Patterns of Change in Plantation Life in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisana: The Americanization of Nina Plantation, 1820 - 1890 Volume 1 of 2 Chapters 1 - 10 and Appendix 1

摘要

This report presents the results of data recovery excavations at Nina Plantation (Site 16PC62), a well-stratified antebellum and postbellum sugar and cotton plantation site, excavation of 4.4 ac (17.8 ha) has provided a significant amount of data relevant to understanding the plantation as a social, cultural, economic, and political unit. This extensive historic site mitigation included an ethnobotanical survey, a magnetometer survey, the excavation of seventeen trenches,totaling 297 linear meters(974 linear ft.) and the removal of a total of 3.400 cubic meters of twentieth century alluvial overburden, exposing the midden deposits and architectural remains from the nineteenth century occupation of Nina Plantation. These remains included the nineteenth century plantation house and associated cisterns, a well, two domestic outbuildings, and the midden deposits associated with these plantation structures. The large main house had been raised on brick piers, but the two associated outbuildings had been built using a variety of early French colonial vernacular construction methods, piquette en torre poreaux sur sollie and poleaux en terre. One of these structures has been identified as a detached kitchen that also served as quarters for domestic slaves and laborers. The other outbuilding also was a residence for household labor. The stratigraphy of the site was well preserved, and included two major occupational middens, separated by a thick deposit of alluvium, attributed to a severe flood in 1851. This alluvium sealed the bulk of the antebellum cultural deposits, and acted as a temporal marker that extended across the entire site, making it possible to differentiate between construction sequences at the main house and the associated outbuildings.