BOWL

Excavated at Mepkin Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, this bowl is a rare example of slave-made earthenware often called colonoware.  Mepkin Plantation was the rice plantation of Henry Laurens (1724 - 1792), a slave trader, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and third President of the Second Continental Congress.  Locally produced bowls such as this one are often found in plantation contexts and were likely used for domestic tasks in the slave communities.  They were made from local clays and fired at relatively low temperatures.