A Copper Still and the Making of Rum in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

Bibliographic Data

ID8958501
AuthorsNuala Zahedieh (0000-0003-1321-4086, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume65
Issue1
Pages149-166
Publication date2021-05-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x21000212
OpenAlexW3160821539
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited5

This article focuses on a copper still transported from London to the Mesopotamia estate in Jamaica and used to convert waste sugar products into rum, one of the many New World intoxicants which transformed British consumption patterns in the early modern period. Much has been written about the consumer revolution which allowed these commodities to be absorbed into everyday lives but less interest has been shown in the producer revolution needed to get the goods to market. The labour, skills, and materials embodied in the production and use of the copper still highlight how slave production of rum was integrated into a steadily advancing industrial capitalism linking dispersed sites and workers on both sides of the Atlantic. Rum production was a collaborative effort in which Caribbean plantations were inextricably chained to the local, regional, and international economies, and it involved adaptations in skills, tools, and techniques which were incorporated into Britain's long, slow industrial revolution

Archaeology · Business · Capitalism · Consumption (sociology · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Estate · Geography · Industrial Revolution · Political science · Production (economics · Social science · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law

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