PLACA Brown Bag Series presents: Catherine LaVoy

Monjope:The Archival Evidence of the Social Bonds in a Slave Community Through enslavement, social relationships were destroyed and re-formed. While early scholarship on slavery focused on the destruction of natal social bonds and the difficulties of re-formation, recent scholarship has pointed to the creativity and resilience of enslaved Africans in retaining and re-creating social bonds, both within the slave community and beyond. This paper will discuss the evidence of social bonds formed by the slaves of the sugar plantation Monjope, located in Pernambuco, Brazil, based on preliminary archival research conducted in the summer of 2009 and the implications of this research on archaeological investigations. Refreshments will be served.