A Second Look at the Nineteenth-Century Ceramics from Tabbs Purchase and the Tenants Who Used Them

This chapter revisits conclusions offered from Miller’s 1974 article titled “A Tenant Farmer’s Tableware.” Miller’s research examines the archaeological assemblage from the Tabbs Purchase site (also called the Tolle-Tabbs site), with a particular eye toward late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tablewares used by the site’s residents. A closer study of the documentary sources affords a fuller view of who lived at the site, which in turn allows for new information to be gained by studying the recovered artifacts. This chapter also updates interpretations based on what has been learned about ceramic manufacture and distribution in the more than 40 years since the original article’s publication. The result demonstrates archaeology’s ability to identify postcolonial consumption patterns through the close study of ceramic tablewares.