Tobacco, Pipes, and Race in Colonial Virginia ― Little Tubes of Mighty Power

Tobacco, Pipes, and Race in Colonial Virginia investigates the economic and social power that surrounded the production and use of tobacco pipes in colonial Virginia and the difficulty of correlating objects with cultural identities. A common artifact in colonial period sites, previous publications on this subject have focused on the decorations on the pipes or which ethnic group produced and used the pipes, ?European,” ?African,” or ?Indian.” This book weaves together new interpretations, analytical techniques, classification schemes, historical background, and archaeological methods and theory. Special attention is paid to the subfield of African diaspora research to display the complexities of understanding this class of material culture. This fascinating study is accessible to the undergraduate reader, as well as to graduate students and scholars.

Anna Agbe-Davies is a historical archaeologist and assistant professor at UNC Chapel Hill. She has a longstanding interest in the plantation societies of the colonial southeastern US and Caribbean, with a particular focus on the African diaspora. Agbe-Davies co-edited Social Archaeologies of Trade and Exchange, as well as contributing chapters on the concept of freedom in the archaeology of post-Emancipation African diasporas and on text analysis as a method for understanding the concept of ?community.”