Archaeology of Domestic Landscapes of the Enslaved in the Caribbean

James Delle and Elizabeth Clay's recent volume, Archaeology of Domestic Landscapes of the Enslaved in the Caribbean, is a critical contribution to the small but growing literature on the historic built environment of the African diaspora in the Caribbean. Hurricanes, earthquakes, intense island occupation, and impermanent materials often destroyed the built environments of enslaved Africans. Despite these challenges, the built environment of enslavement in the Western Hemisphere has been a significant focus of vernacular architecture studies and historical archaeology since its inception. In the Caribbean, recent efforts by architectural historians have deepened our understanding of the geographic scope and interpretive frameworks of these early modern slave-based societies. Historical archaeologists Delle and Clay provide additional perspectives on the material culture of enslavement in the region, a subject of recent scholarship. Despite its importance, our understanding of the built environment of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean is underdeveloped, owing mainly to...