumulated. Meanwhile, I am also engaged in a project with Mark Hauser, an archaeologist at DePaul University, in which we have been seeking out historic period kiln sites in Guadeloupe and Martinique. We have collected ceramic samples from these sites, and are in the process of chemical and petrographic analysis of the sherds to shed light on trade networks that operated within and between Guadeloupe and Martinique in the during the colonial period. Mark and I have presented some preliminary results of this work at the International Association of Caribbean Archaeology conference in Trinidad in July 2005, at the Society for Post Medieval Archaeology conference in Nevis in June 2005, and were part of a session on chemical analysis of ceramics at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in Puerto Rico in April 2006.

The project at La Mahaudière and Grande Pointe has included MA students from USC (Audrey Dawson, Katie Epps, Stephen Lenik, and Lauren Davis) and I have been working closely with two Ph.D. students. Peggy Brunache (MA USC 2001), currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas assisted me with the initial survey of plantation sites and is studying foodways of the enslaved people for her dissertation, and Heather Gibson (Ph.D. candidate Syracuse University) is working on understanding the relationship of access to goods and the development of identity for her dissertation. Heather has also been productive, spending 5 months conducting research in French archives and in presenting the results of her work at international conferences. In addition to these graduate students, Sylvie Lomer conducted a senior honors thesis for USC on public perceptions of heritage and archaeology in Guadeloupe, and I have been working with Anne-Laure Dijoux, a French undergraduate from Réunion.

Creve Coeur, Martinique

As part of a long term investigation into the nature of French colonial slavery, in 2004 I began a comparative project in Martinique. Martinique shares much of the same history as Guadeloupe, with French colonial occupation beginning at the same time in the 1630s, they are about the same size in area and population, and Martinique is also presently a departement of France. There are, however, a few significant differences, mostly related to how colonial wars affected each colony. For my concerns, the most significant difference is that Martinique’s experiences during the French Revolutionary period followed a very different path. Instead of the Revolutionary emancipation (albeit short-lived) that occurred in Guadeloupe, planter interests in Martinique invited occupation by the British in order to ensure that slavery remained the law of the land. Thus, while Guadeloupe experienced an eight year break in slavery, bondage continued unabated during the revolutionary period in Martinique. This would allow an investigation of how slavery was manifest in Martinique, and whether the processes observed on Guadeloupe also occurred in Martinique.

In 2004 I visited a number of plantation sites in Martinique to investigate their potential for archaeological research into the period of slavery. A number of differences were immediately visible in Martinique, most notably the presence of numerous maison de maitres, or planter’s residences and the frequent presence of 19th century laborer housing. Several plantation sites were particularly interesting, including Chateau du Buc, on the Presquile de Caravelle, and Habitation Creve Coeur, in Ste Anne, the southernmost commune of the island. In 2005 I chose to begin work at Creve Coeur, influenced by several factors: 1) the plantation was similar in size and scope to La Mahaudière in Guadeloupe, thereby facilitating comparisons; 2) the entire plantation complex is present, including the ruins of the sugar works, the maison de maitre, and the village site; and 3) the local government of the commune of Ste Anne is very interested in seeing that the entire story of plantations and slavery in Martinique is interpreted to the public, and they fully recognize the potential of historical archaeology to contribute in meaningful ways to that goal. During three weeks of fieldwork at Creve Coeur my team was able to define the boundaries of the village site through shovel testing, and create a map of the village site. Artifacts recovered from the shovel tests at Creve Coeur provide some preliminary indications that some different things were going on at Creve Coeur from what we have seen in Guadeloupe. Most significantly, throughout the village site we find sherds of low fired hand built earthenwares similar to the well known colonoware of the Southeast United States. Furthermore, the imported European ceramics present at Creve Coeur are also distinct from those found at La Mahaudière or Grande Pointe. We have also been fortunate to find significant amounts of faunal material in the shovel tests, which suggests that intact midden deposits are present at Creve Coeur, and can help us learn a great deal about diet and provisioning strategies. Although this work is only in its beginning stages, the results of the shovel test program demonstrate the great potential of continuing work at Creve Coeur.

During nearly six weeks of work in the summer of 2007 we expanded our archaeological exploration of Creve Coeur with a series of excavations on and adjacent to the remains of house platforms in the slave village area. These excavations revealed the presence of prepared floor surfaces at two locations, along with a great quantity of wrought iron nails, demonstrating that the houses at Creve Coeur were probably constructed of wood planks, and not the wattle and daub found in Guadeloupe. Furthermore, the range of imported ceramics appears to be somewhat more diverse than the range identified in Guadeloupe at Grande Pointe and La Mahaudiere. Extensive trash deposits were found on the slopes immediately below the house platforms excavated, and as indicated in the 2005 shovel test program, there is good preservation of faunal material, including small fish bones. Also present in the trash deposits are a significant quantity of locally manufactured, hand-built earthenwares, known as Coco Neg in Martinique. These earthenwares, with their distinctive rims and applied handles, have not been studied yet in any meaningful way in Martinique, and the collection from Creve Coeur has great potential to add to our understanding of this type. Another aspect of the study in 2007 was to collect data for the honor’s thesis research to be conducted by Mary Ann Fanning, a Magellan scholar at the University of South Carolina. She will be comparing the diversity of ceramics and other material culture found in trash deposits associated with the Maison de Maitre with the materials excavated from the village site. Her research should be completed by May, 2008.

The archaeological research in Guadeloupe and the ceramic study in Guadeloupe and Martinique was facilitated by Antoine Chancerel, Conservateur of the Service Régional d’Archéologie (Guadeloupe), Gerard Richard, Archéologue Régional (Guadeloupe), and others. Archaeological work in Martinique has been facilitated by Olivier Kayser and Henri Marchesi, Conservateurs of the Service Régional d’Archéologie (Martinique), and by Alex Calixte, Bureau de la Mairie, Ste. Anne, Martinique. Funding was provided the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the French Ministry of Culture, and by two College of Liberal Arts Scholarship Support (CLASS) Grants to Kenneth Kelly.

Document's URL: http://www.cla.sc.edu/anth/faculty/KGKelly1/guadeloupe.html
Published 10/07/2002; 12:05:40 PM by the College of Liberal Arts, University of South Carolina.
Updated 01/25/2008 and Maintained by Claudia Carriere, cfcarri@gwm.sc.edu. ©Copyrighted 1995-2004. All Rights Reserved.