This document summarizes an academic paper about the cessation of colonoware pottery production in post-emancipation South Carolina. The paper aims to understand why colonoware production ended after the Civil War by examining previous explanations for its existence during slavery. These explanations included making up for ceramic shortfalls, use in African rituals and healing, and production for market trade. However, the author argues that if these factors drove colonoware production, one would expect it to have continued after emancipation when economic and cultural needs were still present, but it did not. The paper seeks to "reverse engineer" to better understand colonoware's role on the eve of emancipation based on the documented pattern of its abandon

1. AND THEN THERE WAS NONE: THE POST-EMANCIPATION CESSATION OF
COLONOWARE PRODUCTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Abstract: In more than 30 years of discussion of slave-made pottery in South Carolina, its
manufacture has been tied to resistance, traditional ritual and healing, material short-falls, and the
market economy. Archaeological research has demonstrated that slaves continued to make low-
fired, hand-formed pottery in South Carolina up to the Civil War, yet there is no evidence for post-
emancipation production. This paper offers a prospectus for better understanding the role(s) of
Colonoware by considering its demise.
Paper presented in the symposium “Post-Emancipation Transitions in the African
Diaspora” at the 2008 meetings of the Society for Historical Archaeology,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Chris Espenshade
New South Associates, Inc.
415-A South Edgeworth Street
Greensboro, North Carolina 27401
cespenshade@newsouthassoc.com
INTRODUCTION
Why did enslaved African Americans of the South Carolina coast produce Colonoware pottery
(SLIDE)? Through the years, a number of explanations have been offered:
• Colonoware made up for ceramic short-comings in the materials provided to slaves.
• Colonoware was an important element of African American ritual and healing.
• Colonoware was often a market commodity that provided income or barter to the slaves.
• Colonoware was important in traditional culinary patterns.
• Colonoware was an important part of African American identity and resistance to slavery.
All of these statements about slave-made pottery of coastal South Carolina appear, on first blush, to
fit the data in hand. The archaeological results, the ethnohistorical records for the southeastern
United States and western Africa, and the post-emancipation accounts of former slaves all serve to
support these arguments. However, researchers of Colonoware have been myopic, focusing
exclusively on the antebellum period.
“Huh?” you may say, “How could we focus on the post-emancipation manufacture of
Colonoware when there wasn’t any?” That’s the whole point (SLIDE: 20th
Century Colonoware).
There is no evidence for Colonoware manufacture. We have tended to use the Civil War and

2. emancipation as simple explanations, without addressing how those events would have affected
the role(s) of Colonoware. In a recent paper, Kelly and Norman (2006:230) stress that we should
not expect for African American pottery to directly mimic their African counterparts in form or
function, and “instead, we must develop a set of ideas for interpreting African expressions
contextualized by these new circumstances.” Taking their advise, I will attempt to reverse engineer,
working back from the documented pattern of Colonoware abandonment to interpret the role(s) of
Colonoware on the eve of emancipation.
1980s Colonoware By Author
A BRIEF ASIDE ON CONTEXT
It would be disingenuous for me to argue that there was a single, monolithic trajectory of
Colonoware production in South Carolina. In fact, I have argued elsewhere that the forms and use
contexts of Colonoware changed through time (Espenshade 1998). Other researchers have noted
that enslaved African Americans made Colonoware for use in the slave row, the planters’ kitchens,
and for trade. Likewise, the Catawba undertook an extensive trade in Colonoware.
The focus of my paper today is Colonoware produced by enslaved African Americans. In
the eighteenth century in South Carolina, Colonoware was often the dominant ceramic in slave-site
assemblages. Early in the eighteenth century, bowls and jars appear in even proportions, but the
relative frequency of jars decreased significantly by the start of the nineteenth century (SLIDE:
TYPICAL FORMS).

