Caribbean Journal of Science, Vol. 36, No. 1-2, 19-30, 2000 Copyright 2000 College of Arts and Sciences University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez

Wood Identification in Historic Sites: Inferences for Colonial Trade and Modification of Vegetation on Barbuda

DAVID R. WATTERS1 AND REGIS B. MILLER2

1Section of Anthropology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 5800 Baum Boulevard, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15206-3706. dwatters+@pitt.edu

2USDA Forest Service, Forestry Products Laboratory, One Gifford Pinchot Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53705-2398. rmiller1@facstaff.wisc.edu

ABSTRACT.–We report on four wood species identified from five samples taken from timbers in four historic buildings on Barbuda. Two samples were reported previously and three are new identifications. Fortuitous retention of splinter remnants from one of the older samples allowed us to verify the accuracy of its original identification. None of the species are native to Barbuda. Species of the white pine group (Pinus spp.) and the white oak group (Quercus spp.) grow in North America, greenheart (Chlorocurdium rodiei) is native to Guyana and Suriname in South America, and bulletwood (Manilkara spp.) is native to the Neo­tropics,includingtheAntilles.Thesedatacorroborateempiricallytheimportationoftimberproductsintothe colonial British West Indies, a trade that had been studied mainly by historians working from documents. Our analysis of the current body of knowledge about human-induced modification of Barbuda‘s native vegetation concludes that the vegetation has been modified more profoundly by the island’s historic and modem inhabitants, whose occupation is brief compared to the preceding 3,500-year span of Amerindian occupation.

INTRODUCTION

The first scientific analysis of wood samples obtained from a colonial-era build­ing on Barbuda was conducted to address a historical enigma. At issue was who con­structed the Martello Tower, the Spanish, as was popularly supposed by Barbudans, or the English, as John Beard thought more likely. In 1944, Beard, of the Forest Depart­ment in Trinidad, submitted pieces of wood from a beam in the Martello Tower to Samuel J. Record, Yale University School of Forestry. Record (1945) identified the wood asDemeraragreenheart, Ocotearodiei (M. R. Schomb.) Mez., which in 1991 was changed to Chlorocurdium rodiei (M. R. Schomb.)Rohwer et al.

Record’s report is brief but valuable. Bylinking greenheart with Demerara, part of the colony then known as British Guiana (now Guyana), Record supported Beard’s belief that the Martello Tower was of En­glish construction. Comments by Beard about the structure, which he wrote in a

note sent with the samples, were included in Record’s report. They read, in part:

The building still contains some old, decay­ing woodwork-two large beams and some lintels built in over doorways-all of the same species. . . .Barbuda has never pro­duced any trees large enough to have yieldedthis timber, so it must have come from out-side…(Record, 1945:2).

Such details provide insight into the Mar­tello Tower’s structural integrity as ob­served in 1944. A decade after Record’s ar­ticle, Wagenaar Hummelinck (1956) wrote of the architectural features he observed during his July 1955 visit, including the still existing floorbeams.

The Martello Tower and its adjacent gunplatform are known locally as River Fort (BA-H2), one of ten historical archaeologysites identified on Barbuda during a studyconducted in 1978-1979 (Watters, 1980)(Figs. 1 and 2). Most of these sites date to the Codrington family’s leasehold, from the 1680s until 1870, when Barbuda was used as a ”provisioning island” to supply staples

19

20 D. R. WATERS AND R. B. MILLER

FIG. 1. Four of ten historical archaeology sites on Barbuda yielded wood samples: Highland House (BA-H1); River Fort (BA-H2); SpanishPoint (BA-H3); Gun Shop Cliff (BA-H4).

(e.g., hides, charcoal, wood, lime, rope, and livestock) to the Codrington’s sugar estates onAntigua (Tweedy, 1981). Two sites, High-land House (BA-H1) and Codrington Castle (BA-H7), have been reported in detail (Wat­ters and Nicholson, 1982; Watters, 1997).

