Newton Slave Burial Ground
Sources for Newton article:
Osteology & kinship: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.1330590414
Infection & mortality: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oa.1108
Witch??: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03374222
Isotopic analysis, diet, & diaspora: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2198&context=adan
Enslaved lifeways: https://www.jstor.org/stable/203517?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
More: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24&q=Newton+Slave+Burial+Ground&btnG=
Newton Plantation: https://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/content/newton-plantation-collection/
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Officially colonized by the British in 1627,[1] Barbados was by the end of the seventeenth century the richest possession of Britain's Caribbean empire.[1] The Bajan economy was driven by, and dependent on, slave labor,[1][2][3] which played out on cash-crop plantations throughout the island.[1][3] One such site was Newton Plantation, roughly 9.2 km (5.7 mi) east of the port of Bridgetown.[4] The adjacent Newton Slave Burial Ground became the final resting place of (hundreds? thousands?) of African, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Bajan slaves from c. 1660-1820.[3]
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Escape, Diffusion, and Demographics
Until the last quarter of the 17th century, the Newton Plantation was a major source of Maroon communities on the island.[1] Increasingly draconian preventative tactics were implemented at the site to dissuade potential escapees, including slaves being branded with an "N" to indicate their status as property of the Newton Plantation.[5] Slaves continued to escape in spite of these measures,[5] settling in Barbados and acquiring fraudulent documents attesting to their freedom or escaping the island completely.[5] Barbados was subject to such an extreme influx of slaves,[6] though, that the plantation's authority did not always invest in pursuing escapees, and even manumitted elderly slaves no longer able to work in the cane fields.[5] Indeed, people of African descent made up three-quarters of the island's population by 1700,[6] and enslaved Black Africans made up between 70 and 90 percent of migration to the island between 1670 and 1720.[6]
Osteological Investigations
Osteology has shed light on the quality of slave life and their cultural lifeways at the plantation. Examination of skeletal remains at the Newton burial ground suggests a life expectancy of 29 years, a figure in conflict with historical records indicating a life expectancy of 20 years.[2] Despite the slightly longer lifespan, skeletal remains also yields evidence of periodic starvation among Newton's slave population.[2] Moreover, osteological analysis suggests a low infant mortality rate, again in contrast with a historical demography that reports high rates of death among infants.[2] Tooth analysis indicates slaves regularly smoked tobacco and exhibited incisor mutilations,[2] the latter of which may have been a performative practice retained from the African continent or adopted by indigenous Caribbeans.[7] Human remains at Newton were buried in a deliberate, non-arbitrary manner, possibly indicating the maintenance of systems of kinship among the site's slaves.[2]
Retention of Indigenous Culture
Dated to the late 17th or early 18th centuries, archaeologists have been intrigued by the remains of a young adult woman.[8] The circumstances of her burial are abnormal, as she was interned in the largest artificial mound at the site without a coffin or other grave goods.[8] Osteological analysis detected extremely high levels of lead in her body, which may have contributed to her death as she appears to have been otherwise healthy.[8] The positioning of her body, too, is inconsistent with the rest of the remains at the burial ground, being the only person positioned face-down.[8] This is characteristic of West African mortuary practices,[8] and suggests that the slaves at Newton retained and maintained Indigenous cultural practices at the site.[1][2][8]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Handler, Jerome S.; Corruccini, Robert S. (1983). "Plantation Slave Life in Barbados: A Physical Anthropological Analysis". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 14 (1): 65–90. doi:10.2307/203517. ISSN 0022-1953.
- ^ a b c d e f g Corruccini, Robert S.; Handler, Jerome S.; Mutaw, Robert J.; Lange, Frederick W. (1982). "Osteology of a slave burial population from Barbados, West Indies". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 59 (4): 443–459. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330590414. ISSN 1096-8644.
- ^ a b c Shuler, K. A. (2011). "Life and death on a Barbadian sugar plantation: historic and bioarchaeological views of infection and mortality at Newton Plantation". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 21 (1): 66–81. doi:10.1002/oa.1108. ISSN 1099-1212.
- ^ "Newton Plantation Collection | Lowcountry Digital Library". Retrieved 2022-02-04.
- ^ a b c d Handler, Jerome S. (1997-01-01). "Escaping slavery in a Caribbean plantation society : marronage in Barbados, 1650s-1830s". New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 71 (3–4): 183–225. doi:10.1163/13822373-90002605. ISSN 1382-2373.
- ^ a b c Galenson, David W. (1982). "The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Barbados Market, 1673-1723". The Journal of Economic History. 42 (3): 491–511. ISSN 0022-0507.
- ^ Roksandic, Mirjana; Alarie, Kaitlynn; Suárez, Roberto Rodríguez; Huebner, Erwin; Roksandic, Ivan (2016-04-12). "Not of African Descent: Dental Modification among Indigenous Caribbean People from Canímar Abajo, Cuba". PLOS ONE. 11 (4): e0153536. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153536. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 4829177. PMID 27071012.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link) CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) - ^ a b c d e f Handler, Jerome S. (1996-09-01). "A prone burial from a plantation slave cemetery in Barbados, West Indies: Possible evidence for an African-type witch or other negatively viewed person". Historical Archaeology. 30 (3): 76–86. doi:10.1007/BF03374222. ISSN 2328-1103.