Description
Book SynopsisHow sugarcane monoculture decimated an island's water supply and peopleOpen access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295748733Dominica, a place once described as Nature's Island, was rich in biodiversity and seemingly abundant water, but in the eighteenth century a brief, failed attempt by colonial administrators to replace cultivation of varied plant species with sugarcane caused widespread ecological and social disruption. Illustrating how deeply intertwined plantation slavery was with the environmental devastation it caused, Mapping Water in Dominica situates the social lives of eighteenth-century enslaved laborers in the natural history of two Dominican enclaves. Mark Hauser draws on archaeological and archival history from Dominica to reconstruct the changing ways that enslaved people interacted with water and exposes crucial pieces of Dominica's colonial history that have been omitted from official documents. The archaeological recordwhich preserves traces of slave households, waterways
Trade Review"This book is an excellent example of the application of archaeological research to a larger anthropological problem, in this case the anthropology of slavery and plantation economies in the Caribbean."
* Choice *
"This is a well-written book that has the added advantage of demonstrating the value of archaeology for the study of history, environmental history not least."
* H-Net *
"In this fine study of colonial Dominica, Mark W. Hauser brings together the history of slavery, the environment, and the growing field of histories of water. His interdisciplinary approach unveils new perspectives on known events and provides fresh insights into largely forgotten histories."
* The Middle Ground Journal *
