International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 3, No.

4, 1999

West African Tradition in the Decoration of Colonial Jamaican Folk Pottery

Allan D. Meyers'

In the early colonial period, Jamaican slaves manufactured pottery that incorporated traditional West African technology with selected European innovations. Recent examination of Afro-Jamaican wares from the seventeenth-century site of Port Royal suggests that the decorative elements are consistent with those that are in wide use among West African pottery traditions, particularly those of the Gold Coast (Ghana). Stamped designs prevail as the clearest example of this continuity. Potential Amerindian contributions to the Jamaican folk pottery industry during this period are considered and shown to be unlikely. The isolation of decorative traits demonstrates how certain craft elements of West African peoples were transported to the New World and integrated with other cultural traditions. It also corroborates the documentary record pertaining to the geographical origin of Jamaican slaves during the early colonial period.
KEY WORDS: Jamaica; folk pottery; internal markets; African continuities.

INTRODUCTION The slave society in colonial Jamaica organized and maintained a dynamic internal marketing system that economically linked each of the island's distinct social classes. This internal or "underground" economy enabled the slave population to produce goods, sell the surplus independent of their masters, and ultimately accrue legitimate capital (Armstrong, 1990, p. 99; McCusker and Menard, 1991, p. 146; McDonald, 1993). Local markets with slave participation were apparently in place as early as the 1670s (Mintz and Hall, 1960, p. 14), and by the mideighteenth century, the marketing system had become the single most important medium by which all of Jamaica was supplied with foodstuffs and utilitarian wares (Mintz and Hall, 1960, p. 16).
'Department of Sociology, Centenary College, 2911 Centenary Boulevard, Shreveport, Louisiana 71134-1188.

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1092-7697/99/0900-020l$16.00/OC> 1999 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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Although produce and small livestock predominated as marketable goods (Edwards, 1793, p. 125; McDonald, 1993, p. 28; Stewart, 1969, p. 267), the internal economy also included the production and distribution of assorted craft items. The 1711 addition to the Jamaica Code Noir, or slave laws, permitted slaves to legally vend manufactured goods such as "baskets, ropes of bark, [and] earthen pots" (Long, 1970, p. 486). These goods were bartered within the slave society and increasingly sold to the free merchant and planter classesprocesses Mintz (1959, p. 21) has labeled "horizontal exchange" and "vertical upward exchange." The listing of Afro-Jamaican crafts in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century probate inventories of Anglo merchants attests to their significance in the internal marketing system. For example, Thomas Hickman's 1683 estate listing includes a "negroe pot wth sugar" [Jamaica Archives (JA), 1683, p. 14], and Jacob Ardis possessed "7 Negro baskets old & good" when his estate was evaluated 20 years later (JA, 1703, p. 132). The 1711 inventory of James Hurst even notes several "gross of Negro pipes" that were presumably crafted from the island's red clay (JA, 1711, p. 44). A ubiquitous element of the internal economy was, and continues to be, pottery production. Heavy, occasionally glazed, earthenware vessels, known in Jamaica as "yabbas," have been locally crafted throughout the slavery and postslavery periods (e.g., Anonymous, 1797, pp. 248-252; Brathwaite, 1971, p. 236; Gardner, 1971, p. 180). However, like other manufactures, the early Afro-Jamaican ceramic industry is still poorly understood. This owes principally to the relative dearth of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century documentation about the daily lives of enslaved Africans. The matter is complicated by syncretism that was acting within the slave communities. Studies (e.g., McDonald, 1993; Mintz, 1959; Mintz and Hall, 1960) have for some time examined the causes, consequences, and economic interplay of the internal commercial networks. Yet a more complete consideration of the material basis around which the internal marketing system revolved is still wanting. In this paper, I examine the nature of decoration on Afro-Jamaican yabba wares recovered from the seventeenth-century site of Port Royal (Hamilton, 1984, 1992; Hamilton and Woodward, 1984). In doing so, I argue that decorative attributes consistent with West African pottery traditions can be isolated, even though such coarse earthenwares are clearly manifestations of syncretic adaptations. Others have previously demonstrated continuity using elements such as vessel form, rim attributes, and method of manufacture (Armstrong, 1990, p. 150; Mathewson, 1972b, pp. 55-56). Because decoration appears on a relatively low percentage of specimens, it has yet to be fully addressed. In the Port Royal assemblage, each of the several decorative forms can be traced to antecedents in West Africa. Not only do these forms occur during the historic period on both sides of the Atlantic, but they have a long tradition of use in West Africa. One method of plastic decoration in particular, stamping, predominates as the most extant example of continuity because it is geographically restricted to areas of North and