The Demerara attribution for the Mar­tello Tower’s greenheart samples bears di­rectly on the topic of the importation of timber products into the British West Indies during the colonial era. The investigation of trade has been largely within the scope of historians working with documentary evi­dence. Identifying wood samples collected directly from historic structures providesthe means to investigate the timber trade empirically.

Record’s (1945) intriguing report was the impetus for the additional collection of wood samples from three historic sites (BA-H2, BA-H3, BA-H4) by Watters in 1983 and 1984 (Fig. 1). Securing an additional samplefrom the Martello Tower would confirm or refute Record’s identification. Watters had observed timbers at the Martello Tower and lintels at the Gun Shop Cliff site in 1979, and suspected that wood might re-

main in other sites as well. Watters and Miller surmised that the timbers used in Barbuda’s colonial-era buildings could be from imported woods.

This article presents the results of our in­terdisciplinary research on the wood samples from Barbuda’s historic sites and discusses the inferences those findingshave for importation of timber products.We augment this research by drawing to­gether data from other disciplines to ex­plore the contexts of colonial structures and to summarize the evidence for the alter­ation of Barbuda’s native vegetation duringthe prehistoric and historic eras. Such an interdisciplinary approach to research has been used sparingly by Caribbean histori­calarchaeologists. Deagan’s (1987,1995) re-search on the archaeology of Spanish colo­nization in the Caribbean is a notable exception.

This is the second article to argue the merit of using an interdisciplinary ap­proach for studying Caribbean biogeo­graphical and paleoecological issues, and of explicitly incorporating archaeologicaldata in such research. Materials from his­toric sites are the focus of this paper; the first article (Watters et al., 1999) incorpo­rates specimens from prehistoric sites.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Two samples were obtained from in situ structural timbers, a floor joist within the MartelloToweratRiverFort(BA-H2) anda window lintel in the Gun Shop Cliff build­ing (BA-H4). The third sample came from a displaced beam lying in the interior of the Spanish Point "Castle" structure (BA-H3). Samples consisted of large splinters pried and split from the individual structural members atthesesites. Table 1 summarizes collection data and Figures 3-5 document the sampled timbers. The specimens were submitted to the USDA ForestService, For­est Products Laboratory (FPL) in October 1984.

In 1970, FPL obtained the Samuel James Record wood collection and associated files from Yale University. Miller searched the collection and files while writing this paperin hopes of finding, evidence of Record’s

BARBUDA'S HISTORIC WOODS 21

FIG. 2. The Martello Tower and adjoining gun platform at River Fort (BA-H2). FIG. 3. Sampled in situ joist from the interior of the Martello Tower at River Fort (BA-H2). FIG. 4. Displaced timber sampled at the Spanish Point structure (BA-H3). FIG. 5. Sampled in situ lintel from the southwest window at Gun Shop Cliff (BA-H4).

22 D. R. WATTERS AND R. B. MILLER

TABLE 1. Sample collection data and wood identifications.

Site Sample Datecollected Identification

Present samples BA-H2 insitu River Fort floorjoist BA-H3 displaced Spanish Point beam BA-H4 insitu Gun Shop Cliff windowlintel Previous samplesBA-H2 beam River Fort (byBeard) BA-H1 timber HighlandHouse (byHarris)

May30,1984

January23,1983

January16,1983

1944

1958

Chlorocardium rodiei (greenheart)

Pinus(speciesof white pine group)

Quercus (speciesof white oak group)

Chlorocardium rodiei (greenheart)

Manikara(speciesof bulletwood)

contact with John Beard. Miller found the original letters from Beard and Record and three large splinters in their original brown envelope.

In November 1984, Miller examined and identified the three wood samples (Table 1)following the standard wood identification procedures used at FPL. The transverse surface was smoothed using a hand held microtome knife and examined using a 14X hand lens. Miller then cut thin (20-50 µm)radial and tangential sections using a hand held microtome knife. Sections were placed on a microscope slide, followed by a few drops of a 50:50 solution of glycerine/ethanol, and a cover slip. The slide was placed on a hot plate to boil off the ethanol, allowing the glycerine to replace the air in the section. The slide was examined under a light microscope at approximately 100 to 600 times magnification. To identify the Watters samples and the recently rediscov­ered Beard samples, Miller used textbooks (Panshin and deZeeuw, 1980; Hoadley,1990), dichotomus keys and descriptions(Hess 1946, 1948 Kribs, 1968; Kukachka, 1981), computer-assisted wood identifica­tion programs (Miller et al., 1987 [IDENT8],Ilic 1987 [CSIROID]), and the wood and mi­croscope slide collections at FPL (Miller,1999).

