Jerome S. Handler

2009 (M. W. Hauser and J. Handler), Change in Small Scale Pottery Manufacture in Antigua, West Indies. African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter. December.

Today, in a handful of Caribbean islands (e.g., Jamaica, Martinique, Barbados, Antigua, Nevis, and St. Lucia), persons of African descent continue to manufacture earthenware pottery, generally somewhat loosely and variously referred to by modern Caribbean archaeologists as Afro-Caribbean pottery or ceramics. These small-scale industries have always played an insignificant role in insular national economies and at present they seem to have a very limited chance for long-term survival. Today they produce largely for the tourist market and are disappearing to varying degrees. Several of these industries have been ethnographically reported over the years, and these reports provide a base line from which to examine the changing demands and pressures confronting local potteries. Diachronic studies of these industries permit researchers to chart changes as these industries decline, and also provide a lens through which archaeologists can understand the ways in which local craft industries have confronted changing economic landscapes. Moreover, traditional locally made earthenware is today found in historical archaeological sites in the West Indies and ethnographic knowledge about local industries helps interpret the archaeological data. The following information on the little-known industry in the small island of Antigua, a former British colony in the Leeward island chain — today an independent member of the British Commonwealth — is based on limited field work, published literature, and personal correspondence with persons possessing first-hand knowledge.

Change in Small Scale Pottery Manufacture in Antigua, West Indies

1971    The History of Arrowroot and the Origin of Peasantries in the British West Indies. Jl. of Caribbean History 2: 46-93.

This paper describes the patterns of consumption, production, and distribution of arrowroot from the 17th century to the middle of the 19th, and relates those patterns to the way in which the foundation of a post-Emancipation peasantry was established during slavery. By tracing the history of minor crops one can get a better idea of the early beginnings of West Indian small-scale agricultural systems as well as a view into the processes by which the New World environment generated new patterns of plant use and ecological adaptations among the Africans and Europeans who displaced Amerindian populations.

1966    Small-Scale Sugar Cane Farming in Barbados. Ethnology 5: 264-83.

This paper describes the more prominent socio-cultural aspects of cane farming on small holdings and accounts for the importance of sugar as a cash crop in terms of the Barbadian farmer’s system of cash needs. The paper also treats the way in which the farmer’s emphasis upon cash acquisition has in turn affected the nature of his agricultural, specifically sugar producing, activities. Data are based on fieldwork conducted in the early 1960s.

1965    Some Aspects of Work Organization on Sugar Plantations in Barbados. Ethnology 4:16-38.