Public Face and Private Life: Identity through Ceramics at the Boston-Higginbotham House on Nantucket

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs an African American-Native American family living on Nantucket in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the household of Seneca Boston and Thankful Micah faced many challenges of race, class, and gender. A minimal number of vessels analysis of their ceramic assemblage illustrates how the Boston-Micah family adopted both a public and private persona in order to successfully navigate their diverse identities in a predominantly White society. The presence of European manufactured ceramics, two inkbottles, and a tin-glazed punch bowl hint at the family’s literacy and awareness of Euro-American genteel practices. However, several sherds of earthenware ceramics combining European production techniques with Native decorative traditions reinforce the family’s Native American background. The presence of these ceramic vessels suggests the existence of both a private and public identity that today can only be recognized in the Boston-Micah family’s consumption practices.