Materializing Colonial Identities in Clay: Colonoware in the African and Indigenous Diasporas of the Southeast

By Jon Bernard Marcoux, Andrew Agha, Ronald W. Anthony and 9 more

In Materializing Colonial Identities in Clay, Jon Bernard Marcoux, Corey A. H. Sattes, and contributors examine colonoware to explore the active roles that African Americans and Indigenous people played in constructing southern colonial culture and part of their shared history with Europeans.

Colonoware was most likely produced by African and Indigenous potters and used by all colonial groups for cooking, serving, and storing food. It formed the foundation of colonial foodways in many settlements across the southeastern United States. Even so, compared with other ceramics from this period, less has been understood about its production and use because of the lack of documentation. This collection of essays fills this gap with valuable, recent archaeological data from which much may be surmised about the interaction among Europeans, Indigenous, and Africans, especially within the contexts of the African and Indigenous slave trade and plantation systems.

The chapters represent the full range of colonoware research: from the beginning to the end of its production, from urban to rural contexts, and from its intraregional variation in the Lowcountry to the broad patterns of colonialism across the early American Southeast. The book summarizes current approaches in colonoware research and how these may bridge the gaps between broader colonial American studies, Indigenous studies, and African Diaspora studies.

A concluding discussion contextualizes the chapters through the perspectives of intersectionality and Black feminist theory, drawing attention to the gendered and racialized meanings embodied in colonoware, and considering how colonialism and slavery have shaped these cultural dimensions and archaeologists’ study of them.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Apr 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9780817394936

Book preview

MATERIALIZING COLONIAL IDENTITIES IN CLAY

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH:

NEW DIRECTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES

SERIES EDITOR

Christopher B. Rodning

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Robin A. Beck

John H. Blitz

I. Randolph Daniel Jr.

Kandace R. Hollenbach

Patrick C. Livingood

Tanya M. Peres

Thomas J. Pluckhahn

Mark A. Rees

Amanda L. Regnier

Sissel Schroeder

Lynne P. Sullivan

Ian Thompson

Richard A. Weinstein

Gregory D. Wilson

MATERIALIZING COLONIAL IDENTITIES IN CLAY

COLONOWARE IN THE AFRICAN AND INDIGENOUS DIASPORAS OF THE SOUTHEAST

EDITED BY

JON BERNARD MARCOUX AND COREY A. H. SATTES

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

uapress.ua.edu

Copyright © 2024 by the University of Alabama Press

All rights reserved.

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of Alabama Press.

Typeface: Adobe Caslon Pro

Cover image: Colonoware assemblage from Drayton Hall; courtesy of the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust, photograph by Corey A. H. Sattes

Cover design: Sandy Turner Jr.

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-0-8173-2190-1 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-8173-6146-4 (paper)

E-ISBN: 978-0-8173-9493-6

Jon Bernard Marcoux: To Willie and John John

Corey A. H. Sattes: To Michael

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

A Note on Terminology

Introduction

Corey A. H. Sattes and Jon Bernard Marcoux

Part I: Colonoware as a Materialization of Social Relationships

1. Using Indigenous Colonoware to Trace Social Coalescence across the Early Colonial Landscape of the Southeastern United States

Jon Bernard Marcoux and Corey A. H. Sattes

2. Colonoware among the Upper Creeks of Alabama

Craig T. Sheldon Jr.

3. Colonoware in the Rappahannock River Valley of Virginia, ca. 1665–1780

Julia A. King, Katherine P. Gill, and Scott M. Strickland

4. Pottery and Property: Redefining Colonoware through Seventeenth-Century Social Relations

Andrew Agha

Part II. Colonoware as a Materialization of Economic Relationships in the Lowcountry

5. Colonoware in the City: Archaeological Assemblages from Charleston, South Carolina

Martha A. Zierden, Ronald W. Anthony, and Sarah E. Platt

6. Colonoware, Craftwork, and the Rise of Black Artisan Potters

J. W. Joseph

7. Catawba Contributions to South Carolina Colonoware

David J. Cranford

8. Colonoware Variation, Exchange, and Use from Drayton Hall’s South Flanker Well

Corey A. H. Sattes

Commentary: Situating Colonoware Studies at the Intersections

Jodi A. Barnes

Appendix: Colonoware Vessels and Sherds and Major Associations among the Upper Creeks of Alabama