RESULTS

Wood identifications

Table 1 lists the identifications of the three samples submitted in 1984. Miller

noted that the transverse surface of BA-H4 was distinctly ring porous with wide rays and an abundance of tyloses in the vessels (pores). Examination of the tangential sec­tion distinctly revealed two sizes of rays; uniseriate rays and rays over 10 cells wide. These features, coupled with a dendritic latewood vessel pattern and thin-walled latewood vessels that are not distinc with the 14X hand lens, confirmed the identifi­cation as a species in the white oak group(subgenus Lepidobalunus, also known as Leucobalanus of the genus Quercus.

BA-H3wasidentifiedas a species in the white pine group (subgenus Strobus, sec­tion Strobus, subsection Strobi of the genus Pinus). Axial and horizontal resin ducts and ray tracheids were present. The ray trac­heids did not contain denticulations (out-growths from the horizontal walls typicalof the red and yellow pines). The cross-field pitting was large and window-like and only 1-2 pits were observed per cross-field

BA-H2 was identified as greenheart(Chlorocardium rodiei). Although greenheartlacks oil cells and septate fibers typical of the family Lauraceae, the large vessel-raypits, typical greenish brown heartwood, unilaterally paratracheal parenchyma, and oil droplets in the ray cells were present. In addition the sample was diffuse porouswith nearly exclusively solitary medium-sized pores.

The three large splinters from Beard (Fig.6) that Record (1945) had identified as greenheart (Chlorocurdium rodiei) were ex­amined. Miller confirmed the identification

BARBUDA’S HISTORIC WOODS 23

FIG. 6. Three greenheart wood samples from the Mar­tello Tower submitted by John Beard to Samuel J. Re-cord in 1944. Photograph courtesy of USDA Forest Ser­vice, Forest Products Laboratory.

FIG. 7. A page in John Beard’s letter with his plan-view sketch of the Martello Tower and gun platform (”redoubt”). Photograph courtesy of USDA Forest Ser­vice, Forest Products Laboratory.

as greenheart and compared each to sample BA-H2 and to vouchered samplesfrom the FPL collections. Although all the samples were similar, Miller could not de­termine that the specimens obtained byBeard and by Watters were from the same timber. Record (1945:2) had reported ver­batim the portion of Beard’s original letter concerning the Martello Tower, but did not reproduce a planview drawing of the Mar­tello Tower and gun platform (the ”re-doubt”) that Beard had incorporated in his letter (Fig. 7).

WoodatHighlandHouse

A reference to a fifth historic wood sample, identified from another site, was discovered during a review of the scholarlyliterature about Barbuda. GeographerDavid Harris obtained a specimen, in 1958, from a construction timber in a building at Highland House (BA-H1) in the Highlands(Fig. 1). He described it as ”. . . a veryheavy, durable wood prized for build­ing. . .” (Harris, 1965:110). Harris reportedthe specimen as bulletwood (Manilkara),and he specifically credits the Scientific Of­ficer, Timber Development Association, Ltd. in London, with having made the iden­

tification to genus. Harris notes that only one species, M. bidentata, is present in the Lesser Antilles (see also Pennington, 1990).Harris (personal communication, 1999)does not recall which building at HighlandHouse contained the timber or whether it was in situ or dislodged.

DISCUSSION

Geographic distributions of identified woods

Knowing the natural geographic distri­bution of woods and comparing them to wooden artifacts found in archaeologicalsites can be very helpful in understandingthe use of wood by past societies and cul­tures. Such data can provide information regarding local vegetation, trade routes, and foreign contacts. Accurate identifica­tion of the wood is imperative for any hy­pothesis, interpretation, or inference de-rived therefrom.

