This paper will examine the transitions in Bahamian "Out Island" society and economies from slavery to emancipation in the nineteenth century. The Bahamian islands beyond New Providence are often known as the "out" or "family" islands and are characterized historically, in part, by their relative isolation from major markets. The economic ties between these outer islands and Nassau are not well understood, particularly for the post emancipation period of the mid to late nineteenth century. This paper traces historical changes in economic ties between the islands of San Salvador and New Providence from the plantation period to the early 20th century using historical records and the archaeological evidence from the site of Polly Hill Plantation on San Salvador.
The Bahamas remained small into the eighteenth-century; numbering less than fifteen hundred people. French and Spanish attacks on Nassau in 1703 and 1706 led to the collapse of law and order. Blackbeard and other pirates filled the vacuum and made Nassau their base of Caribbean operations. In 1718, Britain appointed its first royal governor, Woodes Rogers, and suppressed piracy. The 1720s saw an increase in slave importations, and by 1731, half of the slave population was African-born. Although the slave population seems healthier than in the sugar islands, the ratio of adults to children suggests that the population was not yet self-sustaining. Few slaves lived in large units-the average number of slaves per master was 5.6. Slave imports and the eventual natural increase of the slave population after creolization led to significant growth in the percentage of slaves in the population. By mid-century, probably half of the population was black, and by the outbreak of the American Revolution, 52 percent of the Bahamian population was black (including some free blacks) (Craton and Saunders 1992:90).
Although The Bahamas were increasingly a slave colony, they were not a plantation-based staple-crop economy. Poverty typified the colony generally, and most inhabitants, black and white, focused on subsistence activities combined with seafaring. The relatively small number of slaves per household probably reflects their use outside of plantation agriculture. Instead, slavery in the Bahamas was probably more like that of the northern mainland colonies, where slaves worked and lived beside their masters-physically in close contact but separated by their very different status (Craton and Saunders 1992:180).
The American Revolution led to dramatic changes in the colony. After two brief American occupations and one by the Spanish, the Bahamas were returned to the British at the end of the war. The settlement of the war also required that American Loyalists leave the newly independent United States for other British colonies. The influx of American Loyalists and their slaves probably almost doubled the population of the colony, tripled the slave population, and increased the percentage of blacks in the population to about two-thirds. The Loyalists also created new settlements on previously uninhabited out islands, including San Salvador. Initially the Loyalists tried to replicate the economy of the mainland and established cotton plantations. Within a decade or two, the plantation system collapsed due to soil erosion and the chenille bug. Although salt-raking continued to use a harsh form of gang labor focused on a single cash "crop," by the early nineteenth century, most Bahamian slaves were no longer working in staple-crop agriculture and were instead focusing much of their labor on subsistence farming-either on their own or along side their masters (Craton and Saunders 1992).
Although no demographic record was kept of the slaves brought by the Loyalists, we do know that the mainland population from which they were drawn had undergone a period of creolization-only about 20 percent of the mainland slaves at the end of the Revolution were African-born. Moreover, the opportunity for further Africanization in the out islands was fairly limited because there were few slave imports to the colony after 1807. The sex ratio seems to have been evenly balanced, allowing for family formation where families did not already exist, and the slave population of the Bahamas grew rapidly through natural increase-at a higher rate than for whites in the early nineteenth century. Overall, most Bahamian slaves were healthy, and disease was not widespread in the nineteenth century. With a generally healthy climate and easy access to seafood, especially conch, even slaves on relatively poor plantations had a better diet than on the mainland or in the sugar colonies. Moreover, slaves continued to live in relatively small units of less than 40 slaves-more like the southern United States than like the sugar islands. Bahamian slavery, therefore, contrasts sharply with the Caribbean generally. Although still an unjust and morally corrupt institution, Bahamian slavery was more benign that its counterparts in other parts of the Americas. Moreover, the Amelioration Acts passed by the British Parliament in the 1820s also provided slaves more legal protections than existed in the United States during this same period. As emancipation approached in 1834, many slaves on the Out Islands had far greater autonomy than slaves on mainland American plantations as white planters moved away to Nassau, or left the Bahamas completely (Craton and Saunders 1992, Johnson 1996).