References Cited

Contributors

Index

Illustrations

Figures

I.1.  Map of the southeastern and mid-Atlantic United States

I.2.  Map of South Carolina and associated archaeological sites

I.3.  Map of downtown Charleston, South Carolina, and associated archaeological sites

1.1. Late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sites discussed in chapter

1.2. Overhill Cherokee pottery assemblages

1.3. Upper Creek pottery assemblages

1.4. Lower Creek pottery assemblages

1.5. Catawba pottery assemblages

2.1. Map of Tallapoosa area

2.2. Upper Creek colonoware from central Alabama

2.3. Incised colonoware cup from 1EE639

3.1. Locations of archaeological sites/archaeological collections used in this study

3.2. Abundance/relative frequency of colonoware

3.3. Temper frequency by site

3.4. Temper frequency by site, pre-1700

3.5. Temper frequency by site, post-1700

4.1. Facsimile of the 1671 Culpeper plat of Charles Towne properties

4.2. LiDAR imagery displaying overall lower ground elevation

4.3. Site plan of Structure 1 and reinterpreted wall outline

4.4. Mended colonoware base and jar side wall

4.5. Reconstructed colonoware jar side wall fragment

4.6. Intact faceted burnished colonoware pipestem

5.1. Colonoware varieties in Charleston

5.2. Heyward-Washington work yard and excavation map

5.3. Final correspondence analysis results

5.4. Unique colonoware vessels

6.1. Colonoware jars from the Acacia Collection

6.2. Colonoware jars from the Acacia Collection

6.3. Colonoware jars from the Charleston Judicial Center site

6.4. Colonoware bowls from the Acacia Collection

6.5. Possibly decorated colonoware bowl from the Acacia Collection

6.6. Comparison of colonoware with slipware crenulation, Charleston Judicial Center site

7.1. Examples of Catawba-made ceramic paste types

7.2. Vessel profiles of Catawba colonoware forms from Ayers Town

7.3. Exterior and interior views of various vessel lip and rim forms found from Old Town and Ayers Town

7.4. Examples of paint types found on ceramic vessels at Old Town and Ayers Town

8.1. Vessel profiles from the South Flanker well

8.2. Rim diameter counts for bowls by site and phase

8.3. Mean diamond plots for body thickness

8.4. Stacked bar graph showing presence of surface treatment by site and phase

8.5. Correspondence analysis showing the relationship between the South Flanker well and Yaughan/Curriboo

8.6. Correspondence analysis showing the relationship between the South Flanker well and Yaughan/Curriboo

Tables

1.1. Relative Frequencies of Pottery in the Study Sample by Temper Type and Surface Treatment

2.1. Colono-Indian Ceramic Vessels and Sherds from Central Alabama

3.1. Rappahannock River Valley Archaeological Sites, Dates, Affiliation/Function, Number of Colonoware, and Source

3.2. Spatial Distribution of Tempering Agents at Selected Rappahannock River Valley Sites

4.1. Comparison of the 45-Unit Excavation Block and 9-Unit Structure 1 Excavation Block

5.1. Proportions of Colonoware Variety Citywide

5.2. Proportion of Colonoware Variations at the Heyward-Washington House, by Ellicott Era, Milner Era, and Heyward/BoardingHouse Era

5.3. Tentative Phasing Results of the Heyward-Washington Correspondence Analysis

8.1. Frequency of Colonoware Recovered from the South Flanker Well 181

8.2  Sample Size (n), Mean, Standard Deviation (sd), and the Coefficient of Variation (CV) for Body Thickness by Site and Phase

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to first and foremost thank all of the contributors to this volume for their dedication to colonoware studies and their exceptional chapters. We also acknowledge the work of several colleagues who participated in the 2020 Carolina Colonoware Symposium and were unable to contribute to this volume but whose work is equally integral to broadening our understanding of this pottery within the colonial landscape of North America and the Caribbean: Nicole Isenbarger, Katherine Seeber, Chris Espenshade, and Khadene Harris. We would also like to thank Wendi Schnaufer of the University of Alabama Press for her patient guidance in producing this volume. We are grateful for the comments and edits provided for all chapters by an anonymous reviewer. We particularly want to acknowledge and thank Barbara Heath for giving thoughtful, constructive, and detailed suggestions for both the volume proposal and the entire manuscript—her time and consideration in making those assessments were integral in this volume reaching its full potential.