3. Common Forms of S.C. Colonoware
Even before the Civil War, overall Colonoware production was decreasing. To date, there
are only a handful of sites that attest to Colonoware production in the 1850s and early 1860s.
These late assemblages are dominated by footed and footless bowl forms, some with geometric
designs carved into them.
Site Occupation
Range
Colonoware
Count
Colonoware as
Percentage of
all Ceramics
38BK416, Tanner Road Slave House 1790-1830 -- 78.0 %
38BK223, Limerick Plantation, Late Contexts 1801-1824 -- 21.0 %
38BU791, Bonny Shore Slave Community 1810-1865 723 43.7 %
38BU647, Colleton River Slave Village 1817-1848 3,476 63.6 %
38BU1644, Locus 1 1780-1850 1,073 77.2 %
38BU1644, Locus 2 1780-1820 259 55.8 %
38BU15, Pinckney Landing Slave Row 1800-1865 956 60.0 %
38BU79/1151, Block A, Mitchellville House 1865-1870 0 0
38BU79/1151, Block B, Mitchellville House 1865-1868 0 0
38BU79/1151, Block C, Mitchellville House 1865-1871 0 0

4. 38BU79/1151, Block D, Post-Mitchellville House 1870-1890 0 0
Mitchellville Core, 110-123 block 1865-1870 9 < 1%
38BU966, African American-owned farmstead 1888-1912 0 0
38BU967, African American cash renter
farmstead
1874-1912 0 0
Post-Emancipation Sites 1865-1900 0 0
Sources: Trinkley (1986); Kennedy et al. (1991); Espenshade and Grunden (1991); Pietak et al.
(1998); Kennedy et al. (1994); Eubanks et al. (1994); Kloss et al. (2004).
The nine sherds from the Freedmen’s village of Mitchelville remain the only Colonoware from
possibly post-emancipation context. The occupants of Mitchelville were legally contraband, then
refugees, and then freedmen. The federal government constructed the village to house the runaway
slaves, who had flocked to the Union military outposts on Hilton Head. The few sherds of
Colonoware may represent an heirloom, or even salvage from nearby plantation sites.
COLONOWARE AND CERAMIC SHORT-FALLS
This explanation for the making of Colonoware has fallen out of fashion, in general, but
still is mentioned on occasion. The basic premise is that planters were not providing sufficient
bowls, dishes, or kettles to supply the needs of the slave community. Colonoware requires no
capital investment, only labor, clay, and firewood. In certain slave communities, a feedback loop
may have developed: the initial shortage of refined ceramics from the planter causes the slaves to
produce Colonoware, thereby informing the planter of the slaves ability to make their own cooking
and tableware, thereby reinforcing the planter’s stinginess with refined ceramics.
If Colonoware was made and used to compensate for ceramic shortfalls, what would
emancipation have meant to this scenario? I risk understatement in saying that the first 10-20 years
after emancipation on the South Carolina coast were not an easy time for African Americans.
Although there were certainly those who prospered, there were also those who barely survived.
(SLIDE) Indeed, this slide shows a “negro shack” on Parris Island 50 years after emancipation.
The ex-slaves would have needed to purchase all their table-wares, in addition to almost all of their
other possessions. If Colonoware was a suitable means of self-sufficiency in the antebellum period,
why not so after emancipation? I do not argue that Colonoware should have been widely or
universally used in post-emancipation times, but we would expect to find some households making

5. this pottery if the ceramic short-fall explanation is strong. The ceramic need was there in the post-
emancipation period, but Colonoware was gone.
“Negro Hut” on Parris Island, S.C., 50 Years After Emancipation
COLONOWARE AND TRADITIONAL RITUAL AND HEALING
Ferguson (1992, 1999, 2007; see also Marcil 1993 and Ogata 1995) has argued
strongly that Colonoware was used in African-derived rituals and healing behavior. Ferguson has
argued that certain Colonoware vessels were marked with Bakongo cosmograms and were used in
river-related ceremonies (SLIDE). To bolster his argument, Ferguson presents ethnographic data from
western Africa regarding the use of clay vessels in rituals. He also points out the survival of many
African-derived beliefs among the Gullah of coastal South Carolina. Posnansky (1999:29) in his
overview of historic West African groups argues “pottery within any West African society is not
only a craft but an integral part of rural culture.” Recently, Kelly and Norman (2006:230-231) have
echoed this argument, stating “we also strongly believe that the ideological importance of ritual
ceramics on the African continent would promote the preservation of analogous vessels with similar
functional, contextual, and stylistic characteristics in the Americas long after the utilitarian culinary
counterparts had gone out of vogue.”

