-
8. Tradition and Taste: Ceramics
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Ceramics 203 TRADITION AND TASTE 8 El Presidio de San Francisco’s military settlers inhabited a world of clay. The vertical walls that defined their built environment, whether of wattle-and-daub, rammed earth, palisade, or adobe, were surfaced in clay; the settlers walked across floors and plazas made of packed clay and fired-clay ladrillos; and, after the 1790s, they slept under roofs of curved clay tejas. The settlement was ringed with wide pits excavated to harvest clay for these constructions. Portable ceramic vessels were ubiquitous and resonated with the fabric of the settlement itself, linking fixed architecture to the activities of everyday life. Our excavations have recovered thousands of ceramic sherds—broken pieces of storage jars, pots and griddles, cooking bowls, serving vessels, and tablewares that were essential to the daily routines of every colonial resident at the settlement. Household ceramics are central to this archaeological study of colonial ethnogenesis for several reasons. Preservation is a significant factor: the durable, largely inert sherds remain relatively unchanged long after other household objects made of organic materials or metals have decayed or corroded. Further, ceramics are brittle and break regularly, creating a steady stream of debris that contributes to archaeological deposits. More than this, however, pottery is an expressive as well as a functional medium. Ceramic manufacture is an additive technology, one that fosters infinite variety in form, surface, and decorative elements . The regularity and variation of the choices made, whether deliberate or habitual, reveal patterns of practice and aesthetic preferences that are often related to social identity. Tradition (the way things are done) and taste (the way things are done right) are in constant play with function and innovation. This chapter examines two categories of ceramic artifacts from the Presidio. The first group consists of sherds from imported tableware vessels that were used to serve and consume food. The second group is made up of sherds from locally produced, low-fired earthenware vessels, all of which were used in food preparation and cooking. The two sets of ceramic sherds could not be more diªerent—one was highly varied and beautifully decorated, and the other, uniformly plain and poorly made—and it is unusual for them to be considered together . This analysis connects them through attention to the aesthetics of procurement , production, and use. Ceramics in Context: The Colonial Marketplace, Depositional Processes, and Archaeological Analysis It is important to first discuss the artifacts’ contexts: the procurement networks that limited the options available to colonial consumers; the depositional processes that resulted in the formation of the Building 13 midden; and the archaeological analysis procedures that generated the observations on which this chapter is based. Ceramics and the Economy of Empire Until the 1810s, Alta California’s presidios were economically dependent on the Naval Department at San Blas, which dispatched an annual shipment of manufactured goods to the province. These imported materials were supplemented by foodstuªs and craft goods made from local sources. The ceramic assemblage from the Building 13 midden reflects this economic structure. The collection is dominated by three waretypes: Mexican galeras (lead-glazed, red-bodied earthenwares), Mexican majolicas (tin-glazed earthenware), and locally produced unglazed earthenwares. Together, these waretypes account for 87 to 96 percent of the assemblage, depending on which quantitative measure is used (table 9).1 Some of the Mexican ceramics can be traced to the towns of Puebla and Tonalá, but the majority were likely products of the many ceramic manufactories established in western Mexico during the 1750s (Barnes 1980). Chinese porcelains, which had been obtained by the Spanish through trade in the Philippines, were also distributed through the San Blas supply ships (Dado 2006). The Building 13 midden provides little evidence of trade with British and American vessels, indicating that Spanish prohibitions against commerce with foreign merchants were largely eªective during the 1770s–1810s (fig. 24). Colonial memorias and facturas (requisitions and invoices) document what was 204 Spatial and Material Practices [54.163.195.125] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:10 GMT) requested and what was actually delivered to Alta California’s presidios via the San Blas supply ships. Each year, the San Francisco Presidio’s habilitado compiled a list of the settlement’s needs for the following year and dispatched it to San Blas. The goods received from supply ships were documented in invoices that included the fixed government prices charged against the settlement’s account. In 1987, National Park Service archaeologist Leo Barker traveled to...