The Culture Broker Revisited: Historical Archaeological Perspectives on Merchants in Delaware, 1760–1815

Abstract

This study draws on historical archaeological data from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Duck Creek, Delaware to interpret local merchants as culture brokers. Such a focus on merchants and brokering helps transcend the recently revived discourse in historical archaeology that sets ethnographic community study in opposition to the world system paradigm.

The Social and Material Lives of the Agricultural Elite: The 18th-Century Tyngs of Dunstable, Massachusetts

“…This combination of activities is consistent with the Tyngs' position as an old family that had retired from the center of merchant activity to pursue life as members of the landed elite in rural Massachusetts. In their new community they took on the role of "culture brokers," (De Cunzo 1995) connecting the town with the larger world by importing goods, bringing in knowledge of recent styles, and representing the town in the colony's military and political systems. They used material culture to maintain an association with their former social and commercial circles.…”

“…The Tyngs were not simply urban merchants or shopkeepers transplanted to the countryside, but were people with substantial investments in agricultural production. In their combined role as agricultural producers, merchants, and people with personal ties to Boston and Newburyport families, the Tyngs, as well as the other elites of Dunstable, probably served as economic middlemen for a wide variety of local and regional transactions (d. De Cunzo 1995;Sweeney 1986). The Tyngs' behavior may have been similar to that of the Williams family from the Connecticut River Valley, inland merchants who held similar political and military offices.…”