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In the 1890s, the slave and ivory trader Rashid bin Masoud established the settlement Kikole deep in what is now southwestern Tanzania. Kikole was strategically located near Lake Nyasa, a major slaving region. Masoud's followers residing at Kikole were typically referred to as his slaves by German colonists and missionaries. Local oral histories today, however, define these followers as askari (soldiers or guards) or mafundi (technicians or specialists; in this case, in using weaponry). This article considers how recent expanded excavations at Kikole can help us better understand Masoud's followers. Differences in housing investment and material access suggest status differences among residents: any single definition of Masoud's followers may be inadequate. A broader concern addressed in this article is how we define slavery itself.

This study analyzes the consumption of European glass beads at two fugitive slave villages in nineteenth-century Kenya, Koromio and Makoroboi. The consumer choices of Koromio and Makoroboi residents reveal a strategic and symbolic material language. Specifically, the inter-household distribution of European glass beads reflects considerable variation in the performance of female identity. This distribution suggests varying norms of feminine adornment. Some of these norms likely originated in runaways' natal communities; others may have developed during enslavement. The variability in adornment practices additionally points to women's improvisation amid shifting gender relations in these nascent fugitive slave communities.

Plantation sites, especially those in the southeastern United States, have long dominated the archaeological study of slavery. These antebellum estates, however, are not representative of the range of geographic locations and time periods in which slavery has occurred. As archaeologists have begun to investigate slavery in more diverse settings, the need for a broader interpretive framework is now clear. The Archaeology of Slavery: A Comparative Approach to Captivity and Coercion , edited by Lydia Wilson Marshall, develops an interregional and cross-temporal framework for the interpretation of slavery. Contributors consider how to define slavery, identify it in the archaeological record, and study it as a diachronic process from enslavement to emancipation and beyond. Essays cover the potential material representations of slavery, slave owners’ strategies of coercion and enslaved people’s methods of resisting this coercion, and the legacies of slavery as confronted by formerly enslaved people and their descendants. Among the peoples, sites, and periods examined are a late nineteenth-century Chinese laborer population in Carlin, Nevada; a castle slave habitation at San Domingo and a more elite trading center at nearby Juffure in the Gambia; two eighteenth-century plantations in Dominica; Benin’s Hueda Kingdom in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; plantations in Zanzibar; and three fugitive slave sites on Mauritius—an underground lava tunnel, a mountain, and a karst cave. This essay collection seeks to analyze slavery as a process organized by larger economic and social forces with effects that can be both durable and wide-ranging. It presents a comparative approach that significantly enriches our understanding of slavery.

Archaeological research on Maroons—that is, runaway slaves—has been largely confined to the Americas. This essay advocates a more global approach. It specifically uses two runaway slave communities in 19th-century coastal Kenya to rethink prominent interpretive themes in the field, including “Africanisms,” Maroons’ connections to indigenous groups, and Maroon group cohesion and identity. This article’s analysis demonstrates that the comparisons enabled by a more globalized perspective benefit the field. Instead of eliding historical and cultural context, these comparisons support the development of more localized and historically specific understandings of individual runaway slave communities both in Kenya and throughout the New World. Las investigaciones arqueológicas sobre cimarrones—es decir, esclavos fugitivos—se han circunscrito en gran parte a las Américas. En este ensayo se aboga por un enfoque más mundial. Se toman en consideración, en particular, dos comunidades de esclavos fugitivos en la costa de Kenia en el siglo 19 para repensar los temas interpretativos prominentes en el área, incluidos los \"africanismos\", las conexiones de los cimarrones con grupos autóctonos y la cohesión e identidad del grupo de cimarrones. Enelanálisispresentadoenelartículo, se demuestra que las comparaciones a partir de una perspectiva más globalizada son benéficas en el área. En vez de elidir el contexto histórico y cultural, con estas comparaciones se apoya el desarrollo de un entendimiento más localizado e históricamente específico de las comunidades de esclavos fugitivos particulares, tanto en Kenia como en todo el Nuevo Mundo. La recherche archéologique sur les marrons, soit les esclaves fugitifs, s’est surtout concentrée sur l’Amérique. Le présent essai fait le plaidoyer d’une approche plus mondiale. Il implique deux communautés d’esclaves fugitifs de la côte du Kenya du 19e siècle pour repenser les thèmes interprétatifs qui prévalent dans le domaine, notamment les « africanismes », les connexions entre les marrons et les groupes autochtones et la cohésion et l’identité des groupes de marrons. La présente analyse démontre que les comparaisons favorisées par un point de vue plus mondial sont bénéfiques au champ de recherche. Au lieu d’éluder le contexte historique et culturel, lesdites comparaisons appuient ainsi le développement de compréhensions plus localisées et historiquement précises des communautés d’esclaves fugitifs individuelles au Kenya et dans le Nouveau Monde.