Craig T. Sheldon Jr. thanks Ned Jenkins and Gregory A. Waselkov, who were very generous in sharing their extensive knowledge of central Alabama ceramics.

Julia A. King, Katherine P. Gill, and Scott M. Strickland are grateful to Chief Anne Richardson and the Rappahannock Tribe for hosting a symposium on colonoware at the Rappahannock Tribal Center in 2019 and for their ongoing support of this research. They are also grateful to the landowners and the collectors who graciously allowed them access to their properties and collections, including Robert Baylor, David Cordes, Gene Davis, Elena Ellis, the Flemer family, Miles Hastings, Bill and Suzee Hunt, the Menokin Foundation, Mercer O’Hara, Margaret Sturt, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Carroll Wellford, Carter Wellford, and the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research. They are also grateful to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR), including Mike Clem, Dee DeRoche, and Laura Galke for providing access to DHR’s collections. Other colleagues who supported this research include Amy Wood and Martha Zierden. Their research was supported by generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Conservation Fund. The authors also thank Barbara Heath for reading an early version of this chapter.

Corey A. H. Sattes also thanks Jon Marcoux for his guidance with this research, especially regarding the statistical analyses run on the colonoware data from Drayton Hall and other sites. She also thanks Ron Anthony, Maureen Hayes, Nicole Isenbarger, and Kimberly Pyszka, and the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS) analysts who cataloged the Yaughan and Curriboo sites for sharing their respective work on Lowcountry colonoware. She is also grateful to the DAACS team, especially Beth Bollwerk, Jillian Galle, and Fraser Neiman for their assistance in analyzing the South Flanker well contexts. Finally, she would like to acknowledge her colleagues at Drayton Hall, Eric Becker and Amber Sattherthwaite, for helping provide historical context for this research. The work on the Drayton Hall colonoware is supported by Deborah Wexler and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.

A Note on Terminology

All contributors maintain consistency in certain wording to provide clarity as well as the most accurate representation of events and history. For example, the original settlement on Albemarle Point along the Ashley River, occupied from 1670 to 1783, is called Charles Town, with the only exception in reference to the historic site Charles Towne Landing (always spelled with an e). All references after 1783, when the settlement was moved and renamed, use Charleston. Similarly, England is used to describe this nation until 1707, at which time Wales and Scotland were added to create the names Britain or Great Britain in reference to the entire island.

In keeping with the University of Alabama Press protocol, all chapters capitalize the terms Indigenous and Black. This mirrors the racialization of all ethnic groups and the subsequent shared experiences in the American colonies and United States (Nguyễn and Pendleton 2020; Weeber 2020). Although cultural backgrounds were and are, in reality, much more diverse, it is critical to acknowledge the lumping of these diverse groups based on broad racial identifiers during and after colonialism and especially during the Indigenous and Atlantic slave trades. These systems defined groups based on such racial definitions and created commonalities in privilege on the one end of the spectrum and oppression on the other. Although the term white is not capitalized, we acknowledge the importance of identifying European-descended peoples as being equally racialized. In this case, however, the process of racialization is undertaken by and for those in positions of power. In making this claim, we particularly emphasize the need to elucidate the ways in which white settlers played (and whose descendants continue to play) an active role in benefiting from and perpetuating the system of racism established under colonialism.

Introduction

Corey A. H. Sattes and Jon Bernard Marcoux

The legacy of colonialism in North America, including the systematic marginalization of African American and Indigenous people, has stymied our understanding of their many cultures and histories. As represented by historical narratives associated with imperialism, oppression, and conflict, these marginalized communities are under- or misrepresented in much of the historical record. Consequently, scholars focusing on the colonial and early federal periods of American history (ca. 1600–1820) face the challenge of accurately portraying the lives of those whose voices are not represented in documentary sources. Because archaeology draws its interpretive power from the tangible traces of human activity embodied in objects and on the landscape, this discipline can raise and answer questions that are discrete from those examined by historians.

