Slave children also had a complex relationship with the landscapes of the American South, explained Mikayla Janee Harden, a Ph.D. They were exterminated and exported it was genocide.” “The indigenous people have been ghosted because they were completely expelled by the 18th century. What isn’t seen in the painting McKee highlights is a depiction of the important role indigenous Caribbean peoples played in cultivating trees and plants, and on many islands, their role in teaching Africans how to harvest and prepare food from them. They were “sites of resistance” to the slave owner’s world. In some communities, they functioned as slave commons. And while slave ownership of these areas was impossible, in some communities, hereditary claims were made on parcels, and kinship structures could play a role. In these remnant spaces, slaves could decide how to parcel and cultivate the land. The edges of plantations were places where African social structures could be asserted. They blended native Caribbean and African plants, taking a “creolized approach to food production.” It clearly shows slave children eating sugar cane, the result of the plantation monoculture, but also the “Afro-Caribbean ecologies,” the many African and native trees and plants slaves planted at the edges of plantations, including cashew and tamarind, pea, and starfruit.Īccording to historical accounts of plantation life during that time, slaves also planted potatoes, yams, cabbages, herbs, and melons. McKee is intrigued by a painting by the artist simply known as Le Masurier, created in the French colony of Martinique in the 1770s (see image above). McKee, a professor at Bryn Mawr College and the University of Copenhagen, as it meant having to spend less on feeding them. “This was advantageous for the slave owner,” said C.C. But many owners also set aside land slaves could use to grow, trade, and sell food. They were seen as cogs in an industrial farming system driven by a trans-Atlantic capitalist market economy. Landscapes of Resistance in the CaribbeanĪfrican slaves in the United States Southern states and the Caribbean were forced to work in their owners’ plantations. Related Article "I Grew Up Where Architecture Was Designed to Oppress": Wandile Mthiyane on Social Impact and Learning from South Africa
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |