Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-n9wrp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T11:28:36.930Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Archaeological Analysis of Plantation Society: Replacing Status and Caste with Economics and Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles E. Orser Jr.
Charles E. Orser Jr.*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In recent investigations of plantation society, Otto and Moore use a model that incorporates status and caste. I argue that these concepts are too vague for plantation studies and must be replaced with a more relevant formulation that includes economics and power. A reconsideration of the data presented by Moore indicates that these last concepts have greater strength in the archaeological analysis of plantation society.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , October 1988 , pp. 735 - 751
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References cited

Adams, R. N. 1975 Energy and Structure : A Theory of Social Power. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Altschuler, G. C. 1982 Race, Ethnicity, and Class in American Social Thought, 1865-1919. Harlan Davidson, Arlington Heights, Illinois.Google Scholar
Aptheker, H. 1964 Negro Slave Revolts in the United States, 1526-1860. In Essays in the History of the American Negro, by Aptheker, H., pp. 1-70. International Press, New York.Google Scholar
Aptheker, H. 1968 Slave Guerrilla Warfare. In To Be Free : Studies in American Negro History, by Aptheker, H., pp. 11-30. International Press, New York.Google Scholar
Ball, C. 1837 Slavery in the United States : A Narration of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, A Black Man. John S. Taylor, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1977 Historical Archaeology : Is It Historical or Archaeological? In Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things, edited by Ferguson, L., pp. 13-22. Special Publication 2. Society for Historical Archaeology, no location.Google Scholar
Blassingame, J. W. 1976 Status and Social Structure in the Slave Community : Evidence from New Sources. In Perspectives and Irony in American Slavery, edited by Owens, H. P., pp. 137-151. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson.Google Scholar
Blassingame, J. W. 1979 The Slave Community : Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. Rev. ed. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Blau, P. M. 1964 Exchange and Power in Social Life. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Breeden, J. O. (editor) 1980 Advice Among Masters : The Ideal in Slave Management in the Old South. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut. Google Scholar
Cheek, W. F. 1970 Black Resistance Before the Civil War. Glencoe Press, Beverly Hills, California.Google Scholar
Cox, O. C. 1942 The Modern Caste School of Race Relations. Social Forces 21 : 218–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, O. C. 1945 Race and Caste : A Distinction. American Journal of Sociology 50 : 360–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, O. C. 1948 Caste, Class, and Race : A Study in Social Dynamics. Doubleday, Garden City, New York.Google Scholar
Davis, A., Gardner, B. B., and Gardner, M. R. 1941 Deep South : A Social A nthropological Study of Caste and Class. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Dollard, J. 1957 Caste and Class in a Southern Town. 3rd ed. Doubleday Anchor, Garden City, New York.Google Scholar
Dumont, L. 1967 Caste : A Phenomenon of Social Structure or an Aspect of Indian Culture? In Caste and Race : Comparative Approaches, edited by de Reuck, A. and Knight, J., pp. 28-38. J. and A. Churchill, London.Google Scholar
Fairbanks, C. H. 1983 Historical Archaeological Implications of Recent Investigations. Geoscience and Man 23 : 17–26.Google Scholar
Fairbanks, C. H. 1984 The Plantation Archaeology of the Southeastern Coast. Historical Archaeology 18 : 1–14.Google Scholar
Fields, B. J. 1982 Ideology and Race in American History. In Region, Race, and Reconstruction : Essays in Honor ofC Vann Woodward, edited by Kousser, J. M. and McPherson, J. M., pp. 143-177. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Fields, B. J. 1983 The Nineteenth-Century American South : History and Theory. Plantation Society in the Americas 2 : 7-27.Google Scholar
Flynn, C. L. Jr. 1983 White Land, Black Labor : Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth-Century Georgia. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Foner, L. 1970 The Free People of Color in Louisiana and St. Domingue : A Comparative Portrait of Two Three-Caste Slave Societies. Journal of Social History 3 : 406–430.Google Scholar
Fox-Genovese, E., and Genovese, E. D. 1983 Fruits of Merchant Capital : Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Genovese, E. D. 1971 The World the Slaveholders Made : Two Essays in Interpretation. Vintage Books, New York.Google Scholar
Genovese, E. D. 1974 Roll, Jordan, Roll : The World the Slaves Made. Pantheon Books, New York.Google Scholar