Slave demographics are much better understood in the British colonies than they are in the antebellum United States because of the mandatory registration of slaves beginning in the 1820s. From 1822 to 1834, The Bahamas made a triennial census of all slaves, including their location, sex, age, origin (Creole or African), race (black or mulatto), and in later censuses, occupation. From these records, we know that by 1822, Bahamian slaves could be described as a relatively healthy and stable population. Sex ratios were relatively balanced, allowing most slaves to find a partner. Birth rates were higher than death rates, allowing for a gradual population increase. Overall the age pyramids show that the slave population was fairly healthy with a high percentage of children demonstrating slave fertility. According to Craton and Saunders, "there were two peaks of mortality in early childhood, in the first few months and around the age of two, and a steadier but still high rate of erosion among slaves of working age," but the rates were still lower than West Indian slaves populations generally. Two important trends limited the demographic growth of the slave population-the out migration of slaves from the Bahamas (restricted in 1823) and the increased manumission of slaves (Craton and Saunders 1992:273).
Based on the slave laws from the 1820s, we also have some idea of the lifeways of slaves. The amelioration laws required slaves be provided with basic provisions, and nearly all Bahamian slaves had the opportunity to augment their diet from individual provision fields and fishing. The slave registers also suggest that most slaves lived in "stable monogamous marriages,. . . nuclear households, . . .and extended famil[ies]." By 1822, 65 percent of the slaves lived in nuclear families with two parents, 17 percent in families with one parent, and only 18 percent lived alone or with only a partner (Craton and Saunders 1992).
In addition to having a healthy slave population with strong nuclear family structures, the "Out Islands" were also characterized by a weak to non-existent planter class. The decline in cotton production due to soil erosion and the chenille bug (an important reminder of the strong interconnection between the environment of the Bahamas and its history), led to the exodus of white planters from the Out Islands and the Bahamas generally. These planters removed not only themselves, but also many of their slavers-Craton and Saunders note at least 20 percent of the slave population, and probably a similar or greater number of planters, left the Islands between 1816 and 1823 when inter-colonial transfers were restricted (Craton and Saunders 1992:225).
San Salvador (or Watling's Island as it was then known) mirrors these trends. The first lands grants were established in the 1780s and settlement probably was well underway by the early 1790s, although most of the grants were never settled (Gerace 1982). Kathy Gerace suggests that the population of San Salvador may have approached 2,000 in the first years of settlement (perhaps an overly optimistic estimate), but Craton and Saunders note that by the early nineteenth century, the island was so depopulated that effective plantation agriculture was impossible. In 1810, the total population for both San Salvador was 512, and depopulation continued over the next decade, reaching 355 in 1822 (Craton and Sanders 1992: 180, 192, 261).
We have a more complete view of the population with the introduction of the slave census in 1822. Although the slave population in 1822 was almost identical to the slave population in 1834 (355 to 357), these numbers mask actual demographic growth. Between 1821 and 1823, planter Burton Williams removed 75 percent of his slaves to Trinidad so that by 1825, the slave population had dropped to 288. In spite of further transfers in succeeding years, the population increased back to its earlier level. The sex ratio on the island shows a similarly healthy population. Although the sex ratio in 1822 was 1.2:1, it was 1:1 by 1834. Most slaves on the island lived on relatively small plantations-of the eight plantations in 1822, only one had more than 100 slaves, and five had less than fifty. Moreover, most of these slaves had little or no supervision from white planters. Missing on the island was a strong planter class. Although the 1810 census reported 21 whites on San Salvador, by 1834, Charles Farquharson was probably the only white planter remaining (Craton and Saunders 1992:261).