Among the various types of material remains studied by archaeologists in the southeastern United States, a form of locally hand-built, low-fired earthenware called colonoware remains one of the few definitive types of evidence that reflects the quotidian lives of these marginalized people. In addition, it reveals the kinds of interactions between all three major groups inhabiting the colonial and early American landscape (Indigenous, African, and European) and their descendants. Indeed, for over two centuries, this ceramic product, most likely produced by African and Indigenous potters and used by all for storing, cooking, and serving food, formed the foundation of colonial foodways in many settlements across the southeastern United States. In Charleston, South Carolina, and the surrounding region, which is typically referred to as the Lowcountry, colonoware is recovered from nearly every late seventeenth- to mid-nineteenth-century site. However, compared with other ceramics from this period, less is understood about its production and use because of the lack of documentation.

Archaeological scholarship over the last several decades has focused on colonoware both as a key technology in local foodways as well as an object associated with market-scale production and exchange in the Lowcountry (Agha, Isenbarger, and Philips 2012; Anthony 1986; Brilliant 2011; Calhoun et al. 1984; Crane 1993; Drucker and Anthony 1979; Ferguson 1992; Isenbarger 2006; Isenbarger and Agha 2015; Joseph 2004a, 2005, 2016; Joy 2020; Wheaton et al. 1983). Rather than focusing exclusively on the functional and economic aspects of colonoware production, we challenged contributors to this volume to follow the admonitions of Theresa A. Singleton and Mark Bograd (2000:18), who stressed the need to consider colonoware’s cultural context more fully as a means to explore the active role African Americans played in the construction of southern society. To this, we add the active role played by Indigenous actors. Addressing this need, the main goal of this volume is to provide that cultural context in the form of a temporal and regional synthesis that explores the materiality of colonoware as an important aspect of the shared history among Africans, Indigenous groups, and European settlers. In the following chapters, contributors examine how the production and use of colonoware both reflected and produced the novel lifeways and identities forged by all three cultural groups across the colonial Southeast.

Colonialism in this volume refers to the systematic oppression of Indigenous and African peoples by European powers in North America and the economic, political, social, and cultural structures that formed because of and within this system. Although the colonial period ends in 1775, the structures of colonialism persisted beyond the American Revolution and continue to significantly impact society today. It is this overarching system, as well as institutional slavery and consequential power dynamics, that affected all three of the major colonial groups, albeit in dramatically different ways. In particular, the unprecedented system of forced labor established under the colonial project drastically impacted the historical trajectories of those living in the American colonies. It instigated complex and long-standing interactions between Indigenous communities, multiple European nations, and enslaved Africans (tens of thousands of whom were brought to the colonies from across West and Central Africa). Because of the widespread use of colonoware across all three groups, it can be effectively examined as a key variable in these exchanges and the negotiations made by communities under colonialism.

The production of colonoware began with the start of the colonial period at sites along the East Coast of North America, spanning from northern regions of Florida to Virginia. Although production likely ended in the early to mid-nineteenth century, some scholars have suggested that this pottery may have been used in the late nineteenth century (Agha, Isenbarger, and Philips 2012; Galke 2009). Because of its importance in understanding how people and communities negotiated life under colonialism, colonoware—specifically variation in its production, use, and embedded meanings—has been the focus of much scholarship in recent years. Particularly in the Carolina Lowcountry, a geographic area along the coast defined by wetlands and barrier islands, this pottery is found in large quantities at sites associated with enslaved Africans in addition to settlements affiliated with enslaved and free Indigenous groups. Therefore, it provides important insights into the ways all of these groups negotiated slavery, plantation life, and the networks of trade and exchange.

Although a significant amount of scholarship has focused on colonoware over the last few decades, our understanding would benefit greatly from a synthesized approach that explores temporal and regional variability within the context of European settler colonialism and the African and Indigenous diasporas. Along these lines, this volume assembles past and current research in and around Charleston, South Carolina, and the broader Southeast, highlighting colonoware from a wide range of sites and situating them within the contexts of current Indigenous and mid-Atlantic studies. In doing so, our goal is to provide an outward-looking perspective to colonoware research in the Lowcountry, focusing on the roles this form of material culture played in the broad patterns of cultural negotiations that Indigenous, African, and European groups enacted in colonial and early America.

THE LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHEAST

The Charleston peninsula and surrounding coastline is situated within the region known as the Lowcountry, spanning the South Carolina coast and sea islands. The opportunistic placement—in terms of geography and environment—of the Carolina coast for both trading and agricultural development led to an early European reliance on a large labor force, which initially enslaved many Indigenous people and later shifted to nearly entirely Africans with the production of rice. The unique history of colonialism in the Lowcountry and especially the development of the plantation system and dependence on systematic slavery resulted in the formation of distinct foodways, language, architecture, and other material culture. Although the concept of slavery was not new to Indigenous North America or even the world, the unprecedented scale and nature of this system under European colonialism drastically altered the lives of all those in the colonies and the southeastern United States.

