| In this dissertation, archaeological, archival, and oral historical research centered on the washing places and Municipal Washhouses of Cape Town, South Africa, is used to reconstruct the social, cultural, and material lives of slave washerwomen and their descendents over time. It traces a narrative of economic survival that spans the course of three centuries, straddles the transition from slavery to freedom, and extends well into the modern era. Archaeological excavations at the site of a former washing place along the Platteklip Stream resulted in the identification of an abandoned streambed containing washing pools littered with the by-products of washerwomen's labor and the residues of their daily lives. Together these artifacts constitute the material signature of washing, a pattern that can be used to expand archaeological discussions of the female slave experience worldwide. Significantly, in offering a feminist critique of Cape slave historiography and African American archaeology, I not only advocate a shift in analytical focus from class and ethnicity to gender, but argue that similarities in the washing-place assemblage and those of African American sites may be better explained by a gendered experience of enslavement than a shared cultural heritage. As such, this dissertation makes a substantive and methodological contribution to historical archaeological studies of colonial slavery and its legacy, while simultaneously filling an historiographical void. |