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West Africa. A demographic model is presented herein to demonstrate that the region in West Africa where the form is most commonly practiced is the precise location where most Jamaican slaves originated in the seventeenth century. Problematic to studies of African-American ceramic traditions in other regions, particularly the southeastern United States, has been the influence and integration of Amerindian folk traditions (Ferguson, 1980, 1992). Some (e.g., Armstrong, 1990, pp. 151-152; Mathewson, 1972b, pp. 55-56) have additionally suggested such a problem in Jamaica. In this paper, I reexamine the potential for Amerindian contribution to the Afro-Jamaican ceramic industry by exploring the demography of the indigenous Arawak Indians and other aboriginal populations. The evidence presented here demonstrates that little possibility existed for Amerindian influence during the seventeenth century. This conclusion is supported archaeologically by ceramic assemblages at Port Royal and other Jamaican sites which fail to reflect exclusively Amerindian ceramic traits. Moreover, any degree of Amerindian contribution to Afro-Jamaican folk traditions after the seventeenth century would have been initiated by the North American Indian slave trade. Considered in a broader social context, the isolation of decorative traits is viewed as an example of those African elements which were most likely to have survived the forced trans-Atlantic migration (Garrett, 1966; Herskovits, 1936, p. 28,1958). Certain decorative forms may additionally reflect some form of craft specialization in both traditional West African and Afro-Jamaican societies. PORT ROYAL The material in question was recovered from the submerged seventeenthcentury site of Port Royal, located on the tip of a sand spit at the entrance to Kingston Harbor (Fig. 1). Port Royal was the largest and most economically important English city in the Americas when nearly two-thirds of it sank into Kingston Harbor during a massive earthquake on 7 June 1692 (for an historical review see Hamilton, 1992, pp. 39-41). While some portions of the city slid and mixed as they sank, the area which yielded the ceramic specimens for this study sank vertically through a process called liquefaction. The result was an instantly created archaeological site where the cultural features, material, and context were preserved. Such catastrophic sites (Hamilton and Woodward, 1984, p. 38), including Pompeii and Hercula neum, are indeed rare, and Port Royal is one of only a few such sites known in the Americas.

THE NATURE OF AFRO-JAMAICAN YABBA WARE

Included in the large ceramic assemblage from Port Royal is a substantial collection of coarse earthenwares. Formal analyses of such earthenwares indicate that a distinct dichotomy exists with respect to basic vessel construction (Armstrong,

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Fig. 1. Jamaica, showing the locations of archaeological sites discussed in the text.

1990, p. 147). One class is wheel-thrown, fully fired, thick, and with fine-grained paste (Fig. 2). These earthenwares, exhibiting typical European innovations, were presumably imported from England or Barbados. The second class is hand-coiled, unevenly or partially fired, and inconsistent with respect to paste texture. These wares, as shown in Fig. 3, were apparently manufactured locally by Afro-Jamaican slaves with traditional African open-hearth technology. Open-hearth pottery firing as practiced among the Akan peoples of West Africa generates variations in surface color, a common characteristic in the Port Royal yabbas (see Mathewson, 1972b, photos Ib-ld). This results from the uneven temperature in the fire as well as the stacking of vessels, which allows some portions of the surface to be oxidized while other portions are reduced (Bellis, 1976, p. 63; Bratton, 1992, p. 3). The word "yabba" has been traced to its presumed Akan linguistic root, ayawa, meaning "earthenware vessel or dish" in the Twi language (Cassidy, 1961, p. 85). More recently, McDonald (1993, p. 108) has posited that it may be linguistically derived from the Igbo word oba, meaning "calabash" or "pot." Striking continuities between the present-day yabba craft and seventeenth-century vessels imply that the former has its antecedents in the slave-based society (Mayes, 1972, p. 103). While hand-coiled vessels are still made (D. L. Hamilton, personal communication, 1995), wheel-thrown vessels predominate in the current market (Mayes, 1972, p. 103), indicating that the method of production has shifted over time. Such a transition is one example of the distinctive and undeniable European influence in Jamaican yabba ware. Lead glazes, flat bottoms, and possibly basal foot rings are European innovations that colonial-era yabbas frequently exhibit. In addition, stylistic European attributes such as certain rim and handle forms are noticeably amalgamated with traditional elements (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 2. English wheel-thrown coarse earthenware vessel from Port Royal.

In the last quarter-century, several studies have examined the nature and context of coarse earthenwares at colonial sites in the British West Indies. Among the most influential was that of Mathewson, who, in a series of papers during the early 1970s, introduced locally produced earthenwares from the eighteenthcentury context of Old King's House in Spanish Town, Jamaica (see Fig. 1). Noting that vessel form, method of manufacture, and function reflected West African ceramic traditions, he aptly termed the ware "Afro-Jamaican" (Mathewson, 1972b, p. 55). He further identified elements of European tradition and distinguished AfroJamaican wares from indigenous Arawak pottery (Mathewson, 1972b, p. 56).

