Interpretation of the architectural structures of the enslaved workers’ quarters at the Monjope Sugar Mill archaeological site

Abstract

The archaeology of sugar mills (engenhos) has increased steadily over the past several years, adding information on a wide variety of themes, such as construction methods, technological and processing advancements, social and economic organization, slavery and so on. even as the spatial organization of engenhos is generally known – great house, chapel, mill, and enslaved workers’ quarters (senzalas) – the persistence of these rural properties through the centuries makes deciphering the archaeological record a challenge, particularly salient for the senzalas. While great houses, churches and mills often retained functions variously related to their original purposes, senzalas, often ephemeral in construction, were commonly repurposed or razed, particularly in the earlier periods. These post deposition processes can create stratigraphic sequences as complex as those in some urban contexts, creating difficulties in associating artifact assemblages with structural evidence. In this article, we present the visible and archaeological structures related to the senzala at the Engenho Monjope archaeological site in the attempt to document and interpret these features for future excavations.