Estate Little Princess is a Danish plantation site on the island of St Croix, a US Virgin Island in the Caribbean. This plantation was once deeply involved in the world’s economy, as it spanned over 300 years of occupation from mid to late 1700s and ended in the 1950s. For centuries, enslaved individuals were brought onto the island by European ships in exchange for sugar, coffee and other crops. Hundreds of individuals shared the spaces in this plantation daily, thereby bringing out multiple potential research questions during the archaeological work.
The Estate Little Princess Project came about when Jay Haigler from Diving With a Purpose (DWP), approached Dr. Justin Dunnavant and Dr. Ayana Flewellen to become a part of their maritime and terrestrial archaeological project: Slave Wrecks Project on the island of St. Croix in 2016 . They were looking for archaeologists of African descent to lead the project. Dunnavant and Flewellen were in-charged with leading the terrestrial part of the project at the Estate Little Princess site. Once at the site, Dunnavant and Flewellen found that this site was ideal to move their desires forSociety of Black Archaeologists (SBA) and the DWP project further. However, there was no slave wreck found there, so that left out the maritime aspect. Nevertheless, Dunnavant and Flewellen carried the terrestrial aspect forward and turned it into a fruitful and enriching archaeological project along with the other members.
Archaeological work began at the Estate Little Princess Plantation Project in 2017, and in 2019 a field school was designed and carried out by the members of Society of Black Archaeologists. Dr. Dunnavant and Dr. Flewellen founded and created a project which aimed to offer an intimate insight into the lives of everyday enslaved Africans, while also training and preparing the next generation of future Black archaeologists. The current project works closely with the University of California and several Historically Black College and Universities (HBUs), and includes a training component which has allowed university students to participate in the digging season alongside inspiring archaeologists such as Dr. Dunnavant, Dr. Flewellen, Dr. Alicia Odewale, Dr. Alexandra Jones and many more. The team have also worked with the Caribbean Centre for boys and girls of the Virgin Islands in Christiansted, which engages local young people with archaeology, involving them in the process of excavating and volunteering on site.
The project excavates the material remains of the enslaved peoples who once lived on the island, and excavations have discovered a mill, rum factory, and homesteads. Finds include personal objects like buttons, porcelain, cutlery and evidence of food consumption such as pig and fish bones. Although this doesn’t sound all that exciting, these objects are immensely powerful, and incredibly important in telling the story of the agency’s identities, and everyday lives of enslaved African peoples. Within these objects, we are able to see incredible forms of resistance and resilience. Personal items, such as buttons, begin to tell stories of personhood. Porcelain begins to tell the story of economy and trading. Food remains show us the social community, their creativity, the utilisation of the landscape and resources to carve their identities and culture. Moreover, in the mid 20th century, through research it was discovered that there was a systematic destruction of the rooves and the walls in the plantation site by the owners to purposely prevent the African-Americans from living there. All these finds inform us about the hundreds of individuals; and allow us to honour the previously untold lives of the enslaved.
Special team post by Sakshi Surana, Ellie Crew, and Georgia Fraser as part of the TrowelBlazers Digital Fieldwork Project at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL
Editor’s Note:
As part of our #TrowelBlazersDigitalFieldwork project with UCL Archaeology, a team of undergraduates — Ellie Crew, Sakshi Surana, and Georgia Fraser — set out to uncover a whole network of #TrowelBlazing women by doing something different: starting at the source. By investigating the work and experiences of women working together and actually asking about those experiences, we hope to show some of the critical points that underlie what it is to be a woman working in the digging sciences. You can read the personal experiences and career insights from Alicia Odewale, Ayana Flewellen, Alexandra Jones, and student Jewell Humphrey on their own, but what we really wanted to capture was the importance of all of these amazing #TrowelBlazers working together: how it happened, and where!
The where is a big deal. The featured project is the Estate Little Princess Project administered by Ayana Flewellen and Justin Dunnavant, and takes place on the Caribbean island of St Croix, investigating the experience of enslaved people on a former sugar plantation. Here is a cool video from the excellent Science magazine article looking at what the excavation has found:
The project came about when members of Diving With a Purpose, who research the maritime history of African Americans in order to inform and educate, invited members of the Society of Black Archaeologists to team up as part of the Smithsonian’s Slave Wrecks Project. Now a thriving field school, you can follow the latest updates from the project here on their Facebook page.
We are so pleased that Sakshi Surana was able to conduct interviews with some of the TrowelBlazing members of the team, from senior members to new PhD students, and to share their insights into how working on this important project has affected their interests, their practice, and their ambitions for archaeology. Please do click through to learn more about what a network of women can do — and what it feels like to be on the Estate Little Princess project from Alicia Odewale, Ayana Flewellen, and Jewell Humphrey Thank you to the entire team for dedicating their summer to bringing the amazing work at Estate Little Princess to light.