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Fig. 3. Afro-Jamaican yabbas from Port Royal.

During excavations of the eighteenth-century context at the Old Naval Dockyard in Port Royal, Mayes (1972, p. 103) recovered approximately 1700 yabba sherds. His assemblage shares many commonalties, with that from Spanish Town, including the integration of European traits. More recently, excavations of the eighteenth-century slave settlement at Drax Hall Plantation near St. Ann's Bay also yielded Afro-Jamaican wares (Armstrong, 1985, 1990, pp. 146-158). Following Mathewson and Mayes, Armstrong initially distinguished local wares from imported ones on the basis of wheel or hand technologies. He substantiated this classification with a mineralogical analysis that compared paste composition of hand-coded wares at Drax Hall with collections of prehistoric Arawak sherds. Results indicated a strong correlation between the mineralogical content of the Amerindian and the presumed Afro-Jamaican wares (Armstrong, 1990, p. 151). Conversely, the wheel-thrown imported wares included a mineral composition that is rare or altogether absent in Jamaica. A comparative analysis of prehistoric Jamaican pottery (see DeWolf, 1953; Howard, 1965, p. 252; Rouse, 1939) and the Afro-Jamaican yabba ware led Armstrong (1990, p. 157) to elaborate on Mathewson's initial distinction between the two. Vessel shape, temper, and thickness are cited as elements which may be utilized in distinguishing these independent ceramic traditions. While diversity exists among the Spanish Town, Old Naval Dockyard, Drax Hall, and recent PortRoyal assemblages, the defining criteria for yabba ware among

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Fig. 4. Reconstructed yabba from Port Royal with a distinctly European rim form.

them are remarkably homogeneous. The same can be said for locally manufactured wares of African tradition on the islands of Antigua (Handler, 1963, p. 150) and St. Croix (Gartley, 1979). These criteria may be summarized as banding in cross section, hand-coiling, globular form, coarse pastes, and an overall low proportion of decoration. One anomaly to this suggested homogeneity is evidence relating to the slaveproduced sugar pot industry in Barbados. Both documentation and archaeological evidence suggest that African slaves were employing the wheel-and-kiln method of production there throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries

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(Handler and Lange, 1978, pp. 140-141).HandlerandLange(1978,pp. 143-144), and later Armstrong (1990, p. 150), have suggested that this apparent assimilation to European methods in Barbados resulted from one or more geographical, ecological, or socioeconomic factors. I would add only that the dearth of archaeological evidence in Barbados at this time precludes any definitive explanations of the phenomenon. Similar wares of apparent African tradition, including the well-known colonowares, have been found at locations throughout the circum-Caribbean (Deagan, 1987, pp. 103-104; Ferguson, 1980, 1992; Wheaton and Garrow, 1985). Local variants are rather distinct, reflecting the diversity in the non-European ceramic traditions (Deagan, 1987, p. 103). While it is difficult to tell whether Africans engaged in wheel-thrown pottery manufacture, one may be reasonably confident that Europeans did not produce handmade ceramics (Ferguson, 1980, p. 15). GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGIN OF JAMAICAN SLAVES The geographical sources of African ethnic communities, though often obscure and complex, are essential to the culture history of Jamaica. Records are often scarce or incomplete. Even when documentation is complete, determining specific origins for many groups is difficult, given that slaves were frequently obtained from coastal or inland regions distant from where they were transported (Alleyne, 1988, p. 37; Armstrong, 1988, p. 37). Despite inconsistencies or ambiguities in the documentation of the slave trade, there is general agreement that the primary source of Jamaican slaves during the last half of the seventeenth century was the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). This includes the documented arrival of Africans from Barbados, the Leeward Islands, and Suriname (Alleyne, 1988, p. 168; Patterson, 1967, p. 135). Such a notion owes principally to the fact that the Portuguese, and later the Dutch and English, established slave centers on the Gold Coast (Alleyne, 1988, p. 41; Patterson, 1967, pp. 128,142). Of the English force that initially settled Jamaica, 3000 arrived from England and 5000 arrived from Barbados and the Leeward Islands (Patterson, 1967, p. 16). One can easily envision a substantial number of Africans arriving with these eastern Caribbean settlers, considering that some 300 English planters brought roughly 1000 Negro slaves to Jamaica from Suriname in 1675 (LePage, 1960, p. 17). In fact, Patterson (1967, pp. 134-153) claims that one-third of all slaves imported to Jamaica between 1655 and 1674 and one-quarter of those imported from 1675 to 1688 were from Barbados. The documentary record sheds light on the geographical origin of African slaves in Barbados. Armstrong (1988, pp. 36-37) cites the following from a treatise of 1689-1690 that relates to the management of the Drax Plantation in Barbados: "I have observed that the Cormante or gold coast negros [sic] have always stood and proven best in this plantation therefore you will doe [sic] well to buy of that nation than any other." This preference was corroborated