What did these demographic trends mean for the social and community structure of specific plantations? Historians have given Charles Farquharson's plantation considerable attention because of his journal. Farquharson was from Scotland and received his first land grant on San Salvador in 1803. By the 1820s was married to Kitty Dixon, a free mulatto and mother of John Dixon of Dixon Hill Plantation. Of Farquharson's 35 slaves in 1822, 37 percent were African-born, and 49 percent were under the age of 20. The plantation had a strong family structure; only four African-born slaves lived outside a family unit. By 1834, the slave population had grown to 52; the growth almost all due to natural increase (purchases and sales had left a net increase of one). The percentage of African-born slaves had declined to 19 percent. Five households can be identified in the 1822 register and although the 1834 register shows more single individuals, Craton and Saunders suggests this may represent separate housing by sex for older children and young adults rather than an actual breakdown in the family structure.1
Polly Hill Plantation, the focus of the DePaul University excavations, was one of at least eight plantations established on the island of San Salvador. Polly Hill may have been built by Nicolas Martin Almgreen, a German ex-patriot who accompanied the Loyalists from Florida to the Bahamas after the American Revolution or built later by his son-in-law, John Storr, Jr. The plantation sits on a low rise overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and unlike most plantations on the island is not located on San Salvador's extensive inland lake system. For most of its history as a slave plantation, it was probably run by an absentee landlord. Almgreen's main estate was in the Exumas and the Storrs lived in Nassau. By the late 1820s, Polly Hill was supervised by Prince Storr, the slave overseer at Sandy Point Plantation, another Storr property who visited the plantation during the day, but returned to Sandy Point at night (Burton 2004).
The story of the Storr slaves is a bit more complicated. In 1822, the slaves owned by the Storr family appear on three registers-the estate of John Storr Sr., John Storr Jr., and Eliza Storr (John Storr Jr.'s wife). John Storr Sr. and Eliza Storr both owned slaves on San Salvador in 1822, John Storr's probably at Sandy Point and Eliza Storr's at Polly Hill.2 In 1822, John Storr, Sr. owned 53 slaves-thirteen on Rum Cay, one in Nassau, one captured during the War of 1812 by the Americans, and thirty-eight on Watling's Island. Only four of the 38 (11 percent) seem not to be a part of a family unit and one-third were born in Africa. They seem to have created five distinct family units, three with two parents present and two single-parent households. Although these slaves probably formed the original slave community at Sandy Point, their lives were disrupted in order to settle John Storr's estate. In 1825, his trustees sold all of the slaves to Robert Butler and they were removed to Rum Cay.
John Storr, Jr. inherited the land at Sandy Point and repopulated the plantation with new slaves in 1825, but with disastrous results. The new slave community was not drawn together by long-standing kinship ties, and the overseer, Prince Storr, was himself a slave and not native to the island. In 1833, Prince Storr murdered one of the other slaves on the plantation. Although tried in Nassau, Prince was acquitted. The history of Sandy Point Plantation shows the importance that the process of community formation had in creating stable slave societies (Burton 2004).
The demographic pattern of Eliza Storr's slaves at Polly Hill mirrors those of Charles Farquharson and her father-in-law, John Storr, however. Eliza Storr was the heir of Nicholas Martin Almgreen and owns her slaves outright. Eliza Storr had 40 slaves in 1822 and 31 were located on San Salvador. Her slaves on San Salvador were probably originally centered on Polly Hill plantation; although by 1833 they were seem to be divided between Polly Hill and Sandy Point. The slaves can be grouped into three family units in 1822, two households headed by two parents and the other one by a single mother. Two of these households were extended families, however, with older daughters having children of their own. Only one of the slaves seems to be single. Eliza Storr had a much higher percentage of creole slaves, already 87 percent in 1822. Forty-two percent were under the age of 20. By 1834, Eliza Storr's slaves formed four family units and only two adult slaves appear to be outside these family units. Half a dozen very young slaves (less than five years old) appear at the bottom of the register but were almost certainly the offspring of the now adult children listed in the family units above. Moreover, at least some of these slaves were now resident at Sandy Point, rather than Polly Hill.3
What do these demographic trends suggest? Alan Kulikoff has shown that for the Chesapeake as slave population sex ratios become more balanced, the percentage of creole slaves increases, and family structures became more stable, a process of acculturation or creolization occurs in which African cultural traits are transformed into an Afro-American culture. Studying the material culture of the southeast North America, Leland Ferguson and James Deetz saw similar trends of creolization-the reinterpretation of African cultural traits in a New World context. On the mainland, this process occurred over the course of the eighteenth century. Although interrupted at Sandy Point Plantation, creolization and the creation of settled communities seems to have been replicated on at both Farquarson's and Polly Hill plantation by the 1820s-about generation after the slave settlement (Deetz 1996, Farnsworth 2001, Ferguson 1992, Kulikoff 1986).