In the United States, there are over 10 species in the white oak group (Little,1979); worldwide there are many more. The various species cannot be separated based solely on wood anatomy. The most com­mon and commercially important species

24 D. R. WATERS AND R. B. MILLER

in North America is white oak (Quercusalba), which ranges throughout the eastern United States (Little, 1979). Because it is very strong and decay resistant, white oak is commonly used for shipbuilding and for tight cooperage, which were two commodi­ties in high demand during the colonial era (Alden, 1995).

The species of the white pine group (sub-genus Strobus, section Strobus, subsection Strobi) are native to North America (includ­ing Mexico) and north temperate regions of Asia, but not to Europe. In North America, the two commercially important species are western white pine (Pinus monticola) and eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) (Little,1979). The former grows mainly in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, while the latter grows mostly in the Lake States, Northeast, and the Appalachian Moun­tains. In the historic era, eastern white pine was prized highly for furniture, generalconstruction, and ship masts because of its large size, availability, and ease of working(Alden, 1997).

Greenheart is native to Guyana and a small part of Suriname. A hard, heavywood, it is very resistant to decay fungi,termites, and marine borers. It is used in marine and ship construction, docks, vats, and other places where durability is re­quired (Gerald et al., 1996). In Guyana,wooden buildings are built with green-heart.

Bulletwood or balata is the common name for any species of Manilkara, a large genus in the Sapotaceae. According to Pen­nington (1990), Manilkara is a tropical or subtropical genus of shrubs to large trees growing in Africa, Asia, and America. There are 30 species in the Neotropics,eight of which currently grow in the West Indies. One species, M . bidentata (A. DC.)Chev., grows in the West Indies, Panama, and northern South America. Within the West Indies, it grows today in the Domini-can Republic, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Windward Islands, and occurs in semi-evergreen forests (Pennington, 1990). This species has been exploited heavily duringthis century as a source of commercial balata, a product of the latex, and for its very durable timber. As with greenheart,

bulletwood is used for heavy construction and ship frames where resistance to decayfungi and termites is important.

No species of Manilkara is listed by Fran­cis et al. (1994) as having been collected on Antigua or Barbuda. However, Francis (personal communication, 1999) believes that some species of Manilkara grew on An­

tigua, probably in the upland habitat, al­though he did not find it nor did his talks with residents find anyone who knew of it. He regards Barbuda as too dry to grow M. bidentata, but does not rule of the possibilitythat other species of Manilkara might have grown there.

Sources for Barbuda’s imported timbers

One of the three wood samples analyzedfor this article documents with certainty the movement of timber to Barbuda from South America. Given the very restricted natural geographic distribution of green-heart, the Martello Tower timber must have originated in South America, with the more likely source being the Demerara sector of the British Guiana colony.

The second wood is a species of the white pine group. North America is the more logical source for the Barbuda specimen,based on proximity and the documented trade in wood products. Since in the colo­nial era commercial wood products were shipped through the seaports on the Atlan­tic coast, it follows that the trees beinglogged would have been the species that grew in the eastern part of that continent; that is, eastern white pine (Pinus strobus).Thus, we suppose that the BA-H3 sample is eastern white pine, a commonly available wood that was the species of choice for many uses.

The source of the third wood sample, a species of the white oak group, is more problematic because the natural geographicdistribution of white oaks includes North America and Europe, and the various spec­cies cannot be separated solely on wood anatomy. Neither continent can be ruled out as a source for the white oak lintel in the Gun Shop Cliff building. If the source was North America, as seems probablebased again on trade records and proxim-

BARBUDA’S HISTORIC WOODS 25

ity, then the BA-H4 wood is most likely eastern white oak (Quercus alba).

