Life after social death : A study of creolisation among enslaved communities in the former Danish West Indies

Abstract: This thesis examines and discusses how creolisation theory has influenced the material culture of enslaved people from former Danish West Indies plantations. The essay contends that creolisation is the theory required to advance slavery studies because it demonstrates how enslaved people created their own identity, belonging, and kept African cultures and customs alive despite being socially dead. This was accomplished through an examination of the amount of material discovered at archaeological investigations on former Danish plantations within slave contexts. Through the presentation and analysis of "Afro-Cruzan" ceramics, beads, shells, and pipe fragments, the thesis discusses and argues how the abundance of various objects from enslaved communities is evidence of long-term preservation of cultures, cultural identity, and expression. Furthermore, the usefulness of creolisation theory is emphasised because it is argued to have been developed with a post-processual perspective, avoiding the normative theorisation that has based slavery studies on a perspective in which the enslaved were only marginalised. Finally, the discussion emphasises the importance of remaining critical of how theories and theoretical frameworks have been applied in archaeological studies on slavery, as well as the need to broaden perspectives and include other Scandinavian countries, such as Sweden.