Creolization, or the retention "of cultural values that become expressed in new ways due to cultural contract and relocation" (Wilkie 2000:11) has been a central concern for archaeologists of slavery in the Bahamas and the Americas more generally. Traditional arguments about African creolization in the New World have tried to identify specific material elements in the archaeological and documentary records and connected them to similar African practices. These elements have included ceramics, basket making, burial practices, religious activities, and medicinal practices. Recent scholarship has demonstrated the power of African cultural processes in the New World. Ceramics have been crucial in many contexts to understanding these cultural processes. Ferguson (1992) first identified the role of Africans in the production of ceramics on the North American mainland and noted the connection of styles and designs of "Colonoware" to African counterparts. But in parts of the Caribbean, ceramics have been less useful in determining African cultural survival in the process of creolization. Although African pottery traditions survived in Jamaica, the Lesser Antilles, and Puerto Rico, local ceramic production in Barbados, for example (Loftfield, 2001), was largely dominated by the white planters, reducing signs of African influence. Moreover, even on the mainland, Colonoware disappears by the late eighteenth century as slaves when access to cheap European ceramics made local production less desirable. Wilkie and Farnsworth (2005) found a few locally made ceramics at nineteenth-century Clifton Plantation, New Providence, The Bahamas, but almost all of the ceramics were of European or Asian manufacture.
In spite of the lack of evidence of African pottery traditions, it would be inappropriate to say that African culture survived less well in the Bahamas than on the mainland or other parts of the Caribbean. In spite of the relative absence of domestically produced ceramics at Clifton Plantation, Wilkie and Farnsworth (2005) argued that the style and decoration of European-produced ceramics found in the slave quarters contrasted sharply with the types found at the main house and reflected African tastes and preferences. Access to urban markets in Nassau, provided slaves with an element of economic choice which allowed them to preserve elements of their African heritage, while transforming these elements, in this case color and style preferences, from African textiles to British ceramics.
Wilkie and Farnsworth make a powerful case for the process of creolization in the New Providence/Nassau context: But how does this process of creolization work in the Out Islands where most of the planters and their slaves settled at the end of the eighteenth century? Traditionally, historians and anthropologists have argued that African culture survived best in the Bahamas on the Out Islands because of their relative isolation from both urban Nassau and, by the early nineteenth century, the presence of relatively few white planters (Craton & Saunders 1992). On San Salvador, evidence of traditional African burial practices, the practice of Bush Medicine, and the use of traditional African basketry techniques all survived well into the twentieth-century (and in some cases to the twenty-first) pointing to a process of creolization that preserved important aspects of African culture (Hasso, et al. 2006). However, one important sign of creolization in the New Providence context was the type of ceramics slaves chose. On San Salvador, access to markets was more limited. Were slaves able to exercise choice in ceramics?
DePaul University began their excavation at Polly Hill in December 2004. A previous survey had mapped the core area of the Polly Hill plantation (Gerace and Shaklee 1994) providing some basic information on four of the buildings at the site, but since then at least ten building have been identified during the first two seasons of excavation. Building construction techniques show clear signs of class stratification at the site. Buildings 1, 2, and 5 were all constructed of tabby--limestone rubble in a proto-cement. These three buildings were all closely connected to the planter family: Building 1 was the Manor House, Building 2 the kitchen, and Building 5 an office. Other buildings were of dry rock construction with plaster. Each of these other buildings seems to be domestic, most probably slave dwellings, and clearly differentiated in both style and construction from the planter buildings. Although several of these rough-built structures may date to the post-emancipation period, Building 3 (along with several others), adjacent to the kitchen, appears to date from the pre-emancipation period. Gerace (1982, 1987) has suggested the connection between building styles and construction techniques and planter status. Different construction techniques and building styles seem to be common on San Salvador and represent both distinctions between various planters and between planters and slaves.