A Neotropical origin for the HighlandHouse bulletwood timber reported by Har­ris is in accord with the geographic distri­bution of Manilkara, but a more definitive source remains problematic. Harris’s (1965:110) suggestion that this timber may be M. bidentata is derived from that species’ oc­currence within the Antilles; today the sources nearest to Barbuda are the VirginIslands and Windward Islands. If the speci­men was M. bidentata, as Harris suggests(although the Scientific Officer identified it only to genus), the timber must have been imported because that species is unlikely ever to have grown on Barbuda. Presently,eight species of Manilkara grow in the An­tilles, and Francis believes that at least one grew formerly on Antigua, where no speci­mens have been collected in modern times. Thus, Antigua cannot be ruled out as a can­didate for the source of Barbuda’s High-land House timber, especially in view of the Codrington family’s connection to both islands (Watters, 1980, 1997).

Preservation and chronology of the sampledhistoric sites

Barbuda’s historic structures have steadily deteriorated since being aban­doned, with mainly the durable materials (stone and brick masonry) being preserved.Structural elements of wood were pre-served in only four of ten historic sites (Fig.1). It is unlikely that old wood will be found in other structures on Barbuda, with the possible exceptions of the unstudied abandoned wells and disused animal wa­tering pens that are dispersed across the landscape. Identifiable charred wood maybe preserved below ground, in subsurface contexts at both historic and prehistoricsites.

Extant structures at Highland House in­clude seven buildings, a cistern, and a wa­ter catchment, all built of stone. There are no remnants of two timber buildings re­portedly built about 1750. The Codringtonsbuilt Highland House as a retreat; historic artifacts indicate it was used from the 1720s until 1800 (Watters and Nicholson, 1982).

One construction timber remained in 1958, from which Harris obtained his bulletwood sample; but neither lintels nor timbers were seen by Watters in the course of five visits to Highland House since 1978.

Beard’s contention that the Martello Tower was of English (more properly Brit­ish) construction was correct. Documents indicate River Fort’s Martello Tower was built in the 1740s when Admiral Knowles, based at the English Harbour naval facility on Antigua, constructed a system of forti­fications on Barbuda (Watters, 1997:278-279). One joist (the sample) and two lintels (over doorways into magazines) were in place in 1984; one fallen joist rested on the floor. If Beard’s statement (Record, 1945) is correct, that the beams and lintels were of the same species, then the wood in the magazine lintels should be greenheart as well.

The Spanish Point structure (BA-H3),sometimes referred to as a “Castle,” has de­teriorated so extensively that its original height cannot be determined. It is circular in planview and its date of construction is uncertain. No building is shown at this lo-cation on the oldest maps of Barbuda (dated between 1750 and 1785). The first British Admiralty chart of the island, pro­duced in 1814, depicts a rectangular, not circular building. A visitor in 1850 confirms it was circular and indicates it probably was still in use at that time since he found it locked (Watters, 1980:128). The wood sample from Spanish Point came from a beam dislodged from the building’s stone-work (Fig. 4), and therefore has less reliable provenience than the two in situ samplesfrom the River Fort and Gun Shop Cliff sites.

The Gun Shop Cliff building (BA-H4) re­lates to a brief episode in the 1890s of phos­phate mining in a sea cave in the northeast escarpment of the Highlands, an enterprisethat took place 20 years after the Codring­tons surrendered their lease (Anonymous,1928; Martin-Kaye, 1959:38-40; Watters, 1980). Although long ago said to be a ”ru­ined building’’ (Earle, 1921:1), the standing stone walls are mainly intact and four wooden window lintels were observed in

26 D. R. WATTERS AND R. B. MILLER

1978, when Watters first visited the site. Two lintels remained in place in 1992.

The four historic sites yielding the five wood samples span about 175 years, dur­ing and after the Codrington leasehold, from as early as initial construction at Highland House in the 1720s, to the Gun Shop Cliff building from the phosphatemining venture of the 1890s. The timber with the most secure date for its time of use in construction is the in situ joist from the River Fort’s Martello Tower built by Admi­ral Knowles in the 1740s.

Colonial trade in timber products

Throughout the historic period, the Brit­ish North American colonies activelytraded with the British West Indies in a va­riety of timber products, shipped from ports along the eastern seaboard to the sugar islands (Pares, 1956:37-91).

