Bowl and cover (Sugar bowl)

Description

A remarkable inscription is engraved on this sugar bowl: “Made from ancient silver coin found by Mary E. Smith in a secret drawer of an old family desk at the Smith Homestead, Woodbury, Conn. in the year 1834.” Mary Smith’s interest in preserving this historic record is only one of many entwined layers of human interaction with the silver material. Her coins most likely were Spanish Reales, the coinage used for colonial international trade and that silversmiths recycled as their material. Early coins were products of Spanish operated silver mines and refineries in Mexico and Bolivia made possible only through the skills and labor of enslaved and oppressed workers. Today, the exploitation of humans and natural resources are recognized components of early American object histories. When this commodious sugar bowl and its companion cream pitcher were made, international social and political discourse about the abolition of slavery was expanding.