In two seasons at Polly Hill (December 2004 and December 2005), three buildings--The Manor House, The Kitchen, and Building 3, the domestic slave dwelling-have been investigated using several techniques. The Manor House and Building 3 yards have both had a series of systematic pedestrian transects and non-aligned shovel probes. In the Manor House yard, 17 pedestrian transects were walked at two meter intervals from western wall of the yard east to the manor house. Within this area, one-half meter shovel non-aligned shovel probes were placed at four meter intervals. In the yard of Building 3, one half meter shovel probes were placed at two meter intervals. One meter excavation units were opened in and around all three buildings. In the Manor House alternate units were opened in the south half of the building. At the Kitchen and Building 3, non-random units were excavated at both sites. These excavation units included more than a 10 percent sample at all three sites (see Baxter and Burton 2005, 2006). Few ceramics were found in the excavation of the Manor House itself, although considerable sheet refuse was uncovered in the adjoining yard. Significant ceramics assemblages were found at both the Kitchen and in the yard of Building 3. But beyond a surface collection of bottles, few post-emancipation artifacts were discovered at any of the three sites. The lack of post-emancipation artifacts suggests that all three structures were abandoned in the plantation period. The analysis that follows is based on the ceramics excavated from the shovel probes of the Manor House and Building 3 yards and the excavation units at Building 2 (the Kitchen).
The overall ceramics assemblage includes a large number of more expensive transfer wares along with less expensive painted and sponge wares. Although the overall assemblages at the three locations at Polly Hill are remarkably similar; like at Clifton Plantation, the distributions between the Manor House/Kitchen are slightly different from those at Building 3, suggesting occupation by different residents in the manor house and the slave quarters (see table 1). Wilkie and Farnsworth have posited that these differences in assemblages represent the taste and preferences of the slave occupants and have further analyzed the color and style of the ceramics to suggest similarities to African textiles. While this analysis is cogent for New Providence, on San Salvador, it is more problematic. The differences between economic choice on New Providence and the Out Islands were first identified by Paul Farnsworth (1996, 1999). But while Farnsworth discounted appropriation and reuse of planter ceramics by slaves, this seems much more likely in the Polly Hill context.
Table 1 - Ceramic Types: Polly Hill Plantation
| Type | Building 1 | Building 2 | Building 3 |
| Plain | 46.9 | 41.2 | 51.9 |
| Shell Edge | 1.5 | 2.8 | 4.6 |
| Factory-Turned | 3.7 | 4.4 | 2.9 |
| Sponge | 3.3 | 8 | 0.8 |
| Embossed | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Hand Painted | 5.5 | 5.2 | 14.2 |
| Gold Leaf | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Transfer Print | 39.1 | 38.4 | 25.5 |
| Total | 271 | 250 | 239 |
Overall, the Polly Hill assemblage includes a high percentage of plain wares-much higher than in the village at Clifton and more like unmarried slave quarters at Clifton and Promised Land Plantation on New Providence, Wade's Green in the Turks and Caicos, or plantations in the southeastern United States (see table 2 for comparisons to Clifton Plantation). Farnsworth (1996, 1999) suggests that on Out Islands, planters purchased mixed crates, allocating some of the ceramics to their slaves, resulting in similar distributions of ceramics among the planters and slaves. The acquisition of additional ceramics by planters or their slaves was more difficult than on New Providence, leaving more limited economic choice in the Out Islands than in Nassau. Similarly, banded and factory-turned wares (those that Wilkie and Farnsworth suggest most appealed to Africans for stylistic reasons) were found in much lower percentages at Polly Hill. The Polly Hill ceramic distribution, therefore, points toward the greater economic isolation of the San Salvador and the greater difficulty of its slave population to obtain European materials goods to perpetuate African cultural traits.