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by Englishman Jonathan Atkins, who remarked in 1675 that the Gold Coast slaves constituted "much the greater number" of any African ethnic group (see Patterson, 1967, p. 135). Various forms of indirect evidence demonstrate how the prevalence of Gold Coast populationsspecifically Akan and Ga-Andangmespilled over into Jamaica. Again Armstrong (1988, p. 37) cites "the predominance of Akan day names on the 1735 slave list for [Jamaica's] Drax Hall" as such indirect historical evidence. This suggests that Gold Coast peoples formed the primary slave constituent on the island during the critical first two decades of English governance, when the creole slave society there was in its infancy. Considering their arrival from other locations in the West Indies, Patterson (1967, p. 142) cogently adds that "many of these slaves... were already seasoned and were well placed, both historically and socially, to impose their own patterns of behaviour and speech on the [emerging] creole slave society." The constant influx of new slaves with similar cultural affiliations served to reinforce the established modes of behavior, including the retention of African traits. Curtin (1968, p. 158) is the only detractor from the consensus, contending that a large portion of the African population in Jamaica originated in Angola and arrived via the illegal interloper trade. The independent slave traders or interlopers indeed exploited the Angola coast most successfully (Patterson, 1967, p. 128). However, the Royal African Company held a monopoly on Jamaica from its charter in 1672 until roughly 1689. The Gold Coast was "the single largest source of the Monopoly Companies' slaves" from 1655 to 1700 (Patterson, 1967, p. 127). Not until the 1690s did the interlopers assume a primary position in supplying slaves to Jamaica. In fact, they supplied more than five times the number of slaves than the Royal African Company between 1698 and 1708 (Patterson, 1967, p. 134), well after the 1692 earthquake that submerged Port Royal. Although Senegambia, Windward Coast, and Bight of Benin were other regional locations contributing to the slave trade, Gold Coast peoples remained the largest constituent of the Jamaican population. This is extremely important to discussions of African continuity in Jamaica, for the Akan languages and cultures of this region are remarkably homogeneous compared to other geographical sources of African slaves (Alleyne, 1988, pp. 7,41). DECORATION OF THE PORT ROYAL YABBA WARE Of the 899 yabba sherds in the Port Royal assemblage, 28 (3.1%) exhibit five general decorative techniques: incision, embossing, stamping, comb impression (punctate), and rim crenulation (Figs. 5 and 6). While a single decorative method was employed on several of the specimens, most exhibited a combination of two or more of these techniques. Table I lists the total number of sherds reflecting these decorative attributes.

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Fig. 5. Decorated yabba sherds from Port Royal, (a, b) Incised; (c) embossed; (d) rim crenulation.

Fig. 6. Stamped yabba sherds from Port Royal. Note that the small applied handles on the upper right and lower left have also been stamped.

West African Tradition in Jamaican Folk Pottery Table I. Frequency of Decoration on Port Royal Yabba Sherds Decorative technique Rim crenulation Incision/grooved Die-stamped/incision Embossed Die-stamped Die-stamped rim crenulation Die-stamped/punctate Indentation near rim Total Sherd count

211

10 5 3 6 1 1 1 1 28

Six large sherds exhibit stamped decoration, usually in combination with another technique. The stamped design is produced by impressing soft, wet clay with a prepared die. Carved wood, carved bone, and gold weights are among the items that often served as stamping dies. The wares depict numerous complex motifs, including circular, square, and rosette patterns. Stamping occurs only on the upper half and outer surface of the vessels, always near the rim. Several different stamped motifs are often used in combination. Two specimens are stamped on small applied handles (N = 28) which have been fashioned so as to provide a finger grip. In other words, no opening exists between the vessel and the handle through which the fingers can be placed. Indeed, some handles are so small as to raise the question of whether they serve any kind of practical function (see Fig. 6). The form of the handle is clearly an anomaly, for there are no European, African, or Amerindian parallels. Moreover, no other Afro-Caribbean site has yielded handles of this form. One sherd exhibits rim crenulation or scalloping by means of stamping (see Fig. 5d). Stamped indentations occur at even intervals around the margin or lip of the rim. The stamping implement was apparently square, though some of the impressions may be smudged. Ten additional sherds reflect a simpler form of rim crenulation known as fluting, where thumb impressions create the indentations. Mayes (1972, p. 105) describes a similar design on a specimen from the Old Naval Dockyard excavations at Port Royal. Five specimens are embossed, where the decorative element is raised above the outer surface of the vessel. On three of the sherds, this was apparently accomplished by pinching the wet clay with the thumb and index finger. Three other specimens exhibit appliqu6 decoration, where small balls or rolls of clay were applied to the outer surface. Two of these ceramic pieces were intentionally fashioned in a triangular shape and are not vessel fragments. Incised or grooved decoration occurs on eight yabba sherds. Again, this decoration appears on the upper half and exterior of the vessel. Fine incisions, characterized by deep, narrow cuts, are typical of geometric patterns including

