The North Carolina Department of Transportation Presents
	Colonoware       Colonoware is a term used to describe unglazed, low-fired plain earthenware made in colonial America during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Colonoware was not made using an enclosed kiln, but was fired on an open hearth. A potter's wheel was not used in the production of this hand-coiled pottery. Because it was not made using European production methods, some archaeologists believe that Native Americans made colonoware and sold it to American colonists. Other archaeologists believe that enslaved African Americans were making colonoware for their own use, since it resembles pottery made in Africa.
Wine Bottles	Which archaeologists are correct? there is no simple or easy answer to the question "Who made colonoware?" The discovery of unfired colonoware pieces from the ground around some South Carolina slave houses shows that the enslaved there made colonoware. But in other places, like Virginia, the same pottery is also found on Native American sites. Most likely, both Native Americans and African Americans made colonoware in colonial America.
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