Before the arrival of Europeans, many southeastern Indigenous communities were organized into chiefdom societies—a political structure typical of the Mississippian Period (ca. AD 900–1450). Possibly due to environmental stress caused by extreme region-wide droughts (see Cable 2020; King and Stephenson 2016), this social structure mostly disappeared by ca. 1400 along the Lowcountry coast (Anderson 1994:105; Gallay 2002:27; King and Stephenson 2016; Marcoux et al. 2011; Stephenson 2011). Although population densities were relatively low, it is a misconception to consider the Carolina coastline uninhabited by the time of Spanish arrival in the sixteenth century. Despite documentary records lumping many of these communities together (a trend that unfortunately continued throughout colonial history), we are able to identify several discrete and autonomous groups who were likely living in and around the Charleston area at the time: Santee, Etiwan, Sewee, Stono, Kiawah, Kussoe, Edisto, and St. Helena (Marcoux et al. 2011; Nyman 2011:11; Waddell 1980).

Beginning with the Spanish and later followed by the French and English, the introduction of Europeans to the Southeast led to what Robbie Ethridge (2010:4) has coined the Mississippian shatter zone, describing the destabilization and restructuring of Indigenous life. One of many processes that occurred in the New World upon European arrival, this series of events and the resultant cultural changes represents the gradual breakdown of Indigenous ranked societies caused by colonial settlements and subsequent deer skin and slave trade networks. Spain established an early presence in the Southeast with the founding of St. Augustine in 1565 and Santa Elena in Port Royal Sound in 1566, controlling most of the influx of goods into the region. The Spanish engaged in early conflicts with local Indigenous groups, leading to violent clashes—notably with the Kussoe—and the migration of many groups from the Port Royal region (Waddell 1980). Their authority continued to weaken with challenges from the English, Dutch, and French, all of whom exchanged goods in the Caribbean and southern Atlantic despite Spain’s establishment of mercantilist trade (Deagan 1987).

England rose as the primary European stronghold in the Lowcountry as the Spanish progressively dealt with Indigenous conflicts, a depleted economy from the Thirty Years’ War, and the increasing spread of disease (Deagan 1987; Waddell 1980). The English establishment of Charles Town in 1670, located north of modern-day Charleston (renamed in 1783) along the Ashley River, anchored English authority in the Southeast. Colonists immigrating to this new settlement included many from the English Caribbean, bringing with them enslaved Africans and establishing early alliances with local Indigenous groups, including the Creek, Siouan, Cherokee, Choctaw Yamasee, Westo, Yuchi, and Tuscarora (Gallay 2002; Oatis 2004). The trade possibilities that arose from the settlement at Charles Town and the later relocation to the peninsula in 1680 attracted more Indigenous groups to the southeastern coast. These newcomers—both Indigenous and European—adjusted to the new economic, political, and social structures of colonial Charles Town (Cobb and DePratter 2016; Gallay 2002).

Although historical documents report alliances between Indigenous groups and the Carolina colony, tensions inevitably arose from the increasing value of trade routes and land around Charles Town. In 1675, the Kussoe were forced by the English to leave their lands, and many others asked for land reservations with the expansion of colonist properties, leading to the first removal of Indigenous peoples to reservations (Gallay 2002; Nyman 2011; Waddell 1980). However, it is a mistake to assume that Indigenous groups across the Southeast could not hold their own against European communities; they intentionally negotiated their lifeways—through migration and coalescence—to gain more security and take advantage of European trade opportunities (Gallay 2002; Jordan 2014; Nyman 2011; Swanton 1922).

One of the Indigenous newcomers to the Lowcountry included the Westo, likely the same group known as the Erie in the Northeast. They migrated from the Great Lakes region to the Chesapeake and finally to the Southeast in the late seventeenth century (Bowne 2005; Cobb and DePratter 2016; Gallay 2002). The Westo soon allied with the English in Carolina, becoming a powerful military force and raiding other Indigenous groups not directly associated with the English, namely, those from Spanish Florida, for enslaved people in exchange for other goods. Despite this initial alliance, the Westo turned into a liability for the English in the late 1670s as their raiding soured relations between the English and coalescing Indigenous groups (Warren 2014). To check the growing power of the Westo, the English armed another immigrant group known as the Savannah (also called the Shawnee), and between this force and several attacks by English planters in 1680, the Westo were decimated (Bowne 2005:5; Warren 2014).