6. Riverside Ritual
This strikes me as ironic. One of the key data sets for arguing the ritualistic and healing
roles of Colonoware is the post-emancipation survival of belief systems with strong ties to African
traditions. Yet, there is no Colonoware. We can look at the post-emancipation cemeteries of the
Carolina Low Country (SLIDE) and see clear survival of African-derived behaviors, but for some
reason Colonoware was abandoned.
Sea Island Black Cemetery

7. Artifacts associated with ritual are typically among the most conservative items in a culture.
Indeed, ritual and tradition place an emphasis on links with the past. In his study of Fon shrines, for
example, Norman (2000:120-129) found that modern materials were often now placed in shrines,
but that the traditional ceramics remained key for communication with ancestors. Even in cases
where a new religion is brought to an area, elements of the native ritual palette are often
incorporated (this is why Catholicism in the Mexican highlands is very different from that in Rome).
Ferguson and others have argued extensively on the importance of Colonoware bowls to ritual and
healing. If Colonoware was serving as a link to tradition in ritual or healing, why did it disappear
in the post-emancipation period? The base tradition was not abandoned, but Colonoware is gone.
COLONOWARE AS A MARKETABLE COMMODITY
There is little doubt that both the Catawba and enslaved African Americans were producing
Colonoware for market (SLIDE: MARKET POTTERY IN JAMAICA) (Isenbarger 2005; Joseph 2004,
2007; Espenshade 2007; Riggs et al. 2005). As well, we know that in some slave communities,
one or two potters were producing Colonoware for everybody, presumably trading their ware for
other items (Espenshade and Kennedy 2002).
19th
-Century Painting of Jamaican Pottery Sellers and 2007 Shed of Jamaican Potter

8. In a cash-tight context following emancipation, it would seem that Colonoware would have
continued to have market or barter value for the African American potter. There are no accounts of
selling pots in the post-emancipation markets. There continued to be a market for crafts produced
by former slaves, especially sea-grass baskets and traditional nets (Rosengarten 1986) (SLIDE
COMBO: NETS AND BASKETS). If Colonoware was important as a source of cash or barter, it
should have continued to have been made and sold after freedom came to its makers. Even if there
was limited access to traditional market places in post-emancipation times, we might expect
Colonoware to have moved through the informal barter network. Instead, we see no Colonoware.
20th
Century Gullah Basket-maker and Net-maker
COLONOWARE AND TRADITIONAL FOODWAYS
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, numerous cooks and cook-book authors extolled
the virtues of low-fired earthenware for the cooking of African-influenced dishes, especially those
based on rice. From archaeological data, we know Colonoware pots were used both in planters’
kitchens and in slave quarters.
We know from studies of Gullah culture and from modern, Low Country, cook books that
traditional dishes continued to be cooked after emancipation (SLIDE). However, there are no
Colonoware pots being made. If the making of Colonoware were related to traditional foodways,
we would expect Colonoware to have been made after emancipation. The foodways continued,
but Colonoware was gone.

9. Sample of Gullah Cook Books
COLONOWARE, IDENTITY, AND RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY
Colonoware may have served in the antebellum period as a marker of identity and a
symbol of resistance. The making and using of pots within a modified African ritual and food
tradition may have been viewed by slaves as an affirmation of their identity and a means of
fighting acculturation and dehumanization.
In the afterglow of emancipation, Colonoware production ceased. This may have made
sense in that a new identity was being formulated by former slaves, and the focus of their resistance
was gone (or arguably replaced).
Laura Galke (2007), in her study of Colonoware at Manassas, saw Colonoware being
made right up until the Civil War, and then production ceasing promptly and permanently, much as
seen in South Carolina. She argued that slaves made Colonoware, but freedmen did not. The
production was abandoned, because it was a linkage to and a reminder of slavery.
The problem with the Colonoware-as-resistance argument is that a lot of slaves (indeed,
probably the majority of slave communities in coastal South Carolina) abandoned Colonoware
well before emancipation. Slavery was still calling for resistance, but Colonoware was
abandoned.
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENTS FOR COLONOWARE USE

