Historical archaeologists, as well as anthropologists and historians, have used a variety of models to analyze cultural interaction between European, Native American, and African peoples. In this thesis, creolization is used as a model in which to explore culture contact between these peoples in early South Carolina by analyzing Colono Ware pottery.

Acculturation was one of the earliest models to have been used by archaeologists to examine cultural interaction after the focus shifted from earlier theories of contact such as evolution and diffusion. In these earlier models, culture contact appeared to be unilinear; when cultures spread, they were seen as conquering or replacing other cultures they encountered. Redfield et al. (1936) followed these theories to a certain extent, but called their theory of culture contact acculturation and set up rules and conditions that differed from the earlier models. These authors, while initially stating that culture contact between groups could produce "changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups" (Redfield et al. 1936:149), did tend to view cultural exchange as a unilinear process of transmission of cultural values from the "donor" to the "recipient" culture.

Redfield et al. (1936) defined three results of acculturation: acceptance, adaptation, and reaction. By acceptance, they implied that the "recipient" culture takes on the "greater portion" of the "donor" culture, thereby losing their traditional culture. By adaptation, they meant that the traditional and "donor" cultures are blended either harmoniously or with internal conflict between the new and old which is then mediated "in everyday life as specific occasions arise" (Redfield et al. 1936:152). By reaction, they meant that the "donor" culture is in whole or partly rejected because either the new culture is inferior or there is an advantage in retaining the old culture.

However, in none of these outcomes is a true realization that the "donor" culture can be affected by the "recipient" culture, and the process outlined by Redfield et al. can more correctly be characterized as "cultural give" rather than cultural exchange. Rogers and Wilson (1993:17) note that even the word acculturation has negative connotations: it "implies a directed outcome to the process of culture change that minimizes the significant role of native societies in structuring their future." Thus, indigenous peoples are often seen as passive recipients of culture and not its agents.

In addition to the unilinear nature of the model, inherent biases and value judgments exist: the "donor" culture is seen, explicitly and implicitly, as "better." For example, one explanation given for traits to be passed from the "donor" culture is the "desirability of bringing about conformity to values of the donor groups, such as humanitarian ideals, modesty, etc." (Redfield et al. 1936:151). Influenced by much of the fieldwork of the times, it is not surprising that this model mirrors many of the preconceived notions about culture contact between indigenous peoples and Europeans: the "savage others" learning, adapting, and being assimilated into the "great" Western culture.

This early model of acculturation has been extensively criticized. Rubertone (1989:35) points out that in many studies of cultural contact between Native Americans and Europeans, biases inherent in the acculturation model are accepted without challenge: "In modelling these transformations in native Indian societies, there is an assumed logical and rational progression from all Indian culture traits to none." She believes it is simplistic to assume that all Native Americans fully embraced European culture and became "assimilated" into that culture. Rogers and Wilson also point out that acculturation, as set forth by Redfield et al. (1936), "is largely typological in its intent and so tends to ignore variation, thus reifying rather than examining its own assumptions" (1993:17). Therefore, according to the early models of acculturation such as the one proposed by Redfield et al. (1936), cultural exchange between groups is categorized and described, but in a generalizing sense which ignores the complexity of responses to interaction by all the groups involved.

In their study of acculturation of African American slaves at Yaughan and Curriboo plantations in low country South Carolina, Wheaton and Garrow (1985) use acculturation to examine the interaction between African and European Americans. They (1985:243) state that "The acculturation of the Afro-American slaves from an Afro-Caribbean (or West African, or Afro-Caribbean-American Colonial) cultural model within Yaughan and Curriboo plantations to a more Euro-American cultural model can be demonstrated through a study of architectural evidence, recovered artifacts and subsistence data."

Wheaton and Garrow (1985) conclude that the material culture of the African Americans, despite the use of some European artifacts, was very distinct from European material culture and showed many signs of traditional African lifeways, such as food, pottery, and architecture. They find the artifact patterns to show that

slaves consumed and discarded proportionately larger percentages of Euro-American produced goods as time passed. That trend, coupled with a direct increase in consumption and discard of African-related goods, appears to further reinforce the interpretation that the slave inhabitants at Yaughan and Curriboo were undergoing accelerated acculturation to a Euro-American cultural model as time passed (Wheaton and Garrow 1985:253).

Some archaeologists and historians were dissatisfied with the unidirectional flow of culture change that early acculturation models assumed and unhappy with the value judgments implicit in some versions of the model. They began to search for improved ways of dealing with cultural interaction. Creolization, with its use of concepts borrowed from linguistic analyses of culture contact, was similar in some ways to acculturation, but included the concept of a multi-directional culture flow and influence. In relation to the theory of acculturation, it seems most akin to the outcome of "adaptation," or a situation where traditional and "donor" cultures are blended either harmoniously or with internal conflict between the new and old which is then mediated "in everyday life as specific occasions arise" (Redfield et al. 1936:152). However, it allows for the maintenance of two separate culture groups, with interaction between and among the groups, as in the European and African Americans in the Southeastern United States, or the blending of the culture groups into one "creolized" group, such as the "Black Seminoles" of Florida, a group created by the contact between Native American and African American groups (Herron 1994; Mulroy 1993). Creolization assumes no "end product" of total assimilation or harmony, as acculturation does; rather, it allows for constant change. Therefore, it could be considered a "stage" in the model of acculturation; however, it rejects the idea that there is a definable, expected outcome of culture contact (as the acculturation model holds).

