Inscribing Economic Desire

This chapter offers a compact analysis of the greed or money inscriptions made by Dave the Potter. “Cash wanted” and “Give me silver or; either Gold” are inscriptions in which the speaker brazenly announces a desire for cash despite the fact that slaves were not permitted to participate in a cash economy at the time. The announcement of economic desire brings into relief Dave’s status as an “ambiguous economic subject” whose relationship to commodity capitalism is challenged through his inscriptions. According to Santamarina, these rebellious inscriptions sallow Dave to challenge Lewis Miles’ ownership of himself and his jars. Through her analysis of the inscription’s engagement with commodity fantasy and economic reality, Santamarina demonstrates how Dave uses the inscription to make visible the “multivalent value-status” of his pots “in a space of contradiction between precapitalist and capitalist economies.” This space is then read back into the inscriptions not simply for its thematics but as a structuring principle of Dave the Potter’s inscriptive and ceramic practice.