A01=Theresa A. Singleton
Africa
Author_Theresa A. Singleton
Category=NHD
Category=NHTS
Category=NKD
Coffee
Cuba
economy
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethnicity
gender
heritage
historical archaeology
historiography
Latin America
Mayabeque Province
plantation
planter
Rebellion
resistance
runaways
slave labor
Slavery Behind the Wall
slaves
Theresa Singleton
Product details
- ISBN 9780813060729
- Weight: 520g
- Dimensions: 151 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 21 Jul 2015
- Publisher: University Press of Florida
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Cuba had the largest slave society of the Spanish colonial empire and thus the most plantations. The lack of archaeological data for interpreting these sites is a glaring void in slavery and plantation studies. Theresa Singleton helps to fill this gap with the presentation of the first archaeological investigation of a Cuban plantation written by an English speaker.
At Santa Ana de Biajacas, where the plantation owner sequestered slaves behind a massive masonry wall, Singleton explores how elite Cuban planters used the built environment to impose a hierarchical social order upon slave laborers. Behind the wall, slaves reclaimed the space as their own, forming communities, building their own houses, celebrating, gambling, and even harboring slave runaways. What emerged there is not just an identity distinct from other NorthAmerican and Caribbean plantations, but a unique slave culture that thrived despite a spartan lifestyle.
Singleton’s study provides insight into the larger historical context of the African diaspora, global patterns of enslavement, and the development of Cuba as an integral member of the larger Atlantic World.
At Santa Ana de Biajacas, where the plantation owner sequestered slaves behind a massive masonry wall, Singleton explores how elite Cuban planters used the built environment to impose a hierarchical social order upon slave laborers. Behind the wall, slaves reclaimed the space as their own, forming communities, building their own houses, celebrating, gambling, and even harboring slave runaways. What emerged there is not just an identity distinct from other NorthAmerican and Caribbean plantations, but a unique slave culture that thrived despite a spartan lifestyle.
Singleton’s study provides insight into the larger historical context of the African diaspora, global patterns of enslavement, and the development of Cuba as an integral member of the larger Atlantic World.
Theresa A. Singleton is associate professor of anthropology at Syracuse University, USA. She has served as curator for historical archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution, and she is the editor of The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life.
