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Archaeology below the Cliff - Race, Class, and Redlegs in Barbadian Sugar Society (Hardcover)
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Archaeology below the Cliff - Race, Class, and Redlegs in Barbadian Sugar Society (Hardcover)
Series: Caribbean Archaeology and Ethnohistory
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First book-length archaeological study of a nonelite white
population on a Caribbean plantation. Archaeology below the Cliff:
Race, Class, and Redlegs in Barbadian Sugar Society is the first
archaeological study of the poor whites of Barbados, the
descendants of seventeenth-century European indentured servants and
small farmers. ""Redlegs"" is a pejorative to describe the
marginalized group who remained after the island transitioned to a
sugar monoculture economy dependent on the labor of enslaved
Africans. A sizable portion of the ""white"" minority, the Redlegs
largely existed on the peripheries of the plantation landscape in
an area called ""Below Cliff,"" which was deemed unsuitable for
profitable agricultural production. Just as the land on which they
resided was cast as marginal, so too have the poor whites
historically and contemporarily been derided as peripheral and
isolated as well as idle, alcoholic, degenerate, inbred, and
irrelevant to a functional island society and economy. Using
archaeological, historical, and oral sources, Matthew C. Reilly
shows how the precarious existence of the Barbadian Redlegs
challenged elite hypercapitalistic notions of economics, race, and
class as they were developing in colonial society. Experiencing
pronounced economic hardship, similar to that of the enslaved,
albeit under very different circumstances, Barbadian Redlegs
developed strategies to live in a harsh environment. Reilly's
investigations reveal that what developed in Below Cliff was a
moral economy, based on community needs rather than free-market
prices. Reilly extensively excavated households from the tenantry
area on the boundaries of the Clifton Hall Plantation, which was
abandoned in the 1960s, to explore the daily lives of poor white
tenants and investigate their relationships with island economic
processes and networks. Despite misconceptions of strict racial
isolation, evidence also highlights the importance of poor white
encounters and relationships with Afro-Barbadians. Historical data
are also incorporated to address how an underrepresented
demographic experienced the plantation landscape. Ultimately,
Reilly's narrative situates the Redlegs within island history,
privileging inclusion and embeddedness over exclusion and
isolation.
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