Table 2 - Ceramics Distribution at Clifton Plantation
| Locus A | Locus B | Locus G | Locus H | |
| Plain | 18.8 | 18.2 | 16.7 | 18.2 |
| Shell-edged | 25 | 19.1 | 18.5 | 10.9 |
| Factory-Turned Slipwares | 6.3 | 9.1 | 16.7 | 16.4 |
| Sponged | 1.0 | 1.9 | ||
| Embossed | 1.0 | 1.9 | 1.8 | |
| Handpainted | 18.8 | 23.3 | 24.0 | 43.6 |
| Gold Leaf | 1.8 | |||
| Transfer-print | 31.3 | 28.3 | 20.3 | 7.3 |
| Total | 16 | 99 | 54 | 55 |
From Laurie Wilkie and Paul Farnsworth, Sampling Many Pots: An Archaeology of Memory and Tradition on a Bahamian Plantation, Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
In the plantation period, access to the outside world was largely restricted to planters. The 300 or so slaves on San Salvador had no access to a market like on New Providence, and there were no regular traders to the island. James Farquharson, for example, reported the arrival of the sloop Liberty in April 1831, but except for 3 slaves who accompanied his son, James, to the boat, the rest of the slaves were busy in the fields during the boat's time on the island. Moreover, the slaves would have had little access to outside work or places to market goods they had grown or made making it difficult to obtain money to make purchases. The planters, on the other hand, although increasingly in financial straights, did make purchases. In November 1831, Farquharson chartered the sloop Traveller (sic) to take his "freight" to Nassau and bring him "letters and papers with some few articles" (Farquharson 1957). Thus material goods from outside San Salvador were mediated largely by the planter. So the differences in ceramics found between buildings associated with the planter at Polly Hill and those associated with the slaves were not due to the market choices of the slaves. Planters themselves played a central role in the selection of ceramics for the Out Islands, choices perhaps made in part based on the style preferences of their slaves, but probably reflecting primarily cost considerations.
Goods could also arrive on the island in unintended ways. Farquharson reports that a boat hit a reef in Graham's Harbour, and some of the men went out to try to retrieve what they could. Other than some rope and blocks, they reported they could obtain little. But items from wrecks, although potentially useful to the slaves, also would not provide economic choice reflecting cultural values. Moreover, Farnsworth has found the wrecks rarely contained large quantities of manufactured goods (Farnsworth 1996). The ability to obtain new goods was limited, therefore. But the ability to exchange goods between slaves or to appropriate goods formerly belonging to the master remained. This may have been the norm at Polly Hill plantation during the plantation period. The largest percentage of decorated ceramics on all three locations at Polly Hill was transfer prints-seemingly of similar patterns and styles. Although similar ceramics may have been used by the planter and the slaves from the establishment of the plantation, this seems unlikely given the status differences encased in cement and stone in the plantation buildings. More likely these similarities represent an appropriation of planter goods by the slaves, which served to ameliorate the status differences captured by different building construction. Farnsworth discounts this pattern of reuse at Wade's Green because of the continued presence of the planter family, but the absentee status of Polly Hill plantation would make the appropriation of goods originally purchased for the planter more likely. Moreover, expropriation would explain the relatively low number artifacts found in the immediate vicinity of the Manor House, which was probably cleared of its contents by the former planter and the slaves when it was no longer used in the early nineteenth century. Although not as dramatic an expression of creolization as the colorful angular wears among the slaves at Clifton, the reuse of dishes formerly belonging to the master probably had important affects on the mentalité of the increasingly independent slaves (Farquharson 1957), breaking down the older hierarchies even before the end of slavery and furthering the creolization of the slave labor force. Moreover, the variety of transfer wares (both in terms of color and pattern), suggests that there may have been movement of these wares between plantations, a question for future research.
Emancipation brought significant internal migration to the slave communities on the island. Cockburn Town, on the west side of the Island, was laid out in the late 1830s, and in 1839 the government sold fourteen half-acre house lots for £5 pounds each (all still unpaid in 1842). Moreover, the stipendiary magistrate, William Held reported that 92 inhabitants lived in Cockburn Town (probably between one-third and one-fourth of the island's population). The creation of Cockburn Town began to shift the population focus from the eastern plantations to the newer, more centralized westside town. Cockburn Town residents had several advantages over their plantation-based brethren. Held reported that they were encroaching on 200 acres of crown land which they were working in common; thus they didn't have to pay shares or work for white landowners like those who remained on the old plantations. Moreover, they had greater access to external markets-Cockburn Town became the chief port for the island and occasional ships stopped to purchase provisions. Although a relatively small island, the difficulty of reaching Cockburn Town from the western plantations restricted sharecroppers' access to the outside market. It took at least two hours to walk from Polly Hill to Cockburn Town, and often longer. Although the inner lakes provided some easier access, residents reported that into the twentieth century goods still had to be carried several miles to and from the docks by hand (White 1985:4, 13). The difference in status was reinforced by the Cockburn Town residents continued reference to the plantation-based freedman as "slaves" (Craton and Saunders 1998).