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cross-hatching, zigzags, and straight parallel lines. Wide parallel grooves, most likely crafted with a blunt stick or tool, are also evident. These appear in either straight line or arcing forms. Mathewson (1973, p. 29) observed several similarly incised sherds in the Old King's House assemblage. One sherd exhibits comb impression (also referred to as stippling roulette) in which the end of a comb-like instrument was used to stamp multiple rows of square or circular punctations. Although the example is fragmented, the punctations apparently cover a very limited area of the vessel near the rim. DECORATION IN WEST AFRICAN TRADITION Each of the decorative forms found in the Port Royal yabba assemblage is firmly established in West African ceramic traditions. Because incision, embossing, and comb impression are decorative elements of far reaching temporal and geographical distribution in Africa (for West African examples see Connah, 1975, p. 121; Effah-Gyamfi, 1985, pp. 103-105; Shaw, 1961, p. 28), they are not specifically addressed here. Rather, I focus on stamping as the most significant evidence for West African continuity in decorative forms. Stamped wares, particularly die-stamped wares, have been recovered from several archaeological sites in West Africa (e.g., D. Armstrong, personal communication; Bellis, 1976; Braunholtz, 1936; Mclntosh, 1995; York, 1973) (Fig. 7). Not only are stamping and its associated motifs present in the same geographical area, but their most frequent occurrence often falls within the general chronological framework of those centuries preceding and during the African slave trade (Fig. 8). While it should be noted that many West African sites are still poorly dated, several excavated locations currently provide a reasonable basis for this chronological organization. Bellis (1976, p. 151), for example, discusses the excavation of diestamped ceramics from middens at the site of Twifo Heman in southern Ghana (Fig. 9). The location has strict Akan cultural affiliations and postdates the sixteenth century, given dates established for imported trade goods as well as locally made tobacco pipes (Bellis, 1976, p. 59). Decoration is evident on 5 to 7% of the ceramic assemblage. Complex impressions were presumably fashioned with such varied objects as scallop shells, flat head screws, and carved dowel ends. The stamps are often used together with trailed lines, in a manner reflecting that found on one of the Port Royal yabba sherds (see Fig. 6, upper right). York (1973, pp. 151-152) identifies two stamped pottery types from mound excavations at New Buipe in northern Ghana (Fig. 10). These stamps are described as "simple circles, rosettes, and segmented lozenges, offsetting a background of comb-impressed and incised decoration" (York, 1973, p. 151). A small portion of the material originates in archaeological strata of the late first millennium A.D. Thus, considered in context, the New Buipe sample documents the

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Fig. 7. Africa, showing the locations of stamped ware recovery discussed in the text.

earliest appearance of die-stamped wares in West Africa. I should emphasize that the types are extremely infrequent until the last occupational phase, encompassing the midfifteenth to early eighteenth centuries. Moreover, stamped types at New Buipe never account for more than 4% of the ceramic assemblage during any occupational sequence, a figure which corresponds roughly to that reported by Bellis (1976, p. 65) at Twifo Heman. Two additional sites along the former Gold Coast have yielded local ceramics with prepared stamp impressions and deserve at least brief mention. The Abodum site, excavated in the first half of this century, produced stamped sherds of varying design (Braunholtz, 1936, p. 472). Unfortunately, there is no precise dating of the site, although it appears to predate the sixteenth century. The second site, entailing strictly historic occupation, is located near Elmina, Ghana. Pottery from eighteenth-century strata is occasionally decorated with shell impressions, and one vessel exhibits die-stamping (Calvocoressi, 1977, p. 125). Calvocoressi (1977,