In the nineteenth century, the coalescence of a plantation economy on the Swahili Coast provoked an upsurge in the local slave trade. Increasing numbers of enslaved workers fled inland, and, by the 1840s, some had created independent settlements. In Swahili, runaway slaves were known as watoro. Forged by men and women of diverse cultural backgrounds, watoro communities offer broad insight into how groups form and sustain themselves. This study explores how watoro settlement organization and landscape practices reflect the process of community formation. Particular attention is paid to watoro communities' participation in regional networks and the degree to which fugitive slaves developed homogenized sociocultural norms or maintained long-term cultural plurality. This paper adopts a spatial archaeological approach centered on settlement location, housing density, and domestic architecture. Dissonances between these spatial data and artifact distributions reveal the ways in which both heterogeneity and homogeneity were expressed and experienced. Articulations and disarticulations between different evidentiary types also help to better reveal the diverse range of inter-group interactions that fugitive slaves pursued and avoided. Au XIXe siècle, la coalescence d'une économie de plantation sur la côte swahili, a provoqué une recrudescence dans le commerce d'esclaves locaux. Un nombre croissant de travailleurs asservis avaient fui vers l'intérieur des terres et, avant les années 1840, certains d'entre eux avaient créé des villages indépendants. En swahili, les esclaves fugitifs étaient connus comme watoro. Construit par des hommes et des femmes de diverses origines culturelles, les communautés watoro offrir un exemple de comment les groupes se forment et maintenir eux-mêmes. Cette étude explore comment l'organisation de colonies de peuplement watoro et le paysage reflète le processus de formation de la communauté. Une attention particulière est accordée à la participation des communautés watoro à des réseaux régionaux et la mesure dans laquelle les esclaves en fuite développés homogénéisé les normes socioculturelles ou maintenu à long terme la pluralité culturelle. Ce document adopte une approche spatiale archéologique portant sur la localisation des villages, la densité des logements, et de l'architecture domestique. Dissonances entre ces données spatiales et les distributions d'artefact révèlent les façons dont les deux hétérogénéité et homogénéité ont été exprimées et expérimentés. Articulations et désarticulations entre les types de preuve différentes aussi contribuer à mieux révéler la diversité des interactions inter-groupes que les esclaves fugitifs poursuivis et évités.

This article provides a typological and interpretive analysis of 3968 beads unearthed at Amwathoya, a late 19th-century Giriama homestead site in Kenya’s central coastal hinterland. These beads are predominantly imported glass specimens, and most were recovered from a single cache. The typological analysis of Amwathoya’s assemblage draws on both historical bead terms from 19th-century Eastern Africa and broader classificatory schemes developed by archaeologists in other world areas. Smaller glass bead assemblages from two nearby contemporaneous settlements are also examined for comparative purposes. The interpretive analysis of Amwathoya’s beads focuses on such ornaments’ potential role in the expression of cultural and gendered identities; the use of locally produced shell beads in divination and healing practices is also explored.

This article provides a typological and interpretive analysis of 3968 beads unearthed at Amwathoya, a late 19th -century Giriama homestead site in Kenya's central coastal hinterland. These beads are predominantly imported glass specimens, and most were recovered from a single cache. The typological analysis of Amwathoya's assemblage draws on both historical bead terms from 19th -century Eastern Africa and broader classificatory schemes developed by archaeologists in other world areas. Smaller glass bead assemblages from two nearby contemporaneous settlements are also examined for comparative purposes. The interpretive analysis of Amwathoya's beads focuses on such ornaments' potential role in the expression of cultural and gendered identities; the use of locally produced shell beads in divination and healing practices is also explored. Cet article expose l'analyse typologique et l'interprétation de 3968 perles mises au jour à Amwathoya, un site de ferme Giriama datant de la fin du 19eme siècle situé dans l'hinterland côtier central du Kenya. Ces perles sont surtout des spécimens de verre importés et la plupart a été récupérée dans une seule cache. L'analyse typologique de l'assemblage Amwathoya s'appuie à la fois sur la terminologie historique des perles du 19eme siècle Afrique de l'Est et sur les classifications plus générales développées par les archéologues dans d'autres régions du monde. Les petits assemblages de perles de verre de deux villages contemporains voisins sont également examinés à des fins comparatives. L'analyse interprétative de perles Amwathoya se concentre sur le rôle de ces ornements dans l'expression des identités culturelles et l'expression du genre la piste de l'utilisation de perles de coquillage produites localement dans les pratiques de divination et de guérison est également explorée.

Historical archaeology, particularly the archaeology of the nineteenth century, remains a nascent field in Africa. Given the general paucity of studies, one may wonder: how can historical archaeology contribute to broader research questions inside and outside of Africa? Specifically, without more active research taking place on the ground, how can Africanist historical archaeologists effectively frame their work in wider comparative contexts? In Capitalism and Cloves, Sarah Croucher models one promising approach: positioning her pioneering study of Zanzibari clove plantations in both global and local fields. She makes inter-regional comparisons through African diaspora archaeology, draws cross-temporal connections in Swahili archaeology, and compares plantations to other types of archaeological sites in nineteenth-century Eastern Africa. Primarily through use of postcolonial and practice theories, Croucher upends teleological western views of the development of capitalism