Congratulations to Graduating MA Students Kristen and Sam!

Left image is of Kristen Delatour and right image is of Samantha "Sam" Side

Join us in congratulating two of our NEAAAL members and grad students Kristen Delatour and Sam Side! Both Kristen and Sam recently gave their master’s theses defense on Sylvester Manor earlier this month and will be graduating this May.

Image of Sylvester Manor

Sylvester Manor is a northern provisioning plantation located in Long Island, New York. It was established in 1652 and until 1693 sent foodstuffs to two Barbadian sugar plantations. After its time as a provisioning plantation it would transition into a colonial plantation that produced agricultural commodities until the mid-eighteenth century for subsistence and the market. Archaeological work has been conducted for over 25 years at the manor, and graduate students like Kristen and Sam continue to provide research on the history of the manor.

Kristen’s thesis, titled “Slaughter and Slavery: Animal Husbandry and Plantation Production at Sylvester Manor, Long Island, NY,” focuses on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manor life looking at animal husbandry. Through this, she analyzes zooarchaeological remains from the excavations done at the garden, to provide further insight in how animal husbandry changed over time. Enslaved Africans and the local Indigenous Manhansett peoples, were used for domestic and agricultural labor at Sylvester Manor. Through the zooarchaeological remains and use of enslaved labor, Kristen was able to study the evolving racialization of chattel slavery in both New York and globalized merchant capitalism by looking at the domestic and commercial production that informed daily life on the plantation.

In “SHE WAS NOT IDLE:” WOMENS ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION AT A NORTHERN PLANTATION,” Sam’s research looked at the labor of women, who comprised around half of those documented as living and working at the manor, in the seventeenth century. Through her analysis of small finds and the use of the documentary record of the Sylvester family and their descendants, Sam was able to examine the lives of enslaved Afro-Caribbeans, indentured Indigenous peoples, and free European settler women, contextualizing their lives through gendered labor, relationships to property, and the reproduction of colonial power. This helps to show the ways in which women produced and maintained access to capital and the operational capacities of the plantation.

Check out our website again over the next several weeks to learn about our next member who is graduating, Claire Ross! Additionally, in the next few months the published theses of each of our beloved members will be available on the website.

Congratulations Kristen and Sam!