Meeting at Market: The Intersection of African American Culture, Craft, and Economy PDF

Meeting at Market: The Intersection of African American Culture, Craft, and Economy and the Landscape of Charleston, South Carolina Author(s): J. W. Joseph Source: Historical Archaeology , 2016, Vol. 50, No. 1, CURRENT RESEARCH INTO THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPES (2016), pp. 94-113 Published...

Meeting at Market: The Intersection of African American Culture, Craft, and Economy and the Landscape of Charleston, South Carolina Author(s): J. W. Joseph Source: Historical Archaeology , 2016, Vol. 50, No. 1, CURRENT RESEARCH INTO THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPES (2016), pp. 94-113 Published by: Springer Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24757049 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Historical Archaeology This content downloaded from 68.204.44.25 on Fri, 28 May 2021 16:41:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 94 Charleston. Charleston's connections to the inte J.W. Joseph rior and its place as a port made the town into a market hub where planters, merchants, residents, Meeting at Market: and enslaved African Americans bought and sold The Intersection of African produce, meat and fish, and craft commodities. Market space was integral to the planning and American Culture, Craft, and design of Charleston's landscape, and the original Economy and the Landscape town plan placed the market in a central square, of Charleston, South Carolina following the plan of Philadelphia, as well as European town design (Reps 1965). ABSTRACT The plantation economy led to the importation of large numbers of Africans, with the result that by 1708 Markets were integral to the development of Charleston's urbanSouth Carolina's coastal region, known as the low landscape, and the interaction between African Americans and country, was home to an African major market spaces shaped Charleston. The archaeology of the ity (P. Wood 1975). Living in relative isolation, South Carolina low country highlights African Americans' role these Africans and later African Americans formed in Charleston's market economy and the significance of this economy in forging an African American cultural identity, the their own creole culture, known as Gullah in South Carolina and Geechee in Georgia (Pollitzer 1999; Gullah. The linkage between markets and African American space in Charleston persists, and these connections Crook indicate2001, 2008; National Park Service [NPS] that markets and the market economy have deep-seated 2005; Barnes and Steen 2012). The Gullah drew meanings to the Gullah. on African knowledge and traditions in forming a Creole culture adapted to their New World setting. Introduction In response to a society in which they were heavily outnumbered, planters employed a labor The clash over the control of public memory occurs system, referred to as task labor, that provided in some of the most visible places on the landscape, their African American laborers with time of their and these become the arenas for negotiating meanings of the past. (Shackel 2013:5) own. African Americans, in turn, hunted, fished, grew crops, and made crafts, and marketed the As defined by the World Heritage Commission, products of their own time in Charleston, as well a cultural landscape is a property that reflects "the as other locations (Morgan 1982, 1983, 1986, combined works of nature and of man" (United 1998; Isenbarger 2006, 2008). African Ameri Nations Educational, Scientific and Culturalcans came to represent a significant population Organization [UNESCO] 2012:14). Charleston, within the Charleston markets, and, in response, South Carolina, is a textbook example. Situated 19th-century city planners sought to redefine the on a peninsula that jutted into an Atlantic bay, urban core and to control the African American located at the confluence of two major rivers that presence in the city. Modern land use demon provided access to the interior, and placed near strates that African Americans have retained an elevated dune ridge that would support the their space in Charleston, however, and continue development of coastal roads linking this pointto hold place in the city's landscape, despite the with others along the coast, north and south, the physical restructuring of the market space in city's natural setting was ideally suited to serve Charleston that occurred in the 19th century. as a market. Settlers and goods arrived by ship from Europe, and the products of South Caro The Market's Place in Charleston lina crossed back over the Atlantic in exchange. As the economy of the British colony developed Established by the Lords Proprietors, who were around plantation agriculture, the port brought granted governance of the Carolina colony by enslaved Africans into the low country and King Charles H, the Charles Towne settlement Historical Archaeology, 2016, 50(1):94—113. Permission to reprint required. This content downloaded from 68.204.44.25 on Fri, 28 May 2021 16:41:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  95 J. W. JOSEPH—Meeting at Market was first placed along the Ashley River in 1670, Because of threats from the Spanish, as well as but moved to a peninsula that was formed by from Native Americans, however, the initial settle the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper rivers ment was smaller and fortified, with a brick fortifi in 1680. This relocation to what was known as cation wall and bastions along its frontage on the Oyster Point was made because the new location Cooper River and earthen and wooden walls with was considered both defensible and "well cituated moats and bastions on its three interior sides (Saun for trade" (Salley 1928:105; Zierden and Reitz ders 2002). The walled city adopted the elements 2005). The Lords Proprietors developed a plan of the Grand Modell that could fit within a smaller, for the settlement in 1680 that was known as the enclosed space, and within the walled city the loca "Grand Modell" (Figure 1). This plan called for tion of the central square was the entry point. The a central civic square at the intersection of Broad principal east-west street of the young city was and Meeting streets. Broad Street, which ran from the half-moon battery 1.A $Utt emv A? c| G'lvttrfw jJciriv cjf G(iar{w %r Area of Detail ~r' * < , , :i | +Jf J,-**" '}&+«* ifr*1 /' n'lA-' 5 ' T-, - " , , ^ 44/fm ii. « c/ctvy FIGURE 1. The Grand Modell for Charleston, 1680. This was the plan of the city, A Piatt of Charles Town, prepared by the lords proprietors. Note the central square. (Image courtesy of New South Associates.) This content downloaded from 68.204.44.25 on Fri, 28 May 