10. This brief review has shown that none of the common explanations for Colonoware use
make sense relative to the pattern of abandonment of Colonoware. Although all of these
explanations may have had validity prior to the nineteenth century, all fail to explain to cessation of
Colonoware during the early nineteenth century in some slave communities and universally upon
emancipation.
Table 2. Summary of Results.
Antebellum Reason for
Use
Post-Emancipation Expectation
and Reality
Conclusion
Ceramic Shortfall Ceramic shortfalls should have been
common, yet no Colonoware
production.
Explanation not valid for late
Colonoware use.
Linked to Traditional Ritual or
Healing
Gullah culture maintained many
traditional rituals and means of healing,
yet no Colonoware production.
Explanation not valid for late
Colonoware use.
Marketable Commodity Markets and barter continued, and
African Americans sold craft items in
such markets, yet no Colonoware
production.
Explanation not valid for late
Colonoware manufacture.
Linked to Traditional
Foodways
Traditional foodways continued through
today, yet no Colonoware production.
Explanation not valid for late
Colonoware use.
Identity, Resistance Resistance gone, identity changes. No
Colonoware production.
Explanation may have some
validity for explaining cessation of
production upon emancipation,
but fails to explain earlier
cessation in some slave
communities.
POST-EMANCIPATION INDIVIDUALS AND THE CHOICE NOT TO MAKE POTTERY
I will make and sell baskets and nets, but I will not make pottery. I will continue to cook
traditional foods, but I will not make pots in which to cook that food. I will maintain many strong
ritual and healing traditions, but I will abandon the clay pot that used to be such an important
element of those traditions.
In trying to make sense of these conflicting arguments, and in trying to explain why
everybody, although acting as individuals, ceased production of Colonoware by the time of
emancipation, you have to come back to what Colonoware symbolized to its makers and users.
Only if Colonoware was viewed as a negative, as a poignant marker of slavery, can its
abandonment be understood. If Colonoware was a positive symbol of resistance, why would its
production have declined in the early nineteenth century, when so many remained enslaved? Only

11. if they considered Colonoware a symbol of their sorry state would slaves have abandoned an item
of market value, of use in traditional cooking, and linked to traditional healing and ritual. Only if
Colonoware use were increasingly seen as a reminder of bondage, would we expect the pattern of
abandonment of the tradition. In some contexts, before emancipation came, Colonoware must
have become ‘a slave artifact’ (in a negative sense) and its manufacture and use abandoned
despite its former economic, gastronomical, and ritual roles. Certainly, once emancipation came,
the negatives of Colonoware must have outweighed all benefits of its use, and all post-
emancipation African Americans of South Carolina abandoned this pottery.
This interpretation sees Colonoware transformed from a valued and useful item to a marker
of all that was wrong in slavery. This interpretation recasts the final users of Colonoware from the
most stringent resistors, nobly holding on to their identity in defiance of the planters, to the
misfortunate, who could not recognize the negative symbolism of Colonoware (or who recognized
its symbolism, but still needed Colonoware). By this model, those slaves who were still using
Colonoware when the war came were immediately educated upon emancipation, and the
abandonment of Colonoware was final and complete.
It appears that every time in the past ten years historical archaeologists have addressed
Colonoware, we have concluded that things were not as simple as we originally thought. The idea
that Colonoware became a negative to its former makers and users is offered here, with the
understanding that other explanations may ultimately prove more parsimonious. As I have argued
elsewhere, the roles of Colonoware shifted through time, and there was probably some degree of
validity in all the above arguments for the use of Colonoware. To my knowledge, nobody has
previously interpreted late Colonoware as a negative symbol, and if I have made you think a little
bit about this, I consider this paper a success.
In conclusion, the newly freed African Americans of South Carolina faced many difficult
decisions after emancipation. Those who had been making and using Colonoware before the war
chose unanimously to stop. It was not a decision based on economic considerations, and it flew in
the face of traditional rituals and foodways. This decision hopefully can serve as a reminder of
how complex, dynamic, and unpredictable African American culture(s) became upon the freeing of

12. the slaves. This model should also serve to underline the many freedoms that came with
emancipation.
Thanks.
Acknowledgements. The writing of this paper was supported by New South Associates. Earlier
versions were strengthened by review comments from Dr. Joe Joseph and Holly Norton. Several
peers provided data on late Colonoware, and I thank Dr. Eric Poplin, Ramona Grunden, Dr. Mike
Trinkley, and Scott Butler. The Jamaican images were taken with permission of potter Munchie
Rhoden. I appreciate the efforts of Dr. Terry Weik in organizing this symposium, as well as the
input from our discussants, Dr. Theresa Singleton and Dr. Carol McDavid.