Archaeologists using the creolization model have been heavily influenced by work done in the Caribbean, which draws upon the early anthropological work of scholars such as Braithwaite (1971) and Mintz and Price (1977). In their book that examines cultural exchange in the Caribbean using a model of creolization, Mintz and Price (1977:18) state that "the processes of culture-formation were neither unilateral--the imposition of European forms upon passive African recipients--nor homogenous." They find examples in various parts of African Caribbean culture which show this interaction, such as speech, dress, dance, medicine, food, and religion, and they also show that Europeans benefited from the exchange with members of the diverse African groups represented.

In African American archaeology, Ferguson (1992b) proposes a model of creolization to examine culture contact. He uses concepts from Braithwaite (1971) and Joyner (1984) to examine creolization as it was experienced on plantations by Africans, Native Americans, and Europeans. Joyner, a historian, uses linguistic concepts of grammar and lexicon to argue that African and European cultures each had a different basic grammar, or "'deep structure' that generates specific cultural patterns" (1993:14). Pieces of these cultural patterns--behaviors--are then considered vocabulary (lexicon) used within the grammar. Joyner uses African American religion as an example of how European religious vocabulary was used by African Americans in a traditional religious framework. Thus, African American and European American religion, while bearing surface similarities, were very different. As Joyner (1993:15) states,

In establishing a spiritual life for themselves, they [African Americans] reinterpreted the elements of Christianity that they learned from the whites in terms of deep-rooted African cognitive (or "grammatical") orientations--mental rules governing appropriate behavior--that profoundly affected their adoption, adaptation, and application of Christianity.

Ferguson points out that this model of creolization may be more applicable to some societies than other models used, such as acculturation, because this model can show interaction between cultures, and the effect of interaction is not one-sided. Therefore, Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans are all affected by this interaction, and the vocabulary from each of the cultures may be adopted by one or more of the others (Ferguson 1992b:xliii). Structures of culture and artifacts used within that structure are not "replaced" by the structures and artifacts of the "dominant" culture; rather artifacts and structures may change, but change is due to choice and the "free-will, imagination, and creativity of non-Europeans" (Ferguson 1992b:150). Furthermore, as Adams (1990:13) shows in her study of African-American architecture, creolization assumes no replacement of elements of the "subordinated" culture (in this case, slaves) by the "dominant" culture (in this case, Europeans). She (1990:14) states, "Instead of observing change on a scale where Africans moved away from their own traditional cultural ways and world view, change should be seen as non-directional and more kaleidoscopic."

Colono Ware has been used by Ferguson (1992b) to study the process of creolization, or culture contact, in the Southeastern United States. It has been defined by Ferguson as "a very broad category on the order of 'British ceramics,' that would include all low-fired, handbuilt pottery found on colonial sites, whether slave quarters, 'big houses,' or Indian villages" (1992b:19, emphasis in original). This neutral term allows for Native American and African American manufacture of the ceramic and its use by Native Americans, African Americans, and European Americans. Stylistic and functional differences between Colono Ware in different regions can be expected following the creolization model, which allows for variation in the type and amount of contact among these three cultures.

In using a model of acculturation to examine Colono Ware, questions are raised as to why its use continued along with the use of European ceramics. Although Wheaton and Garrow (1985) found that the use of African American material culture (including Colono Ware) decreased over time and the acceptance of European material culture increased, the admittedly small presence of Colono Ware on later sites seems to indicate in part a rejection of European ceramics. A preference or insistence upon Colono Ware for certain activities may have had a psychological advantage, especially in the realms of healing and ritual, or a practical advantage, as in the area of cooking certain foods and dishes. Furthermore, African Americans did not have the luxury of surrounding themselves with familiar objects, but were surrounded by European material culture. As Samford (1994:1) points out, "In order to help maintain and practice West African cultural traditions and belief systems, it would have been necessary to adapt these new forms of material culture for use within African American systems."

Whatever the reason, the presence and use of Colono Ware from the mid-17th to the early 19th century does not indicate a total "loss" of African American culture, which is one common interpretation of the outcome of acculturation. Likewise, acculturation in its most common use fails to examine how, when, and to what degree changes in various aspects of material culture occurred. It also does not explain why all three cultures used Colono Ware, why African Americans and Native Americans manufactured Colono Ware, and how the adoption of Colono Ware by all three groups influenced the material culture of each group.

Although this thesis examines Colono Ware in the context of African American life, creolization is used as an important guiding theory. The process of creating Colono Ware was a product of cultural interaction between Native and African Americans. Its use in medicine and traditional religion was also evidence of creolization; Native Americans shared knowledge of plants and herbs with African Americans, and African Americans adapted medicinal and ritual activities to the available plants, trees, and other resources of their new environment. A further elaboration of how Colono Ware was used in these practices is presented in the fourth and fifth chapters of this thesis. First, however, a general discussion of Colono Ware will be presented so that the information regarding the function of Colono Ware may be evaluated.