Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781

The saltpan of the uninhabited and largely forgotten Venezuelan island of La Tortuga was vital to the functioning of the British and French Atlantic sugar economies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this chapter I retrace the itineraries of La Tortuga's free and low-grade...

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Author: Antczak, Konrad A.
Format: book part
Status:Versión aceptada para publicación
Publication Date:2025
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repository:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/71187
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71187
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92769-0_4
Access Level:Embargoed access
Keyword:Amèrica Latina
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spelling Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781Antczak, Konrad A.Amèrica LatinaThe saltpan of the uninhabited and largely forgotten Venezuelan island of La Tortuga was vital to the functioning of the British and French Atlantic sugar economies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this chapter I retrace the itineraries of La Tortuga's free and low-grade salt as it travelled in the holds of small Anglo-American ships returning to New England, where it was utilized in curing the low-grade category of refuse fish. By reconstructing the commodity circuit of this salt, I then reveal how it returned to the Caribbean aboard the salt ships, preserving the fragile flesh of refuse fish that was sold as provender for the enslaved toiling on sugar plantations in the British and French islands. To this day saltfish has remained deeply embedded in the culinary practices of the region's inhabitants. Finally, I explore how more than a hundred individually sized punch bowls found in the excavations of the Anglo-American campsites are potent exemplars of micro-globalities, where the regional and global came to be nested in the local, specifically in the form of rum punch, the ingredients of which included sugar and rum-products of West Indian plantations. What results is a peculiar story of a haunted salt harvested on a desolate island, trailing spectral entanglements with slavery across the Caribbean.SpringerNature202520252025infoinfo:eu-repo/semantics/bookPartinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/71187https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92769-0_4reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPFinstname:Universitat Pompeu FabraCatalánDieulefet G, Losier C (eds.). The Archaeology of connectivity and complementarity reflected through salt, cod, and sugar. Cham: Springer Nature; 2025. p. 61-87. © SpringerNature This is a author's accepted manuscript of: Antczak KA. Haunted Salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781. In: Dieulefet G, Losier C (eds.). The Archaeology of connectivity and complementarity reflected through salt, cod, and sugar. Cham: Springer Nature; 2025. p. 61-87.. The final version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92769-0_4info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccessoai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/711872026-06-12T07:21:37Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
title Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
spellingShingle Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
Antczak, Konrad A.
Amèrica Latina
title_short Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
title_full Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
title_fullStr Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
title_full_unstemmed Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
title_sort Haunted salt: the Saltpan of La Tortuga Island, slavery, and Atlantic sugar economies, 1638-1781
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Antczak, Konrad A.
author Antczak, Konrad A.
author_facet Antczak, Konrad A.
author_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Amèrica Latina
topic Amèrica Latina
description The saltpan of the uninhabited and largely forgotten Venezuelan island of La Tortuga was vital to the functioning of the British and French Atlantic sugar economies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this chapter I retrace the itineraries of La Tortuga's free and low-grade salt as it travelled in the holds of small Anglo-American ships returning to New England, where it was utilized in curing the low-grade category of refuse fish. By reconstructing the commodity circuit of this salt, I then reveal how it returned to the Caribbean aboard the salt ships, preserving the fragile flesh of refuse fish that was sold as provender for the enslaved toiling on sugar plantations in the British and French islands. To this day saltfish has remained deeply embedded in the culinary practices of the region's inhabitants. Finally, I explore how more than a hundred individually sized punch bowls found in the excavations of the Anglo-American campsites are potent exemplars of micro-globalities, where the regional and global came to be nested in the local, specifically in the form of rum punch, the ingredients of which included sugar and rum-products of West Indian plantations. What results is a peculiar story of a haunted salt harvested on a desolate island, trailing spectral entanglements with slavery across the Caribbean.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025
2025
info
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart
info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion
format bookPart
status_str acceptedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71187
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92769-0_4
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71187
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92769-0_4
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Catalán
language_invalid_str_mv Catalán
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv Dieulefet G, Losier C (eds.). The Archaeology of connectivity and complementarity reflected through salt, cod, and sugar. Cham: Springer Nature; 2025. p. 61-87.
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess
eu_rights_str_mv embargoedAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv SpringerNature
publisher.none.fl_str_mv SpringerNature
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
instname:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
instname_str Universitat Pompeu Fabra
reponame_str Repositorio Digital de la UPF
collection Repositorio Digital de la UPF
repository.name.fl_str_mv
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