The Savannah replaced the Westo as the primary Indigenous trading force in the Southeast, supported by the English who wanted to maintain control of Savannah access to firearms (Marcoux 2020:132; Warren 2014:90). As active and strategic leaders in the Indigenous slave trade, the Savannah continued English efforts in obtaining enslaved people for local forced labor and trade to the English Caribbean. Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) saw the height of slave raiding in the Southeast as the English and allied Indigenous forces, including the Creek, Chickasaw, and Savannah, attacked towns in Spanish Florida (Warren 2014:97). These raids resulted in the enslavement of unprecedented numbers of people, and they displaced groups like the Apalachee, who migrated to the Fall Line and settled among English-allied towns (Warren 2014:97).

As slave raiding expanded geographically, Indigenous groups coalesced for protection and also took active roles in the slave trade. Savannah-English relations began to decline in the early eighteenth century, leading to the English repeating their strategy from decades earlier and arming the Catawba against the Savannah. By this time, the Savannah were also migrating to the Chesapeake Bay area, and although their population did not fully disappear from the Lowcountry, they no longer controlled local Indigenous trade (Marcoux 2020; Warren 2014). As the slave trade continued to grow, confederations like the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek recognized the need to actively participate in order to maintain access to firearms and trade goods (Warren 2014:100–101).

The legacy of the English-Indigenous slave trade, which enslaved several thousand people over just two decades, impacted both European and Indigenous economic and political structures at unprecedented levels (Bowne 2005; Gallay 2002). This period of mass enslavement heightened regional tensions between Indigenous groups, who needed to find new ways to fortify their communities. Although protection and purchased firearms from the English helped this fortification, the additional violent behavior by European fur traders caused tensions to grow further. Attacks on Indigenous communities, rapes, and cheating of trade negotiations had become increasingly problematic in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and although the English attempted to regulate this behavior, relations continued to decline (Cobb and DePratter 2016; Oatis 2004).

These problems and the significant decrease in Indigenous populations from slave raiding led to the Yamasee War (1715–1717), fought between the British and the Yamasee and other southeastern Indigenous groups. Although many previously British-allied groups sided with the Yamasee, the eventual support from the Cherokee, Tuscarora, and a force of armed enslaved Africans secured a British victory. This war instigated anti-Indigenous sentiments among the British and led to an attempt at strict British governmental oversight (Nyman 2011:25). The resulting colonial regulations of trade greatly restricted Indigenous groups and decelerated relationships to such a level that the slave raiding for British benefit significantly decreased (Cobb and DePratter 2016; Gallay 2002).

The events leading to and during the Yamasee War, particularly the lengths to which the British government went to expand the Indigenous slave trade, catalyzed drastic changes in southeastern lifeways. Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Indigenous groups undertook a variety of strategies to survive the impacts of colonialism. Some, called Settlement Indians, remained in the Charles Town area as neighbors to colonists, providing local labor and trading with nearby communities (Bowne 2005:18–19; Steen 2012). Although not recognized today by federal or state governments, these groups have been mentioned in historical documents as the St. Helena, Edisto, Kussoe, Kiawah, and Etiwan (Gallay 2002; Steen 2012; Waddell 1980). As noted, other groups coalesced into larger multiethnic coalitions, referred to as nations in colonial accounts, namely, the Creek, Catawba, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee, forming new social identities and cultural practices (Bowne 2005:4,18; Gallay 2002; Marcoux 2020; Swanton 1993; Waddell 1980).

Although the Yamasee War was instrumental in the destabilization of the Indigenous slave and fur trade, South Carolina had already begun to shift to a plantation-based society by 1715. The English began enslaving Africans long before this date, but the exploitation of African labor to its full extent did not occur in the Lowcountry until the eighteenth-century expansion of the plantation system. This peak was predominantly a result of the growth of rice and cotton in the Lowcountry, the former becoming the primary industry by 1730. West Africans, who had familiarity with this crop in the region known as the Rice Coast, are thought to have been targeted by slavers for their instrumental knowledge of rice cultivation (Carney 2001; Fields-Black 2008; Wood 1974). The large influx of enslaved Africans needed for farming rice and cotton, and to a lesser extent indigo, led to both the agricultural success of the Lowcountry and a Black majority in South Carolina to the extent that European colonists were encouraged to move to Charles Town to offset this imbalance (Carney 2001; Fraser 1989:55; Wood 1974).