Genovese, E. D. 1979 From Rebellion to Revolution : Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Goodenough, W. 1965 Rethinking ‘Status’ and ‘Role' : Toward a General Model of the Cultural Organization of Social Relationships. In The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, edited by Banton, M., pp. 1-24. Monograph No. 1. Association of Social Anthropology, Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Higgs, R. 1978 Race and Economy in the South, 1890-1950. In The Age of Segregation : Race Relations in the South, 1890-1945, edited by Haws, R., pp. 86-116. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson.Google Scholar
Hundley, D. R. 1860 Social Relations in Our Southern States. Henry B. Price, New York.Google Scholar
Johnson, C. S. 1941 Growing Up in the Black Belt. American Council on Education, Washington, D. C. Google Scholar
Johnson, M. P., and Roark, J. L. 1984 Black Masters : A Free Family of Color in the Old South. W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Kahl, J. A. 1957 The American Class Structure. Rinehart, New York.Google Scholar
Lasswell, H., and Kaplan, A. 1950 Power and Society. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Leach, E. 1967 Caste, Class, and Slavery : The Taxonomic Problem. In Caste and Race : Comparative Approaches, edited by de Reuck, A. and Knight, J., pp. 5-16. J. and A. Churchill, London.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, H. 1979 Space : Social Product and Use Value. In Critical Sociology : European Perspectives, edited by Freiberg, J. W., pp. 285-295. Irvington Publishers, New York.Google Scholar
Lenski, G. 1966 Power and Privilege. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Linton, R. 1936 The Study of Man. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York.Google Scholar
Lukes, S. 1974 Power : A Radical View. Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Marx, K. 1970 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Edited by Dobb, M.. International Publishers, New York.Google Scholar
Marx, K. 1971 The Grundrisse. Edited by McLellan, D.. Harper and Row, New York.Google Scholar
Miller, G. L. 1980 Classification and Economic Scaling of 19th Century Ceramics. Historical Archaeology 14 : 1–40.Google Scholar
Mills, C. W. 1956 The Power Elite. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Mintz, S. W. 1959 The Plantation as a Socio-Cultural Type. In Plantation Systems of the New World, edited by Rubin, V., pp. 42-49. Social Science Monograph 7. Pan American Union, Washington, D. C.Google Scholar
Mintz, S. W. 1974a Caribbean Transformations. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Mintz, S. W. 1974b The Rural Proletariat and the Problem of Rural Proletarian Consciousness. The Journal of Peasant Studies 1 : 291–325.Google Scholar
Mintz, S. W. 1978 Was the Plantation Slave a Proletarian? Review 2 : 81–98.Google Scholar
Moore, S. M. 1981 An Antebellum Barrier Island Plantation : In Search of an Archaeological Pattern. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Florida. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Moore, S. M. 1985 Social and Economic Status on the Coastal Plantation : An Archaeological Perspective. In The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life, edited by Singleton, T. A., pp. 141-160. Academic Press, Orlando, Florida.Google Scholar
Moore, W. E., and Williams, R. M. 1942 Stratification in the Ante-Bellum South. American Sociological Review 7 : 343–351.Google Scholar
Morgan, P. D. 1982 Work and Culture : The Task System and the World of Lowcountry Blacks, 1700 to 1880. William and Mary Quarterly 39 : 563–599.Google Scholar
Morgan, P. D. 1983 The Ownership of Property by Slaves in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Low Country. Journal of Southern History 49 : 397–420.Google Scholar
Mousnier, R. 1973 Social Hierarchies : 1450 to the Present. Translated by Evans, P.. Schocken Books, New York.Google Scholar
Myrdal, G. 1944 An American Dilemma : The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Harper and Brothers, New York.Google Scholar
Nowak, L. 1983 Property and Power : Towards a Non-Marxian Historical Materialism. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland.Google Scholar
Oates, J. C. 1987 On Boxing. Dolphin/Doubleday, Garden City, New York.Google Scholar
Orser, C. E. Jr. 1984 The Past Ten Years of Plantation Archaeology in the Southeastern United States. Southeastern Archaeology 3 : 1–12.Google Scholar
Orser, C. E. Jr. 1988 Toward a Theory of Power for Historical Archaeology : Plantations and Space. In The Recovery of Meaning : Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States, edited by Leone, M. P. and Potter, P. B. Jr., pp. 313-343. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C.Google Scholar