All the sugar colonies needed vast quantitiesof North American lumber for making hogs-heads and barrels to ship their sugar and rum. . . .Hence the reliance on North America for supplying staves and hoops and even the lumber, shingles and frames for buildinghouses.(Carrington,1996:163).

The volume of trade is impressive. During a 3-year period (1771-1773), four majorwood products shipped by the American colonies totaled (in millions) nearly 76.7 board feet of lumber, 59.6 shingles, 58 staves, and 4.7 hoops (Carrington, 1988: Table 30). The American Revolution ad­versely affected the West Indies sugar in­dustry because Great Britain prohibited the importation of timber products from the re-belling North American colonies.

Although Barbuda was not a sugar-producing island, it was an integral part of the extensive holdings of the Codringtonfamily in the West Indies, which included sugar plantations on Antigua and St. Kitts (Watters, 1997). Importation of a wide range of products for the sugar estates and their subsequent transshipment to Barbuda is verified through historic documents (Tweedy, 1981). Thus, trade probably ac­counts for the foreign woods represented in the construction materials at River Fort,

Spanish Point, Gun Shop Cliff, and High-land House. There are alternatives, how-ever. The greenheart joist at the Martello Tower may have come from lumber stock at the English Harbour naval facility that Admiral Knowles commanded. Other pos­sibilities include illicit trade with the nearby Dutch islands or war booty result­ing from attacks launched against the French islands. Shipwrecks provided an al­ternative source for wood, and since white oak, white pine, and greenheart were used in ship construction, the possibility exists that the foreign timbers on Barbuda came from such wrecks. Nicholson (1994:61-62)identifies 145 ships that foundered on Bar­buda’s dangerous reefs, and the salvagingof stranded vessels is well documented in the records of Barbuda (Tweedy, 1981:148-160).

Barbuda exported wood products at the same time it imported foreign woods. Tweedy (1981:128-130) documents the shipment of wood to Antigua; to the Cod­rington sugar estates, which received fire-wood, charcoal, timbers, shingles, rafters, joists, handles for tools, spokes and shafts for carts, staves, hoops, and wheelbarrows; and to the naval facility at English Harbour that purchased periodically firewood and timbers. Sale of wood products was a rela­tively minor component of the accounts for Barbuda, but it is noteworthy that the is-land’s greatest profit in wood products co­incided with the American Revolution, when timber imports from the normal sup-pliers were interdicted (Tweedy, 1981:129).

BARBUDA’S VEGETATION, PAST AND PRESENT

Several disciplines have contributed to our knowledge of Barbuda’s past and pres­ent vegetation. Data in this section are com­piled from studies by botanists, geogra­phers, anthropologists, and historians.

The Europeans and Africans who settled Barbuda in the 17th century did not en-counter a pristine environment because the island’s vegetation had been affected by some 3,500 years of Amerindian prehistory.The presence of Archaic Age Amerindians

BARBUDA’SHISTORICWOODS 27

by about 4000 B.P. is confirmed by radio-carbon dates on shell artifacts, but a more intensive occupation (based on numbers and sizes of archaeological sites) took placeduring the Ceramic Age, especially from 1500to500B.P.(ca.A.D.500-1500)(Watters et al., 1992).

Archaeobotanical data compiled from prehistoric sites in the Caribbean region byNewsom’s (1993) pioneering research are enhancing our knowledge of the paleoen­vironments encountered by Amerindians on other islands. For Barbuda, we lack di­rect evidence of past vegetation in the forms of wood charcoal, charred seeds, or other floral components from archaeologi­cal contexts. Swidden (slash and burn) cul­tivation of manioc, the hallmark of Ceramic Age agricultural practices in the Caribbean (Petersen, 1997), would have impacted veg­etation in localized areas, notably in the vi­cinity of the Highlands where Amerindian villages were concentrated (Watters et al., 1992; Harris, 1965:91). Amerindians used wood for tools, fishtraps, firewood, dwell­ings, and canoes.

In the historic era, plantation agriculturedid not take hold on Barbuda because of the island’s shallow soils and insufficient rainfall. Yet, it was tried repeatedly.

