Elliot Sugar Plantation Ruins

Artifacts retrieved from the ruins of Elliot Plantation on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida include Spanish majolica fragments, likely produced between the 1730s to the 1750s and imported to the plantation from England. Ceramic fragments of majolica, delftware, and other high-status domestic wares were retrieved from ruins determined to be the dwelling of the plantation overseer. The ruins of Elliot Plantation date from the 1760s and represent the largest, earliest, and southernmost British period sugar plantation in the U.S., as well as one of the most intact and best examples of a completely preserved enslaved landscape. In interagency cooperation between the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and NASA, and with the assistance of volunteers from the Indian River Anthropological Society, and historic preservation offices of Brevard and Volusia counties, approximately 200 shovel tests and 20 excavation units were completed in three areas of the plantation complex from 2008 to 2009.