ABSTRACT
The use of material culture as symbolic social objects confers a value to ordinary items of everyday life that were used collectively for the purposes of representation and communication. Purposeful choices of items such as tobacco pipes, ceramics, and glass can be viewed as collective means of communication within the community. Within the enslaved populations that dominated the early modern Caribbean, the acquisition and use of consumer goods was instrumental in creating the building blocks of self and community identities that were damaged or destroyed by the displacement of the Middle Passage. Identity in the post-1800 village took on different expressions as residents came to understand their critical worth and value to the economic system. With the decline of sugar production, the Danish government spent little effort in administration of the islands, leading to the eventual sale to the United States in 1917.