Outsiders have often attempted commercial agriculture, and have usually failed. Sugar,indigo, and cotton plantations had the same stunted lifespan in the eighteenth centurythat coconut, irrigated vegetable, and cotton projects had in the twentieth. (Berleant-Schiller,1991:44).

In contrast with the sugar islands of the Lesser Antilles where extensive deforesta­tion took place to provide lands for cane-fields (Kimber, 1988), Barbuda’s vegetation was altered mainly by other factors. Harris (1965) found that clearing land for subsis­tence crops, felling trees for charcoal burn­ing, and the introduction of grazing ani­mals and alien plants were the primary agents in modifying Barbuda’s vegetation,and that the rate of modification acceler­ated throughout the colonial era. Tweedy(1981:145-148) documented the buildingand repair of boats, which required the cut­ting of larger trees. The shipwright was an

occupation in the skilled worker category of the Barbudm slavelists (Tweedy, 1981:184).

Tall trees are scarce on Barbuda. Occa­sionally an individual of respectable height emerges from the canopy on the marginalplain, where its roots have tapped a reliable water source, but clusters of taller trees are generally restricted to moisture-retainingsinkholes, as at Darby Sink Cave (Harris,1965:38).

Although shallow soils and low rainfall retard tree growth, the paucity of large trees on Barbuda usually is attributed to logging in the past. ”During this period,virtually every tree large enough to use for construction materials was felled” (Francis et al., 1994:l). Historical records document a time when logging was intensive. Dennis Reynolds, the Codrington family’s man­ager on Barbuda, claimed that ”. . .goodtimber trees were scarce because Colonel Martin had cut most of them down.. .” (Tweedy, 1981:130). Reynolds‘ letter, writ-ten in 1787, refers to Samuel Martin who, with William Byam, subleased Barbuda from the Codringtons for 15 years startingin 1746. This was the only time the Cod­rington family gave up control of Barbuda before surrendering the lease in 1870 (Wat­ters, 1997). Reynolds’ statement indicates that Martin exploited the sublease to full advantage for short term gain; Martin and Byam also were responsible for construct­ing the two timber buildings at HighlandHouse (Watters and Nicholson 1982).

The implication of Reynolds’ statement is that good timber trees had endured on Bar­buda for at least the first sixty years of the Codrington lease, This further suggeststhat the Codringtons may have husbanded the island’s timber resources by practicingselective cutting, an enlightened attitude that would accord well with the idea of Barbuda being a ”provisioning island,” providing staples to the Codrington sugar estates on a sustainable, long term basis. This argument is tenuous, but it raises the issue of whether Barbuda’s forests, and es­pecially its larger trees, really were logged as intensively during the initial part of the historic era as is usually supposed.

Scientific observations on Barbuda’s veg­etation during the historic era are scarce

28 D. R. WATTERS AND R. B. MILLER

because botanists and plant collectors rou­tinely bypassed the island. Howard’s com­pilation (1975:373) of the early botanical collectors working in the Lesser Antilles lists only one visit to Barbuda, by Henri du Ponthieu in 1786-1787. While there, du Ponthieu wrote to William Codrington in England and his letters provide important information on the architectural features and social conditions on Barbuda in the 1780s (Tweedy, 1981:170; Watters, 1997).

Beard (1949) applied the term EvergreenBushland to Barbuda’s vegetation. Harris (1965) established the agents and diverse activities that had altered Barbuda’s veg­etation, which he termed Evergreen Wood-land. The introduction to this work (Harris, 1965:1-4), in which he presents his observa­tions while traversing Barbuda’s landscape from coast to coast, is the written account that best evokes a feeling for the vegetation one encounters. Stoddart et al. (1973)report on the island’s unusual mangrove vegeta­tion situated well inland from all current coastlines. Howard’s (1979, 1988, 1989a, 1989b)Flora of the Lesser Antilles compilesBarbuda’s terrestrial species.

The records of Beard, Harris, and Howard were incorporated into a woodyplant survey of Barbuda (and Antigua), conducted by the USDA Forest Service, In­ternational Institute of Tropical Forestry (IITF) in 1991 (Francis et al., 1994). One hundred twenty-seven woody species, in­cluding 65 believed to be native, were com­piled for Barbuda (Francis et al., 1994:2 and Table 4).

