COLONIAL MARKETS, CONSUMERS, AND TRADE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HISTORIC CERAMICS FROM THE BLUEFIELDS BAY AREA, WESTMORELAND, JAMAICA

The ceramic assemblages from a British colonial settlement in Bluefields Bay, Jamaica, provide a unique window into the market availability, exchange routes, and consumption patterns of the eighteenth century. This study compares the historic ceramics collected from two sites in Bluefields Bay to one another and to other intra-island (Jamaica), intraregional (Lesser Antilles), and international (North America) colonial and postcolonial sites to reveal patterns of individual and global ceramic consumption and distribution in the emergent capitalist networks and markets of the colonial era. Integrating small British colonial sites into the networks of other more extensive studies focusing primarily on plantations (Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery-DAACS) is necessary to understand the mechanisms that propelled and sustained the colonial economy and culture. The methods utilized include ceramic analysis to identify ware categories of the Bluefields sites’ ceramic sherds. Context was provided through the documented and archival history of colonial occupation and use of Bluefields Bay, previous archeological research in Bluefields, and a literature review of the colonial era economy, ceramic markets, and consumption. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to group sites based on similarities of ware category frequencies. Visual comparisons of ware category frequencies provided reasons for the site clusters. Results reveal more similarities between sites in Jamaica and North America than between Jamaica and the Lesser Antilles, indicating potentially similar marketing and exchange networks and consumer cultures within these regions. A comparison of the Bluefields sites reveals a prevalence of transfer printed pearlware at the more public-oriented site, the blacksmithing complex adjacent to a tavern and a prevalence of plain molded creamwares in the more private domestic dwelling of European immigrant/s at Oristano.