Author: weh3

Réfutation d’un écrit des ex-Colons réfugiés à la Jamaïque, intitulé

Courtesy of Duke University Libraries.

An early nineteenth-century pamphlet from the northern monarchy of Haiti.

Creator: Chevalier de Prézeau

Date of Creation: 1815

Place of origin: Cap-Henry, Haiti

Physical measurements: 41 p. 20 cm.

Materials: Paper

Process by which it was made: Print

Current location: Duke University Libraries

Courtesy of Duke University Libraries.

Further Reading

Baron de Vastey, The Colonial System Unveiled, trans. and ed. Chris Bongie (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014).

Doris L. Garraway, “Print, Publics, and the Scene of Universal Equality in the Kingdom of Henry Christophe,” L’Esprit Créateur 56, no. 1 (2016): 82–100. 

Marlene Daut, Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 

David Geggus, ed., The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2014).

Chelsea Stieber, Haiti’s Paper War: Post-Independence Writing, Civil War, and the Making of the Republic, 1804-1954 (New York: New York University Press, 2020).

Information contributed by Chelsea Stieber.

Lady Frankland’s Recipe Book

Courtesy Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts of the University of Pensylvania.

A recipe book containing the handwritten culinary and medicinal recipes used by a slaveholding family.

Creator: Sarah Frankland (nee Rhett)

Date of Creation: 1750-1825

Place of origin: England

Physical measurements: 60 leaves : paper ; 181 x 111-192 x 154 mm. bound to 199 x 155 mm.

Materials: Paper, parchment, ink

Process by which it was made: Handwriting

Current location: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts of the University of Pennsylvania

Further Reading

Judith A. Carney, Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).

Elaine Leong, Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and the Household in Early Modern England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018).

Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008).

Michael W. Twitty, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South (New York: Amistad, 2017).

Peter H. Wood, The Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 through the Stono Rebellion. (New York: Knopf, 1974).

Information contributed by Marissa Nicosia.

Writing-on-Stone

A great cliff in Alberta, Canada, featuring a 1500 year-old petroglyphic record.

Creator: Blackfoot People of the Great Plains

Date of Creation: 500 CE – 2020 CE

Place of origin: Alberta, Canada

Physical measurements: 4.35 miles long and 115 feet high.

Materials: Sandstone

Process by which it was made: Carving and pecking

Current location: Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, Alberta

Further Reading

Writing-on-Stone and its “Rock Art”

James D. Keyser and Michael A. Klassen. Plains Indian Rock Art. Seattle: University of Washington Press, and Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press,  2001

War Robes

Arni Brownstone. War Paint: Blackfoot and Sarcee Painted Buffalo Robes in the Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1993.

Garments, Objects, Womens’ Artifacts, Contemporary Indigenous Work

Gaylord Torrence. The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky. Skira Rizzoli and Musée du Quai Branly, 2014.

Winter Counts

Candace Greene and Russell Thornton, eds. The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian. Smithsonian Museums and University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

Ledger Books

Castle McLaughlin, A Lakota War Book from the Little Bighorn: The Pictographic “Autobiography of Half Moon.” Cambridge, Mass: Houghton Library and Peabody Museum, 2013.

Information contributed by Germaine Warkentin.

Afong Moy: “For One Week Only”

Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society

A broadside advertising Afong Moy, the first Chinese immigrant to the United States.

Creator: Unknown

Date of Creation: ca. 1842

Place of origin: New Orleans

Physical measurements: 36 x 13 cm.

Materials: Paper

Process by which it was made: Print

Current location: American Antiquarian Society

Further Reading

Cheng, Anne Anlin. Ornamentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Davis, Nancy E. The Chinese Lady: Afong Moy in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Haddad, John. The Romance of China: Excursions to China in U.S. Culture, 1776-1876. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.

Muñoz, José Esteban. “Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts.” Women and Performance 8, no. 2 (1996): 5–16. doi:10.1080/07407709608571228.

Zhang, Tao. “The Start of American Accommodation of the Chinese: Afong Moy’s Experience from 1834 to 1850.” Journal of American Studies 49, no. 03 (2015): 475–503. doi:10.1017/S0021875814001819.

Information contributed by Christine Yao.

Okodakiciye Wakan Tadowan Kin

A Dakota-language hymnal covered in animal hide and embroidered with porcupine quills.

Creator: Unknown Dakota Artist

Date of Creation: Published in 1885, decorated by an unknown Dakota artist before 1898.

Place of origin: Published in New York; embellished in South Dakota, probably the present-day Yankton Indian Reservation

Physical measurements: 172 pages; 14 cm.

Materials: Animal hide, porcupine quill, fabric and thread

Process by which it was made: Embroidery

Current location: Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University

Further Reading

Bebbington, Julia M. Quillwork of the Plains. Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1982.

Deloria, Philip J. Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019.

Hail, Barbara A. “Beaded Bibles and Victory Pouches: Twentieth Century Lakota Honoring Gifts.” American Indian Art Magazine 13, no. 3 (1988): 40–47. 

Hyman, Colette A. Dakota Women’s Work: Creativity, Culture, and Exile. Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012.

Lyford, Carrie A. Quill and Beadwork of the Western Sioux. Lawrence, KS: Haskell Institute, 1940.

Information contributed by Daniel Radus.