Francis et al. (1994:Table 2) segregated woody species they observed during the IITF survey into three ”Life Form’’ catego­ries (medium to large tree, small tree, and shrub). Only 24 species (19%) were as-signed to the medium to large tree cat­egory, and of those only four were native trees: Zanthoxylum flavum Vahl (West In­dian satinwood), Bursera simaruba (L.) Sarg.(gumbo-limbo), Bucida buceras L. (oxhorn bucida), and Tabebuia heterophylla (DC.) Britt. (species in the roble group “roble”).These four species could have provided the resources suitable for making many of the wood products that Tweedy (1981:128-130) lists as Barbuda’s exports to Antigua.

Barbuda’s native vegetation was modi­fied in the prehistoric era and was altered significantly in the historic era, and the im­pacts continue today through free-ranging animals, charcoal burning, and small plot cultivation (Berleant-Schiller, 1983). Al­though modified, Barbuda’s vegetation was less severely impacted than the forests of Antigua, where clearance for the sugar industry was far more intensive and ex­tensive (Harris, 1965:29-35; Francis et al., 1994:3).

CONCLUSIONS

Our analysis has confirmed that the four timber samples collected by Beard and Watters at three historic sites on Barbuda belong to three imported woods. The natu­ral geographic ranges for greenheart (Chlo­rocardium rodiei) and for the species of the white pine group (Pinus spp.) and white oak group (Quercus spp.) never encom­passed Barbuda. Humans were the agent of movement of these woods to Barbuda. A fourth wood, Manilkara spp., collected byHarris at Highland House, appears not to be native to Barbuda, although its geo­graphic distribution encompasses various Antillean islands and its range may have included Antigua, the island nearest Bar­buda.

We have drawn upon various disciplines to explore the impacts of humans on pastenvironments on Barbuda, and each source has contributed to our understanding of those changes. However, to date these dis­ciplines (botanical studies excepted) have not generated sufficient data to test these observations in a rigorous, empirical man­ner. Yet, Barbuda, because it has well pre-served subsurface stratigraphy in its ar­chaeological sites and a range of aquatic habitats (swamps, salt ponds), holds prom­ise for generating such data in the future, through archaeobotanical research on mac­robotanical remains, phytoliths, and pollen (in prehistoric and historic sites), and through paleobotanical research (e.g., cor­ing of Barbuda’s inland mangrove swamps). All of these studies attest to the importance of “cross fertilization’’ among

BARBUDA’S HISTORIC WOODS 29

disciplines, a point well worth recalling in this age of ever increasing specialization in scientific fields.

Acknowledgments. -Waters' fieldwork in 1978-1979 was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (DHEW:OE) and an Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh; his 1983 and 1984 research was funded by the CarnegieMuseum of Natural History’s M. Graham Netting Research Fund and Clapp Chari­table and Educational Trust. The authors are grateful to Ans Dirkmaat for translatingWagenaar Hummelinck’s article from Dutch, Jennifer Brown for manuscriptpreparation, Morris Nedd and Cathy Wat­ters for field assistance, Desmond Nichol­son (Museum of Antigua and Barbuda) and the Barbuda Council for arranging and au­thorizing the field research, and Richard A. Howard (Arnold Arboretum, Harvard Uni­versity) for putting the authors in contact with one another. We also appreciate the responses of our colleagues David Harris, John Francis, and Dick Howard to ques­tions we posed, and the insightful com­ments made by three reviewers. Finally, we pay tribute to Samuel J. Record for his fore-sight in preserving the Martello Tower wood samples and his correspondencewith John Beard, a commendation we be­lieve is truly appropriate because Dr. Re-cord died in February 1945, only three months after receiving and identifyingBeard’s specimens. Record’s (1945) article on the Martello Tower wood sample and the announcement of his death are pub­lished in the same issue of Tropical Woods, the journal he edited.

LITERATURE CITED

30 D. R. WATTERS AND R. B. MILLER