Blowin' in the wind: the hidden hands of East Hampton
Date
2024
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The Town of East Hampton, New York on the eastern end of Long Island is deeply connected to histories of enslaved, free, and indentured craftsmanship during the late Atlantic World (1790–1834). The thesis uses material ethnography as a method to establish connections across a wide variety of “characters”: two mahogany chairs owned by a wealthy East Hampton-based ship captain, constructed with wood sourced by enslaved people at his mahogany plantation in the Bay of Honduras; the 1795 Gardiner’s Island Windmill, which utilized the labor of enslaved, free, and indentured people of color, both constructed by Nathaniel Dominy V; and the life and work of Isaac Plato, a free Black boat operator and woodworker working and living in East Hampton and across the Long Island Sound. Each serve as a case study to explore the relationship between enslaved, indentured, and free Black and Indigenous labor with white enslavers and craftsmen, producing objects for them in a small coastal community with global ties, during the Early Republic of the United States.
Description
Keywords
Black craftsmanship, Early Republic, Long Island, Mahogany, Windmills, Windsor chairs