Abstract
Jamaica’s colonial plantations have long served as examples of the brutality and oppression that characterized Caribbean slave regimes. Yet these sites consisted of landscapes which were multivalent and complex and where slaves often sought control over their own lives through their manipulation of and movement through space. This chapter explores the continuum of spatial sovereignty exerted by the slaves within the plantations of Jamaica. Drawing from archaeological and documentary sources, we discuss the related phenomena of grand marronage, petite marronage, and the presence of field houses throughout the plantation landscape. These field houses functioned as places of refuge which were neither part of the established plantation world nor that of the Grand Maroons. We argue that in order to gain a deeper understanding of the sociospatial dynamics of the colonial plantation complex, we must look to these in-between spaces.
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Notes
- 1.
Of course, the Maroons were also dealing with limited resources and logistical difficulties as regards building with more permanent materials (i.e., stone and brick).
- 2.
Agorsah (1994) cites two previous attempts at the archaeological study of Nanny Town, though they do not appear to be entirely successful (Bonner 1974; Teulon 1967). The MHRP and Agorsah began excavations in 1990, and the project has also supported archaeological work on the Maroons in Surinam (Agorsah 2007; Goucher and Agorsah 2011).
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Manuscript Sources
Radnor Plantation Book. Manuscript in the Collection of the National Library of Jamaica.
New Forest Plantation Book. Manuscript in the Collection of the National Library of Jamaica.
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Fellows, K., Delle, J. (2015). Marronage and the Dialectics of Spatial Sovereignty in Colonial Jamaica. In: Funari, P., Orser Jr., C. (eds) Current Perspectives on the Archaeology of African Slavery in Latin America. SpringerBriefs in Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1264-3_8
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