The background photo is very general, but the stone structures suggest status and permanence.

The star artifact graphic features the cuff links with a mounted rider. This element of dress, and the style of decoration, definitely suggest a higher level of status and finery.

Other inset images of higher status items suggest an above average standard of living.

Theme Text
Servants in the fishery were usually young men from Devon, Dorset and, later, Ireland. There were only a few female servants. (One of them, Mary, married the Kirkes' second son—despite family objections!)

The Planters were boat-owning householders who employed servants in the fishery. They had the social status of farmers or tradesmen in the old country. Most planters were married, with children. The biggest planters were effectively a provincial Merchant Gentry—a small class of relatively wealthy and literate persons who had commercial and political connections in England. These were people like Sir David Kirke, his widow Lady Sara Kirke and her sister Lady Frances Hopkins. Archaeologists analyse artifacts to determine status. Decorative pottery is an indicator of higher status, as are jewelry and even writing utensils or counting house tokens, which reflect the literacy and numerary of the merchant gentry.

Star Artifact
Horse & Rider Cuff-link, Silver. This exquisite little piece of personal ornament is engraved with a cavalier on horseback and is the kind of adornment that would have been used by merchant gentry like the Kirkes. (CgAf-2: 80876, Planter's House, about 1660-1690.)

Display Case
See Artifact List.

Mouth North Devon Coarse Earthenware Jar - Another "democratic" ceramic, with no status implications. CgAf-2: 65243 65329 65332a-d 65333 65345 66024 - Waterfront, Before 1673

Leaded Window Glass. Glass windows were expensive before 1700. - CgAf-2: 183653ab Privy, before 1673

Sealing Wax and Pewter Seal - CgAf-2: 5278 and CjAf-5: 8300. Smithy (wax), Renews (pewter seal) about 1650

Drawer 1
Seventeenth-century Literacy - Literacy and numerary were part of what set the merchant gentry of Newfoundland apart. Lady Kirke might write to the King, meanwhile fishermen notched wooden tallies to record their catches.
See Artifact List.

Drawer 2
Ceramics and Status - Ceramics are one of the most sensitive indicators of status. Coarse earthenwares typify assemblages created by lower status fishing crews. Highly-decorated tin-glazed and sgrafitto wares suggest the presence of a higher status merchant gentry.
See Artifact List.

Drawer 3
Portuguese Terra Sigillata - Excavations at the Waterfront Premises and in an area south across the street from these structures uncovered several vessels of Portuguese Terra Sigillata. This very distinctive, delicate, terra cotta earthenware, decorated with incised baroque ornaments, is surely a status indicator.
See Artifact List.

© 1999, Colony of Avalon Foundation.

Revised March 2002.