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Fig. 8. Approximate temporal distribution of stamped wares at some North and West African sites. p. 125) cites the presence of shell impressing from earlier historic contexts at several other sites along the Ghana coast. Included among these is Komenda, where shell impressing is claimed to be one of the predominant decorative attributes. One of the more recent published examples of stamping in West Africa derives from Jenne-jeno, an early settlement along the Upper Inland Niger Delta in presentday Mali (Mclntosh, 1995). The site is exceptional for this discussion in that it lies roughly 500 mi inland from the Gold Coast. Yet, in a manner similar to those sites nearer the coast, only a small proportion of the pottery is stamped. Plastic motifs, including circular, square, and rosette forms, appear late in the final occupation period (A.D. 850-1400), seemingly replacing geometric white-on-red painted decoration (Mclntosh, 1995, p. 163) (Fig. 11). Moreover, such decoration is confined to an area of the vessel between the distinctive carination and the mouth (Mclntosh, 1995, p. 163). In other words, only the rim portion of the vessel contains the stamped decoration. Given similar pattern stamping on contemporaneous plainwares from the North African siteof Qsar es-Seghir (Redman, 1986, pp. 71,117), Mclntosh (1995, p. 163) raises the question of whether this particular decoration was introduced

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Fig. 9. Stamped wares from Twifo Heman, Ghana (after Bellis, 1976, Fig. 20).

by Islamic peoples north of the Sahara. The construction of the great mosque of Jenne around A.D. 1204 certainly documents an Islamic presence near the site (Anquandah, 1982, p. 81). Moreover, there is independent archaeological evidence which suggests that pottery vessels were traded south across the West African Sudan in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Anquandah, 1982, p. 95). Nevertheless, the low overall frequency of die-stamped wares at West African sites indicates that questions pertaining to the diffusion of ceramic traits from North to West Africa are still very much a matter of speculation. Mclntosh (1995, p. 164), citing Gallay (1986), specifically finds "little reflection of major historical events in the ceramics" in this area of the Niger Delta. While the origin of die-stamping in West Africa and its potential connection to Northern Africa are intriguing, they are beyond the scope of this study and are not among the phenomena I would attempt to explain.

RECONSIDERING POTENTIAL AMERINDIAN INFLUENCES Unlike considerations of colonowares in the southeastern United States, most (e.g., Armstrong, 1990) have generally assigned little Amerindian influence to

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Fig. 10. Stamped wares from New Buipe, Ghana (after York, 1973, Fig. 74).

the production of Jamaican folk pottery. Mathewson (1972b, p. 56) expresses an alternative point of view by suggesting that despite virtual extinction, aboriginal populations would have passed on many cultural traits to subsequent populations by means of affinal unions, social interaction, and cultural fusion. The practical assessment of Indian cultural impact invariably becomes a matter of demographics. The degree of Amerindian influence on African folk traditions in Jamaica is directly related to the size of the Arawak population in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While population estimates of the West Indies in 1492 vary to a great extent (Knight and Crahan, 1979, p. 7), there is general consensus as to the rapid rate of depopulation shortly thereafter. The decimation of the native population in Jamaica apparently occurred sooner than most of the other islands in the Antilles. For example, in 1515, after only 6 years of Spanish settlement, the first governor of Jamaica, Francisco de Garay, noted the small Indian presence. At the same time, his royal factor Pedro de Mazuelos suggested the complete eradication of the Indians in 2 more years (Morales Padron, 1952, pp. 260-261). These and other similar statements have led Sauer (1992, p. 204) to conclude that by 1514 "the impending extinction of the natives was apparent and in another ten [years] it had occurred." In 1611, only 74 Indians were reported to have been living on the island (Cundall and Fietersz, cited by Patterson, 1967, p. 15). The implication of this brief demographic sketch is that Arawak influence on the slave-based ceramic industry was probably quite limited. Mathewson's (1972b,

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Fig. 11. Stamped wares from Jenne-jeno, Mali (after Mclntosh, 1995, PI. 15).

p. 56) supposition that newly arrived African potters who were unfamiliar with the environment integrated Arawak folk traditions perhaps attributes too much Amerindian influence. There were only a few hundred African slaves in Spanish Jamaica for most of the sixteenth century (Alleyne, 1988, p. 28). Most of the slaves possessed by the Spanish left with their masters after Spain ceded the island in 1660. Alleyne (1988, p. 29) estimates that only 300 Africans remained in Jamaica after this time, escaping to the Blue Mountains and forming the first maroon settlement on the island. These Africans, who would have had the highest probability of contact with the Arawak Indians, most probably had little impact on the slave society that emerged during English rule (see Agorsah, 1993). Patterson (1967, p. 15) has even observed that by 1655 Jamaica's "historical slate was, in all practical senses, wiped completely clean." Substantial transportation of African slaves to Jamaica did not commence until after the English had firmly secured control of the island (Alleyne, 1988, Fig. 1). The notion of limited Arawak influence as implied by this demographic model is supported by archaeological evidence. Unlike direct evidence for the integration of European traits, there are simply no morphological features of yabba ware that can be attributed solely to Arawak folk traditions (see DeWolf, 1953; Howard, 1965). Several yabba characteristics such as open-hearth firing and decorative

