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 salt...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Antczak, Konrad A.
Formato: capítulo de livro
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Recursos:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/71187
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71187
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92769-0_4
Access Level:acceso embargado
Palavra-chave: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.SpringerNature202520252025info: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:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunyainstname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)CatalánDieulefet 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:recercat.cat:10230/711872026-05-29T05:05:01Z
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
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart
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dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71187
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92769-0_4
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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.
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instname_str Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
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