13. Espenshade, C.T.
1998 The Changing Use Contexts of Slave-Made Pottery on the South Carolina Coast. In
African Impact on the Material Culture of the Americas. The Museum of Early
Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
2007a A River of Doubt: Marked Colonoware, Underwater Sampling, and Questions of
Inference. The African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, March 2007.
2007b Building on Joseph’s Model of Market-Bound Colonoware Pottery. The African
Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, October 2007.
Espenshade, C.T., and R. Grunden
1991 Contraband, Refugee, Freedman: Archaeological and Historical Investigations of
the Western Fringe of Mitchelville, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Brockington and Associates, Atlanta.
Espenshade, C.T., and L. Kennedy
2002 Recognizing Individual Potters in Nineteenth Century Colonoware. North American
Archaeologist 23(3):209-240.
Eubanks, E.I., C.T. Espenshade, L. Kennedy, and M. Roberts
1994 Data Recovery of the 38BU791, Bonny Shore Slave Row, Spring Island, Beaufort
County, South Carolina. Brockington and Associates, Atlanta.
Ferguson, Leland G.
1992 Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800.
Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
1999 "The Cross is a Magic Sign": Marks on Eighteenth-Century Bowls in South
Carolina. In "I, Too, Am America": Archaeological Studies of African-American
Life, edited by Theresa A. Singleton, pp. 116-131. University Press of Virginia,
Charlottesville.
2007 Comments on Espenshade's "Marked Colonoware, Underwater Sampling, and
Questions of Inference." The African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, March
2007.
Isenbarger, N.
2005 Potters, Hucksters, and Consumers: Introducing Colonoware into the Slaves' Internal
Marketing Economy. Paper presented in the Historic Low-Fired Earthenwares in the
Carolinas Symposium, Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Columbia, South
Carolina.
Joseph, J. W.
2004 Colonoware for the Village -- Colonoware for the Market: Observations from the
Charleston Judicial Center Site (38CH1708) on Colonoware Production and
Typology. South Carolina Antiquities 36(1-2):72-86.
2007 One More Look into the Water -- Colonoware in South Carolina Rivers and
Charleston's Market Economy. The African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter, June
2007.
Kelly, K.G., and N.L. Norman
2006 Medium Vessels and the Longue Dureé. In African Re-Genesis: Confronting Social
Issues in the Diaspora, edited by J.B. Haviser and K.C. MacDonald, pp. 223-234.
UCL Press, New York.

14. Kennedy, L., C.T. Espenshade, and R. Grunden
1991 Archaeological Investigations of Two Turn-of-the-Century Farmsteads (38BU966
and 38BU967), Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Brockington and Associates,
Atlanta.
Kennedy, L., M.D. Roberts, and C.T. Espenshade
1994 Archaeological Data Recovery at Colleton River Plantation (38BU647): A Study of
a Nineteenth Century Slave Settlement, Beaufort County, South Carolina.
Brockington and Associates, Atlanta.
Kloss, J., R. Grunden, W. Green, and M. Sherrer
2004 Archaeological Data Recovery at 38BU1644, a Late Eighteenth/Early Nineteenth
Century Plantation in Beaufort County, South Carolina. TRC Garrow Associates,
Columbia, South Carolina.
Marcil, V.G.
1993 Continuity and Change: Colono Ware as a Coping Tool for African Americans.
Unpublished Masters thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of South
Carolina, Columbia.
Ogata, K.L.
1995 African American Women and Medicine: Expanding Interpretations of Colono
Ware. Unpublished Masters thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of
South Carolina, Columbia.
Pietak, L., C. Espenshade, J. Holland, and L. Kennedy
1998 Slave Lifeways on Spring Island: Data Recovery at 38BU5, Beaufort County, South
Carolina. TRC Garrow Associates, Atlanta.
Riggs, B., R.P.S. Davis, Jr., and M.L. Plane
2005 Catawba Pottery in the Post-revolutionary Era: A View from the Source.
Paper presented in the Historic Low-Fired Earthenwares in the Carolinas
Symposium, Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Columbia, South Carolina.
Rosengarten, D.
1986 Row Upon Row: Sea Island Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry.
McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
Trinkley, M.B.
1986 Indian and Freedman Occupation at the Fish Haul Site (38BU805), Beaufort
County, South Carolina. Chicora Foundation, Columbia, South Carolina.