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incision may conceivably reflect an Arawak influence. Yet these are also common African ceramic traits, and they may be just as easily attributed to African continuity. Mathewson (1972b, p. 56) has stated that "whether or not the incised decoration of this Afro-Jamaican bowl reflects Arawak or Akan (West African) inspiration is perhaps debatable." I am not yet convinced that there was a significant aboriginal contribution to Afro-Jamaican wares, though I would not rule out the possibility. Jamaican yabbas do not reflect the Amerindian influence as other analogous colonowares do in parts of the circum-Caribbean where African and Amerindian contact was sustained for a longer period of time (Deagan, 1987, pp. 103-104; Ferguson, 1980). A second, and in some respects entirely different, source of potential Amerindian influence is the native cultures of the southeastern United States. Largely forgotten is the documented trade of Indian slaves from the southern colonies of English North America to the West Indies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Lauber, 1913; Olexer, 1982). Considering that the Southeastern Indians have a long and well-developed ceramic tradition, one may entertain the notion that they introduced ceramic traits into the local African potting industry. Studies of Afro-Caribbean ceramics have apparently overlooked such a possibility up to this point. Though Southeastern Indians were a commodity in the Caribbean slave market, their influence in seventeenth-century Jamaica was minimal, if existent. This is evidenced by two historically documented phenomena: temporal range of the Indian slave trade and Indian slave mortality. Although Indian slavery had been legalized in some North American colonies as early as 1641, Indian slave trading to the West Indies was not conducted in earnest until after the Stono War in 1674 (Olexer, 1982, pp. 46, 102-105). It continued to grow until 1747, suggesting that the largest numbers of Indian slaves did not arrive in the West Indies until the first half of the eighteenth centurywell after the 1692 earthquake in Jamaica. An examination of 50 Port Royal probate inventories from 1689 to 1690 supports this conclusion (JA, 1689-1690, Vol. 3, pp. 279-374). Perusing only those inventories where ethnicity was explicitly noted, I found only 8 Indians listed among a total of 478 slaves and servants (Table II). Comparatively, 458 individuals were listed as Negro slaves, and indeed, there were more white indentured servants (N = 10) than Indians. The potential influx of Southeastern Indian ceramic traits is further reduced when one considers that pottery manufacture among these populations was traditionally restricted to females (Hudson, 1976, p. 264). According to the strict sexual division of labor, men did not engage in such activities. Therefore, when returning to the inventories at Port Royal, one finds only three potential Indian potters listed, amounting to only 0.6% of the total sample. A second documented phenomenon is the high mortality rates of Southeastern Indians once transplanted in the West Indies. Unaccustomed to the harsh system of slavery and debilitated by infectious disease, Indian slaves averaged only 5 to 6 years of life in the Caribbean (Olexer, 1982, p. 104). Many Indians failed to

West African Tradition in Jamaican Folk Pottery Table II. Slaves and Servants in SO Port Royal Inventories, 1689-1690 Ethnicity Negro White Indian Mulatto Negro-Indian Total

219

Men 185 10
2

Women

Children

Total

Percentage

0 0
197

143 0 1 2 0 146

130 0 4 0 1 135

458 10
7

95.8

2 1 478

2.1 1.5 0.4 0.2

100.0

survive the so-called "seasoning" period, or the initial period after their arrival. Jamaican probate inventories also suggest this, as Indian slaves are consistently valued less than Negro slaves. The implication is that those who did survive in Jamaica during the seventeenth century lived only a short time and thus had less of an opportunity to introduce new cultural traits. The archaeological evidence again supports the historical record. Just as with Arawak pottery, there are no morphological features of yabba ware that can be attributed solely to Southeastern ceramic traditions. The Southeastern Indians do have a long tradition of pottery stamping in curvilinear and rectilinear designs which one may conceive as the impetus for stamped Afro-Jamaican wares. Moreover, these methods, termed simple stamping and complicated stamping, were still in use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Curen, 1984; Smith, 1948; Willey, 1973). However, both the stamping technique and the patterning differ substantially from those found on Jamaican yabba wares. Stamping is produced using carved paddles which impress large sections of a vessel. In turn, stamped pots in the Southeast are largely, if not fully, covered by the pattern. Yabba ware conforms to neither the technique nor the magnitude of surface area covered by the designs. CONCLUSIONS The notion that a group's culture will remain completely intact when it moves to a new location is inconceivable (Alleyne, 1988, p. 6). Some cultural elements, such as food resources and raw materials, are inevitably lost in the transition from one environment to another. Other cultural elements at higher levels of abstraction (i.e., economic and political institutions) are modified to account for newly encountered resources and populations. Such losses are magnified when migration is forced. Those aspects of culture which are most easily transported are intangibles that often lie at the subconscious level of the mind: shared memory, acquired skills, language, religion, and habits. While Africans probably brought very few palpable items with them to the New World, African craftsmen would have seemingly transported their knowledge of art and craft production. There is some indication of this in Alexander Barclay's early nineteenth-century exposition on the conditions of