At Polly Hill, the manor house, kitchen and buildings in the central yard appear to have been abandoned, although some buildings continued to be occupied, and the residents had access to new material goods. The now free Afro-Bahamian share-croppers seemed to prefer using buildings on the edges of the old yard, closer to their fields. In the process, the freed slaves appropriated planter buildings, erasing some of the class status that differences in building types had represented. Building 5, a tabby constructed building that probably was originally used by the planter as an office or work space was later reused by the Afro Bahamians probably as a dwelling. Windows and doors were closed up and a new building, possibly a kitchen, was build next to the original structure. Although not yet fully excavated, a trash dump near Building 5 uncovered a small collection ceramics dating from the 1840s. But these new ceramics were traditional transfer wares, not the slipwares Wilkie and Farnsworth identified at Clifton as markers of creolization. Do these ceramics mean that the Polly Hill residents had become more integrated in the British cultural world than the slaves at Clifton? Or had the reuse of planter's transfer print wares made these the preferred ceramics? Again, an understanding the economic system of post-emancipation San Salvador is crucial to interpreting these artifacts (Baxter and Burton, 2005).
Traditionally, sharecroppers paid one-third of their crop to the planter retaining two-thirds for their own use or sale. The ability to sell produce in the immediate post-emancipation period may have been difficult, but not impossible. James Farquharson relied on various vessels to come to San Salvador to pick up his products (primarily cattle) for sale in Nassau, and sharecroppers may have also been able to gain access, if space on the boat permitted. They would not, however, have benefited from Farquharson's family connections in Nassau to arrange for the sale of their goods, probably to their economic disadvantage. Some freedmen were able to make real wages, however. James Farquharson signed a contract with his former slave, Jacob, in 1839 to serve as his chief herdsmen in twelve dollars per year and as much land as he could farm (O'Brien Papers). Although Jacob's contract was renewed into the 1860s, did Jacob have consumer access to the market economy?
Access to the Nassau market was a perennial problem in remote islands like San Salvador in the decades after emancipation. James Farquharson decided in 1857 to buy his own sloop so that he would have more regular access to Nassau, a solution not available to the typical sharecropper (O'Brien Papers). Moreover, contacts in Nassau helped planters who remained on the Out Islands gain access to the market. Mrs. Farquharson, James's wife, wrote her brother, Henry Steveson, in Nassau in 1833 requesting she be sent a black silk dress, thimbles, shoelaces, and a bedstead and sideboard. James Farquharson requested sugar, lumber, rum, and nails. But sharecroppers didn't have these contacts in Nassau. In spite of emancipation, the old elite continued to play an important role as middlemen. Mrs. Farquharson complained in a letter from the 1830s that she had not been receiving the "full amount" of goods she had requested from her brother. She needed the goods to "sell again" to others on the island, certainly Afro-Bahamian freedmen (O'Brien Papers). Mrs. Farquharson was acting as a petite bourgeoisie, arranging for the purchase of goods in Nassau, their transport to San Salvador, and subsequent sale. She rarely mentions the specific types of goods she needed-this must have been established during her regular visits to her brother. The determination of goods, therefore, rested far from the sharecropper's hands. Mrs. Farquharson apparently specified the type of goods and her brother made the actual purchase in Nassau. The consumer on San Salvador was left with a limited choice of articles to purchase. As the transfer wares at Polly Hill suggest, taste and sensibilities for material goods, even after emancipation, probably continued to rest largely with the planters. The ability to choose among imported goods to reflect traditional African tastes and sensibilities was more difficult in an economy with limited access to the Nassau market and still largely controlled by the older elite.