2021 16:41:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 96 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 50(1) on the Cooper River to the entrance to the walled excepted) at the place whereon a new Market-house have been lately built, which is commonly reputed to city at Meeting Street; Meeting Street ran inside be the place appointed, established and laid out for a the walls to the north and south. Entry to the city market place in the original plot or model of Charles crossed a moat and outer defensive work, known ton. (Zierden and Reitz 2005:17) as a ravelin, before crossing a drawbridge over a second moat and coming within the city walls. As the act notes, in the Grand Modell the cen The central square would serve as the first market tral square was planned to serve as a market. The space in Charleston, a role it appears to have played 1739 brick market house was variously referred before the city walls were torn down and the square to as the New, Upper, or Beef Market. The name was formed as a whole. Analyzing the cultural "New" suggests this more substantial market geography of early Charleston, Zierden and Reitz house most likely replaced informal market struc (2005:12) cited the 1698 will of Mary Crosse, which tures that were already present in this location. referred to her ownership of "three town lots situate By the mid-18th century the market was a brick near ye Market Place in Charles Town." These lots structure on the northeast quadrant of the square bordered the northeast side of what would become where sales were permitted once the opening bell the city square. As Zierden and Reitz (2005:12) had rung. Roberts and Toms labeled the southeast noted, it is likely that market activities began just corner of the square as "Old Church Yard," while the southwest and northwest quadrants of the inside the city gates on public land reserved for future incorporation into the square. Livestock square at that time were open space. The north and produce from the hinterland were brought to west quadrant of the square would be developed Charleston for sale along the "Broad Way," the road in 1750 as the seat of the colonial provincial gov that is now King Street, which parallels Meeting ernment, the South Carolina Statehouse. Excava Street to the west. A 1704 colonial act forbade the tions in the statehouse courtyard by Joseph and killing of livestock within the city walls, and Shields Elliott (1994) revealed midden deposits from the (2003) suggests that, as a result, cattle would have first half of the 18th century consisting of highly been herded to Charleston and slaughtered outside fragmented bone, shell, pipe stems, and colonial the gates before being brought inside the walls for pottery and glass. Bone represented the majority sale. The area just within the gates, which had been of the recovered faunal materials, and included set aside as the location for the future city square, cattle, pigs, deer, goats or sheep, chickens, and likely developed as an informal market before the geese, in addition to lesser amounts of turtle, fish, square itself was fully formed. and dog (Joseph and Elliott 1994:91). Included in this assemblage were hooves and feet, indic Following the conclusion of the Yamasee Indian War in 1718 and the removal of Native American ative of onsite butchering (Joseph and Elliott threat to the city, Charleston pushed the interior1994:89). The faunal assemblage was compara earthen fortification walls into the former moat,ble in species representation and frequency to removing the wall, and expanded. By the 1730sthat revealed by excavations at the Beef Market the city had overlapped its walls, although the(Calhoun et al. 1984). elements of the fortifications, including the rav These midden deposits were found under struc elin, drawbridge, and city gates, remained until tures and walks that had been built as part of the 1750, reminders of the first era of the city's lifestatehouse courtyard's construction in the early (Lounsbury 2001; Saunders 2002). The 1739 map1750s. The small size of many of the artifacts by Bishop Roberts and W. H. Toms depicts the citysuggested they had been heavily trampled. Based at that time, as well as the locations of the earlier on this discovery, Joseph and Elliott (1994:128) fortifications (Figure 2). The Roberts and Tomsconcluded that these deposits represented the res map shows the existence of the central square, oneidue of market activities that had occurred in this corner of which was noted as "Old Church Yard," area from the time the city walls had come down and also depicts the location of the market in theca. 1720 to the construction of the statehouse northeast corner of the square. The market wascourtyard in 1753. They suggested that during established in that year by an act that statedthis period, while the New Market functioned as the sanctioned official market of the city, market [t]hat a public market shall be held and kept in activities might have occurred on an informal Charleston on every day of the week (Sundays basis in other sections of the city square. This content downloaded from 68.204.44.25 on Fri, 28 May 2021 16:41:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  fatKoatAj-jir af OtA^ES-To*.*^! *t Hjgii Wiitr. JM ,,a &»«».»« iju wd&W *»»» €****#K* itf« " « }. activity appears Accessed 26 to January 2014. have occurred on other days of the week, with the exception of Sunday. Singleton, Theresa A. 2010 Reclaiming the Gullah-Gechee Past: 2The name "Gullah" was used Archaeology in advertisements for of Slavery in Coastal Georgia. In African American enslaved Africans imported from West Central Africa Life in the Georgia Lowcountry: The Atlantic World and is believed to derive from Portuguese descriptions and the Gullah-Geechee, Philip Morgan, editor, pp. 151-187. University of of "n'Gola" as Press, Georgia an area thatAthens. included Angola, the Congo, and parts of Gabon (NPS 2005; Barnes and Stewart, Mart A. Steen 2012:181). The name "Geechee" is believed to 1996 What Nature Suffers derive fromtotheGroe: Life, Ogeechee River Labor, of Georgia and may and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, originate particularly 1680-1920. in the Ogeechee Neck, a peninsula University of Georgia Press, Athens. between the forks of the Ogeechee River that had a high density of plantations and African Americans. I United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultura refer to this culture as Gullah in this article, since that Organization (UNESCO) is the 2012 Operational Guidelines fornamethegiven to the culture in South Carolina. Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. UNESCO World Heritage 3Notably, noneorg/en/guidelines/>. Centre