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Jamaican slavery. He remarks that "every negro has his calabash, and many have them carved with figures like those which are tattooed on the skins of the Africans" (Barclay, 1826, p. 315). In response to new social conditions, African craftsmen integrated European innovations including stylistic and functional attributes. This is clearly evident in Jamaican yabba ware. Given our current understanding of historical demography and material culture, one may conclude that the decoration on seventeeth-century yabba ware indicates a predominant West African influence (at least in the context of the Port Royal assemblage). Specifically, the geographic distribution of decorative attributes indicates the existence of strong continuities between the pottery traditions of the Gold Coast (Ghana) and those of Jamaican slaves. This supports the documentary record on slave trading, which also indicates that the predominant number of Jamaican slaves derived from the Gold Coast, either directly or indirectly via other eastern Caribbean colonies. Sweeping demographic changes in the Caribbean during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries afforded few opportunities for Amerindian contribution to the folk traditions operating within English cities such as Port Royal. The early rural maroon settlements, in contrast, hold a greater likelihood for Arawak influence upon Afro-Jamaican traditions. There are some tentative indications of this at one Maroon village, and archaeological efforts have recently been directed toward this issue (Agorsah, 1992, 1994, p. 182). The undeniable presence of European traits on Port Royal yabbas nonetheless demonstrates the dynamic nature of folk craft production within the Jamaican slave community. The documentary evidence additionally suggests that this predominant cultural influence is a reflection of both numerical superiority and social position within the Afro-Jamaican slave communities. Akan and Ga-Andangme populations of the Gold Coast were apparently the most numerous ethnic groups on the island during the seventeenth century. More importantly, these peoples formed the largest single group of slaves during the first 20 years of English occupation, when the Creole slave society was being developed. The implication is that many of these slaves were already positioned to assume leadership in the slave community and impose their cultural patterns on newly arriving slave groups. While supporting a line of continuity between certain West African and AfroJamaican culture traits, the decoration of yabba ware from Port Royal also raises some new and interesting questions. For example, even though stamped decoration appears on both yabba and many traditional West African wares, it does not occur as frequently as other decorative traits. Invariably, stamping is present on less than 5% of the recovered assemblage from any one archaeological context in West Africa. The Port Royal assemblage conforms to this established pattern, with less than one percent exhibiting die-stamped decoration. This intriguing pattern recalls a question that Mathewson (1972b, pp. 55-56) initially raised as to whether decorative motifs represent a form of maker's mark. This may indicate a specialization within the West African potting communities that was either carried to or developed in the New World. Such specialization would

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have been manifest in the internal marketing system, whereby a highly skilled subclass of African potters produced well-made and stylized yabbas for Anglo consumers. Less skilled potters manufactured more generalized wares for use within the slave community. Roderick McDonald (1993, pp. 107-108) has alluded to just this sort of division of labor and distribution. Consequently, decoration may have indicated levels of status differentiation within the craft producing segment of slave society. Future research may attempt to explore this area more thoroughly. Doing so will only provide further insights into the material basis of a Jamaican internal economy that, in the words of McCusker and Menard (1991, p. 146), "lent structure, meaning, and dignity" to the lives of Afro-Jamaican slaves.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The materials discussed in this article were recovered during the 1981-1990 field investigations of Port Royal, Jamaica, sponsored by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in cooperation with Texas A&M University and the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. An abridged version of this paper was presented at the 1997 meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology in Corpus Christi, Texas. The University of California Press kindly permitted the reproduction of Fig. 11. The author wishes to thank Douglas Armstrong, Leland Ferguson, and Charles Orser for carefully reviewing an early version of the manuscript. Valuable suggestions on various aspects of the manuscript's content were also offered by David Carlson, Christopher DeCorse, Ywone Edwards, D. L. Hamilton, and Cheryl La Roche. D. L. Hamilton, of the Texas A&M University Conservation Laboratory, generously provided the author with access to the materials presented herein.

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