Lead Contact and Poisoning in Barbados Slaves: Historical, Chemical, and Biological Evidence

Posted on 1986 by Jerome Handler

1986 (J. S. Handler, A. C. Aufderheide, and R. S. Corruccini) “Lead Contact and Poisoning in Barbados Slaves: Historical, Chemical, and Biological Evidence.” Social Science History 10: 399-425.

Lead contact and lead poisoning have received scant attention in discussions of early West Indian societies but are potentially important issues in considering the health and medical problems of blacks. Although our discussion focuses on Barbados, the West Indian historical literature strongly suggests that our general findings are applicable to other Caribbean areas and have implications for understanding some of the disabilities of early white populations as well. In this paper we also seek to illustrate how bioanthropological and chemical analyzes of slave skeletal remains and historical data can complement one another in defining and investigating various dimensions of slave life.

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Weaning among West Indian Slaves: Historical and Bioanthropological Evidence from Barbados

Posted on 1986 by Jerome Handler

1986 (J. S. Handler and R. S. Corruccini) “Weaning among West Indian Slaves: Historical and Bioanthropological Evidence from Barbados.” William and Mary Quarterly 43: 111-17.

This article demonstrates how documentary and physical evidence can be brought to bear in shedding light on one aspect of New World slave life; more specifically, the problem of fertility differentials between enslaved populations of the United States and the British Caribbean.

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Chronological Distribution of Enamel Hypoplasias and Weaning in a Caribbean Slave Population

Posted on 1985 by Jerome Handler

1985 (R. S. Corruccini, J. S. Handler, and K. Jacobi) “Chronological Distribution of Enamel Hypoplasias and Weaning in a Caribbean Slave Population.” Human Biology 57: 699-711.

Dental enamel hypoplasia is a putative marker of childhood morbidity (nutritional or infectious stress) which can he analyzed by age-of-occurrence using a calcification standard. We have recorded age-specific occurrence of (a) minor linear hypoplasias, (b) pits, (c) major growth-arrest lines, and (d) combined hypoplasias in 103 specimens of 17-19th century Caribbean slaves. This population is probably unique in terms of environment, nutritional deficiency and other severe environmental stresses, and (especially) association with historical resources that might allow more specific correlation of stresses with hypoplasia chronology.

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The Ethnohistorical Approach to Slavery

Posted on 1985 by hopenorman

1985 (F. W. Lange and J. S. Handler) “The Ethnohistorical Approach to Slavery.” In T. Singleton, ed., The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life (New York: Academic Press), pp. 15-32.

Drawing from experiences in the study of slavery in Barbados, but also utilizing comparative data, we argue that an ethnohistorical approach, which combines archaeological and documentary data, is the most fruitful way to investigate slavery and the lives of the enslaved.

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Slave Manumissions and Freedmen in Seventeenth-Century Barbados

Posted on 1984 by Jerome Handler

1984 (J. S. Handler and J. Pohlmann) “Slave Manumissions and Freedmen in Seventeenth-Century Barbados.” William and Mary Quarterly 41: 390-408.

This article focuses on the manumission process and the characteristics of manumitted slaves from 1650 to 1700. The discussion treats various manumission devices but focuses on 80 wills that manumitted 123 slaves; also discussed are eight deeds with 10 manumissions. Although small, the sample constitutes the largest single body of data available on slave manumissions for any seventeenth-century English colony.

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Freedmen and Slaves in the Barbados Militia

Posted on 1984 by Jerome Handler

1984 (Jerome S. Handler) “Freedmen and Slaves in the Barbados Militia.” Journal of Caribbean History 19: 1-25.

In this paper, I focus on a little treated subject in Caribbean history, the position of non-whites, particularly the recruitment and arming of slaves, a practice which may have regularly occurred earlier in Barbados than in any other of Britain’s Caribbean and continental colonies.

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Plantation Slave Life in Barbados: A Physical Anthropological Analysis

Posted on 1983 by Jerome Handler

1983 (J. S. Handler and R. S. Corruccini) “Plantation Slave Life in Barbados: A Physical Anthropological Analysis.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 14: 65-90

In this paper we utilize physical anthropological data, recovered archaeologically from a plantation slave cemetery in Barbados, to treat various dimensions of slave life and illustrate a particular interdisciplinary approach in historical inquiry: how the methodology and techniques of physical anthropology can be applied to historical issues; and how a different type of data base than is normally employed in slave studies, when combined with archaeological and documentary data, can generate new information and perspectives on slave life. We illustrate this approach by specifically addressing issues such as disease, nutrition, and famine, and the cultural practices of dental mutilation, dentistry, pipe smoking, weaning and infant care, and family burial plots.

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An African Pipe from a Slave, Cemetery in Barbados, West Indies

Posted on 1983 by hopenorman

1983 (Jerome S. Handler) “An African Pipe from a Slave Cemetery in Barbados, West Indies.” In P.Davey, ed., The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe: America. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 175: 245-54.

A detailed description of a rare (for British America) clay pipe excavated in the early 1970s; probably dating to the late 17th century and originating on the Gold Coast (Ghana) of West Africa. Also, comments on tobacco consumption and pipe smoking among the enslaved in Barbados.

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Osteology of a Slave Burial Population From Barbados, West lndies

Posted on 1982 by Jerome Handler

1982 (R. S. Corruccini, J. S. Handler, R. Mutaw, and F. W. Lange) “Osteology of a Slave Burial Population From Barbados, West lndies.” AJPA 59: 443-59

A unique seventeenth-nineteenth century slave cemetery population from Newton plantation, Barbados, allows examination of craniodental characters in relation to ethnohistorical data. Age-at-death estimates suggest life expectancy at birth of 29 years and low infant mortality; historical demography, however, suggests life expectancy of 20 years and very high infant mortality. Tooth decay, bilateral tooth loss, periodontal disease, root hypercementosis, and severe enamel hypoplasia are high in frequency. The teeth yield evidence of such cultural practices as pipe-smoking and incisor mutilation. Several skeletal features reflect periodic near-starvation. Directional and fluctuating dental asymmetry, relative tooth size, and hypoplasia distribution suggest slaves experienced considerable weaning trauma; metabolic stress at this time exceeded that of prenatal and immediate postnatal periods. Odontometrics and dental and cranial nonmetric traits indicate that modern Blacks are intermediate between the ancestral slaves and modern Whites but more similar to the latter, suggesting effects of environmental covariance exceed those of genetic admixture. Nonmetric trait distributions show nonrandom patterns according to area of burial in the cemetery, a possible result of family segregation.

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Slave revolts and conspiracies in seventeenth-century Barbados

Posted on 1982 by Jerome Handler

1982 (Jerome Handler) “Slave revolts and conspiracies in seventeenth-century Barbados.” Nieuwe West-Indische Gids–New West Indian Guide 56: 5-43.

The main purpose of this paper is to document and describe the major forms and incidents of collective slave resistance, or group actions or intentions of violence, against white authority during the formative years of Barbadian slave society. In addition, I seek to indicate some of the collective responses of whites to such resistance: the reprisals against slaves alleged to have been involved in conspiracies or other incidents; the major legislative enactments passed in the aftermath of real or imagined conspiracies; and incidents and alleged conspiracies which reflected the continuing fear of whites over the possibility of large-scale slave revolts.

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