Although colonial South Carolina is typically compared with Virginia, which was another hub of British power at the time, the Lowcountry was in many ways more connected to the Caribbean (Burnard and Hart 2012; Pressly 2013:1). Not only did a large percentage of Charles Town’s founding residents arrive from Barbados, but the plantation system and social structure that formed around it—notably the uniquely large African populations and absentee landowners—also shaped both the Lowcountry and the Caribbean in similar ways. In fact, these structures were so well rooted in Charleston life that even the events of the Revolutionary War did not significantly impact agricultural production and technological developments in the rice industry (Porcher and Judd 2014). Although the British no longer provided a market for indigo, which was produced in smaller quantities in the Lowcountry, the establishment of Sea Island cotton plantations replaced this revenue stream (Porcher and Fick 2005). Rice plantations continued to expand and accrue wealth into the nineteenth century, maintaining a high demand for a large African labor force.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, however, the developing rice and cotton industry in the Mississippi River region created competition and lured many people away from the East Coast to farm these newer lands. Overproduction of cotton led to a collapse of the industry in 1819. In addition, Charleston’s appeal as a convenient trade port decreased somewhat with the development of easier ways to travel to previously less-accessible cities by both water (steamboat) and land (railways) (Fraser 1989). Through all of this, Charleston continued to rely on a large population of enslaved Africans for all labor demands, including skilled positions (like carpentry and blacksmithing).

There were very few free African Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but many of those who had acquired freedom lived on the Charleston Neck (north of the peninsula), an area that is still home to a large population of Black Charlestonians today. Denmark Vesey, an enslaved carpenter who purchased his freedom with lottery winnings, was alleged to have led a slave uprising in 1822. Similar to when enslaved Africans first outnumbered Europeans in 1708, this revolt led to fear in white Charlestonians of the Black population and the implementation of harsh restrictions on people of color (Kytle and Roberts 2018).

In addition to growing rhetoric against enslaved and free Africans in the Southeast, dislike of Indigenous groups also spread among white Americans, as land became more valuable with expanding white populations. Although state policies during the first decades of the nineteenth century threatened Indigenous sovereignty in many areas and pressured them to cede their land, it was not until Andrew Jackson’s signing of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 that these communities were forcibly removed en masse. In the years following, tens of thousands of Indigenous people were forced from their homelands east of the Mississippi River and required to travel under harsh conditions to reserved lands in present-day Oklahoma. Thousands of Indigenous people died on what is known today as the Trail of Tears. The lands initially granted to Indigenous groups were continuously divided for newly arriving Indigenous people over the next couple of decades (Gettys 1995).

The impacts of removal on Indigenous societies have filled volumes (e.g., Langguth 2011; Saunt 2020), and we emphasize the importance of understanding the full scope of this history. Narrowing our focus to the effects on southeastern communities, this period led to drastic changes in Indigenous political and social structures, subsistence strategies, and cultural identities. Although the southeastern Indigenous population had been significantly reduced during removal, a small number of communities remained east of the Mississippi River. These groups consisted of individuals who hid during forced removal, those who were able to negotiate retaining their land, and some who returned to the Southeast after having survived the Trail of Tears. Indeed, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of nineteenth-century Indigenous pottery production and trade at sites associated with Catawba, Cherokees, and Pamunkeys, and potting traditions among these groups persisted into the twentieth century and continue today (Fewkes 1944; Harrington 1908; Riggs 2010; Riggs and Rodning 2002; Speck 1928; Spivey 2017; Stern 1951).

By the mid-nineteenth century, many places in the United States experienced an urban boom and growing industrialization. However, Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry struggled to adapt. The consequences of the Civil War (1861–1865), on top of an already slowing economy, soon led to the collapse of Charleston’s wealth. With the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and Union capture of Charleston (1865), many freed African Americans left their previous enslavers. Soon after, the rice industry declined, likely from a combination of freedmen refusing to do the brutal tasks associated with rice cultivation and of lands made untenable by centuries of overfarming. The mining of