ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ceramics consumed by plantation residents, most of them enslaved, to understand their role in the consumer revolution. It examines petty consumerism in plantation settings of the Middle Atlantic and Southeast regions of the United States, using several lines of evidence that address ceramic production, marketing, distribution, and retailing, as well as use and discard. In particular, the chapter considers how access to and decisions about ceramics were shaped by plantation life. The archaeological evidence of petty consumerism is complemented by the archival record, which provides an opportunity to explore the decisions of laborers at the point of purchase. Credits from the storeowner for specific tasks, that is dressing stoves, or days worked were the smallest number of transactions and also represented the least amount of money. Thus, the act of consuming was frequently underwritten quite literally by social relationships, for the most part among the residents of quarters, not between owners and owned.
