The magens house, charlotte amalie, St. Thomas, danish west Indies: Archaeology of an urban house compound and its relationship to local interactions and global trade

This essay examines the archaeologi cal and historical context of the Magens house, an urban merchant's household, house compound, urban gardens, and farm located on government hill in the kongens (kings) Quarter of Charlotte amalie, st. thomas (figures 8.1-8.4). We make the simple argument that the materiality of port town houses such as the Magens house illustrate intimate social and economic bonds and public and economic networks that stretch our scale of analysis to local systems of production and global networks of consumption. research on this site provides a glimpse of the complex patterns of social relations extant in a nineteenth- century port town in the Caribbean.1 the study explores the site from the beginning of the nineteenth century through the period of transfer of the danish West indies to the united states. We have limited this essay to the elements of the study relating to the initial period of occupation, from the 1820s through early 1850s, in order to focus on ways in which the integrated use of archaeological and historical research can shed light on the materiality of local and regional social interactions.