Salt and contraband: historical archaeology of foreign seafarers in the Venezuelan Caribbean, 1638-1800

Abstract

The Venezuelan Caribbean, while being an expansive and influential space, has been one of the least studied regions in Venezuelan historiography. Likewise, the myriad foreign seafarers who traversed and visited the region during the eighteenth century have been by and large overlooked. In this chapter I aim to bring the Venezuelan Caribbean back por la puerta grande [through the main gate]. This detailed study of seafarers in the region follows in their wake as they entered the Venezuelan Caribbean in search of sea salt from the saltpans at its uninhabited islands and engaged in informal trade (contraband to Spanish authorities) for cacao, hides, tobacco, and mules from Spanish colonial Tierra Firme. By mobilizing archaeological and documentary evidence from island campsites at the saltpan of the of La Tortuga, the saltpan and transshipment point at Cayo Sal (Los Roques Archipelago) and the transshipment warehouse at Klein Bonaire, I reveal what the seafarers camping at these islands did, who they were and how they lived their everyday lives. The study of the material remains they left behind paints a vivid picture of their senses of fashion, their diverse transimperial interactions and their Caribbean and Atlantic maritime mobilities. In this way this contribution not only eschews viewing the Venezuelan Caribbean as merely another imperial periphery or frontier, but rather, seeks to reintegrate colonial Venezuela as a key player in the wider Caribbean and Atlantic worlds of the eighteenth century.