By the late nineteenth century, Polly Hill was one of about a dozen villages ringing the island, many at or near the site of earlier slave plantations. Although erosion during the cotton plantation period had reduced the soil quality of the old plantation estates, they probably remained more fertile than the western lands, making sharecropping more attractive for some than squatting in Cockburn Town. Although we have limited sources for Polly Hill, the plantation's continued occupation after emancipation suggests that it too continued to hold attraction to island residents and was probably without a resident overseer, providing even greater autonomy for the freedmen. But with an island population of only 275 in 1844, it seems likely that out migration also characterized the decade after emancipation. The population began to increase by mid-century, but only briefly exceeded 700 in 1891. Most long-time residents continued to report spending significant periods of time working in Nassau, the United States, or Great Britain during the early twentieth century (Craton and Saunders 1998:35-7, 59; Bahamian Blue Book 1843; White 1985).
Increasingly, San Salvador struggled to participate in commercial agriculture, trying coconuts, citrus fruits, pineapples, Indian corn, and cattle raising in the 1900s, but in most years, inadequate boat service to Nassau made shipping crops to market difficult. Some, more successful San Salvador residents owned their own boats, but this was probably the exception (White 1985: 14). Sisal seems to have been the only successful crop. Although early twentieth century residents reported growing, raising, and catching most of their foodstuffs, the sale of sisal allowed San Salvador residents to purchase flour and sugar, cloth for clothes, kerosene for lighting, soap and detergent for cleaning. Liquor was probably the only luxury good; however, and liquor and medicine bottles are the most commonly found late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artifacts found at Polly Hill.
There remains considerable archaeological work to be done on Out Island life, particularly in the post-emancipation period. But the picture that is emerging is of a society very different from its counterpart on New Providence. More restricted access to even local, much less regional markets limited economic opportunities. Although African cultural influences remained strong in on Out Islands, these influences may appear more difficult to read in the archaeological record because of the limited material goods. In the case of ceramics, long-term reuse, and the movement of highly portable ceramics may be highly instructive, nevertheless, of dynamic cultural processes on the Island. Ironically, isolation from Nassau left San Salvador with a collection of ceramics more representative of planter elites than similar assemblages in the former slave quarters at Clifton Plantation on New Providence. But the use of these ceramics by non-elites may have created as powerful a message to the slaves and former slaves as the ability to purchase new ceramics as at Clifton. The integration of the historical and archaeological records should make possible the reconstruction of Out Island life during this period.
1 There also seems to be pattern of listing recently born slave children at the end of the slave register. This discussion of the Farquharson's slave community is drawn from Craton and Saunders analysis in Islanders, ch. 18. Kathy Gerace reviews the material remains of Farquarson's Plantation, Sandy Point, and Fortune Hill plantations in "Three Loyalist Plantations on San Salvador, Bahamas," The Florida Anthropologist 35 (December 1982):4; Kathy Gerace, "Early Nineteenth Century Plantations on San Salvador, Bahamas: The Archaeological Record," The Journal of the Bahamas Historical Society, 9 (1987):14-21.
2 The earlier history of Sandy Point is more difficult to determine. Kathy Gerace notes that the first owner of the estate was Bud Cade Mathews who was granted the land in 1803 and appears to have been resident by 1805. John Storr, Sr. received a grant of land on San Salvador from the crown in 1814. John Storr himself may have been resident on the island after that date, but he has died by 1822. See Land Grant Book L1, Department of Archives, Nassau, The Bahamas.
3 Sandra Riley, Homeward Bound: A History of the Bahama Islands to 1850 with a Definitive Study of Abaco in the American Loyalist Plantation Period (Miami: Island Research, 1983), 106; Personal Conversation with Kathy Gerace (2003). The succeeding discussion of the Storr slaves is drawn from the various slave registers held in the Department of the Archives, Nassau, The Bahamas. It seems likely that the various Storr slaves were commingled on at least two plantations. Charles Farquharson in his journal reported allowing the slaves go to visit the Old Ben's funeral at Polly Hill in December 1832. Ben's death is reported in Eliza Storr's 1834 slave register. At the same time, at least one of the slave families identified in Eliza Storr's register, headed by the slave woman Elsy, were reported living at Sandy Point. See Farquharson's Journal, p. 80.
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