Otto, J. S. 1975 Status Differences and the Archaeological Record : A Comparison of Planter, Overseer, and Slave Sites from Cannon's Point Plantation (1794-1861), St. Simons Island, Georgia. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Florida. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Otto, J. S. 1977 Artifacts and Status Differences : A Comparison of Ceramics from Planter, Overseer, and Slave Sites on an Antebellum Plantation. In Research Strategies in Historical Archaeology, edited by South, S., pp. 91-118. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Otto, J. S. 1980 Race and Class on Antebellum Plantations. In Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnicity in America : Afro-American and Asian American Culture History, edited by Schuyler, R. L., pp. 3-13. Baywood Monographs in Archaeology 1. Baywood, Farmingdale, New York.Google Scholar
Otto, J. S. 1984 Cannon's Point Plantation, 1794-1860 : Living Conditions and Status Patterns in the Old South. Academic Press, Orlando, Florida.Google Scholar
Owsley, F. L. 1949 Plain Folk of the Old South. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Owsley, F. L., and Owsley, H. C. 1940 The Economic Basis of Society in the Late Ante-Bellum South. Journal of Southern History 6 : 24–45.Google Scholar
Owsley, F. L., and Owsley, H. C. 1942 The Economic Structure of Rural Tennessee, 1850-1860. Journal of Southern History 8 : 161–182.Google Scholar
Padgug, R. A. 1976 Problems in the Theory of Slavery and Slave Society. Science & Society 40 : 3–27.Google Scholar
Park, R. E. 1928 The Bases of Race Prejudice. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 140 : 11–20.Google Scholar
Poulantzas, N. 1973 Political Power and Social Classes. Translated by O'Hagan, T.. NLB and Sheed and Ward, London.Google Scholar
Powdermaker, H. 1968 After Freedom : A Cultural Study in the Deep South. Atheneum, New York.Google Scholar
Raper, A. F. 1936 Preface to Peasantry : A Tale of Two Black Belt Counties. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Raper, A. F., and Reid, I. D. 1941 Sharecroppers All. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Rawick, G. P. 1972 From Sunup to Sundown : The Making of the Black Community. The American Slave : A Composite Autobiography, vol. 1. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Resnick, S., and Wolff, R. D. 1982 Classes in Marxian Theory. The Review of Radical Political Economics 13(4) : 1–18.Google Scholar
Rubin, M. 1951 Plantation County. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Russell, B. 1938 Power : A New Social Analysis. W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Simpson, G. E., and Yinger, J. M. 1953 Racial and Cultural Minorities. Harper and Brothers, New York.Google Scholar
Singleton, T. A. 1980 The Archaeology of Afro-American Slavery in Coastal Georgia : A Regional Perception of Slave Household and Community Patterns. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Florida. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Stampp, K. M. 1956 The Peculiar Institution : Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. Vintage, New York.Google Scholar
Steward, J. H., Manners, R. A., Wolf, E. R., Seda, E. P., Mintz, S. W., and Scheele, R. L. 1956 The People of Puerto Rico. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. T. 1939 The Plantation : The Physical Basis of Traditional Race Relations. In Race Relations and the Race Problem : A Definition and an Analysis, edited by Thompson, E. T., pp. 180-218. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. T. 1941 The Climatic Theory of the Plantation. Agricultural History 15 : 49–60.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. T. 1959 The Plantation as a Social System. In Plantation Systems of the New World, edited by Rubin, V., pp. 26-37. Social Science Monograph 7. Pan American Union, Washington, D. C.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. T. 1975 The Plantation : Background and Definition. In Plantation Societies, Race Relations, and the South : The Regimentation of Populations, Selected Papers of Edgar T. Thompson, edited by Thompson, E. T., pp. 3-40. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Warner, W. L. 1936 American Caste and Class. American Journal of Sociology 42 : 234–237.Google Scholar
Warner, W. L. 1941 Deep South : A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class. In Deep South : A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class, by Davis, A., Gardner, B. B., and Gardner, M. R., pp. 3-14. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Wesolowski, W. 1979 Classes, Strata, and Power. Translated by Kolanliewicz, G.. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. R. 1959 Specific Aspects of Plantation Systems in the New World : Community Sub-Cultures and Social Classes. In Plantation Systems of the New World, edited by Rubin, V., pp. 136-145. Social Science Monograph 7. Pan American Union, Washington, D. C.Google Scholar
Wolf, E. R. 1982 Europe and the People Without History. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Wolff, R., and Resnick, S. 1986 Power, Property, and Class. Socialist Review 16(2) : 97–124.Google Scholar
Wright, E. O. 1985 Classes. Verso, London.Google Scholar
Wrong, D. H. 1980 Power : Its Forms, Bases, and Uses. Harper and Row, New York. Google Scholar