“C” is for Colonoware

“C” is for Colonoware. On historic-period sites in South Carolina, archaeologists often find locally made, hand-built, unglazed pottery that was fired in open hearths rather than kilns. Vessels and sherds of this ware may be found on the sites of Indian camps and villages, the city lots of Charleston and other towns, underwater near wharves and ferries, and on small farms and large plantations. This broad class of pottery has been termed colonoware. Colonoware is most closely associated with Native Americans and African Americans. Although the pottery was a distinctive local creation, it had roots and influences that came from Europe and Africa as well as North America. In the 1700s and early 1800s enslaved persons used large amounts of colonoware. Some of it was made in Indian villages, but most of the colonoware appears to have been plantation made.