Submitted by Jerome S. Handler
Southern Illinois University
This newsletter has provide three earlier reports on the African burialground in lower Manhattan (Spring 1992, Spring 1993 and Winter 1993). Thisupdate covers the period ending October, 1994.
Artifacts from the burial site, as well as the neighboring Five Pointssite, are still housed in a laboratory at the World Trade Center where theyare being conserved by a team from John Milner Associates. The burial groundartifacts will be separated from those recovered at Five Points, and theywill be shipped to Howard University for analysis. All of the approximately400 skeletal remains are now at the Bioanthropology Lab at Howard wheretheir analysis is supported by a contract between the General Services Administrationand Howard University (see the accompanying article by Mark Mack). Afterbeing analyzed, the skeletal population will be reinterred at the burialsite. The formal ceremonies that will accompany reinterment have yet tobe formulated.
In April, 1994, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the NationalPark Service (NPS) entered into an agreement concerning the InterpretativeCenter to be located within the new Foley Square Federal Office Tower Building,adjacent to the burial site. This agreement provides for the NPS to designand construct the Interpretive Center which will encompass an approximately2,000 square foot area. Through the use of archaeological data and historicalrecords, the Interpretive Center will interpret the African burial groundwithin the wider context of the sociocultural history of Africans and theirdescendants in the New York area in the early colonial period.
The Federal Advisory Committee (or Steering Committee on the AfricanBurial Ground) was established in 1992 for a two year period to make recommendationsto the GSA concerning the skeletal remains and associated issues relatingto the burial ground. The committee, of which this author was a member,met monthly at the Schomburg Center in New York. With the expiration ofits charter, the final meeting of the committee was held on August 22, 1994.Further information concerning the current status of the African BurialGround Interpretive Center and related issues can be obtained from the Officeof Public Education and Interpretation of the African Burial Ground, U.S.Custom House, Room 239, 6 World Trade Center, New York 10048; phone 212432-5707; fax 212 432-5920.
Submitted by Patricia Samford
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
As archaeological data on African Americans has accumulated over thelast twenty years, archaeologists have taken two major approaches to analyzingand explaining their information. The first approach seeks archaeologicalpatterns which would allow the recognition of slave sites and serve as signalsor markers when these sites are discovered. The second, centering aroundthe search for objects with physical or behavioral links to West Africa,has moved from the simple transference of objects and ideas from Africato a more refined focus which integrates behavior with material culture.The aim of the latter is not on direct, unaltered transferences, but onhow West African cultural traditions were modified in the face of the newenvironments, different social groups, and altered power structures in whichslaves found themselves. One facet of these changes was with respect tothe material aspects of life. Since the discovery of archaeological artifactscrafted by slaves has been fairly limited and difficult to validate, archaeologistsare now realizing the importance of looking at other types of objects. Nolonger having access to the same commodities once at their disposal, WestAfrican slaves and their descendants lived in a material world populatedlargely with goods of English or European manufacture. It is likely thatthe enslaved thought about and used some objects differently than theircreators had originally intended, adapting these new forms of material culturefor use within African American cultural systems. In his study of the relationshipbetween society and material culture, Daniel Miller argues that individualsand social groups can recontextualize and transform the traditional or manufacturedimages and meanings of objects in ways that construct and reproduce culture.It is to the reinterpretation of these manufactured goods to meet AfricanAmerican uses which archaeologists should look for ways to understand processesof cultural transformations by African Americans.
These meanings become most readily evident when artifacts have been alteredin some fashion or recovered archaeologically in atypical contexts, whichcan then be analyzed to gain insight about their new use. An assemblageof objects interpreted as a conjurer's kit from a standing quarter at JordanPlantation is an example of artifacts which gained meaning through the useof this approach. Another example are the shaped and sanded fragments ofeighteenth-century English earthenwares found at African-American sitesin Virginia and Jamaica and believed to have been used in the African gameof mancala. Additionally, a pocketknife found at one of the Somerset Plantationslave quarters in North Carolina and pewter spoons recovered from KingsmillPlantation in Virginia and Garrison Plantation in Maryland exhibited incisedmarkings similar to the West African Bakongo cosmogram. What the shapedpottery, spoons, and knife represent are English manufactured objects modifiedin ways to make them gain West African-based cultural meanings.
In order to formulate a model for understanding objects recovered fromslave sites, the need exists to establish the parameters of an Afrocentric,or more specifically, a "West" Afrocentric, approach. An understandingof the art, religion, social structure, material culture, and archaeologicalfindings of those West African cultures who were most heavily impacted bythe slave trade to North America is crucial to creating this perspective.Despite a growing awareness of the cultural diversity of African and African-Americanslaves, archaeologists have often tended to treat slaves as single culturalgroup, basing this consolidation on what they consider to have been commonAfrican traits such as religion, subsistence and kinship structure. Even,however, if the slaves arriving in the New World had not originated fromvarious cultures with differing belief systems, situational factors wouldgreatly affect behavior across space and through time and thus archaeologicaldata.
What is needed is a thorough search of the archaeological, ethnographic,and ethnohistorical data of the West African cultures which were presentin the American Southeast. This information will allow the creation of amodel which reveals cultural and material practices evident within WestAfrican archaeological and historical records. The following discussionsof spiritual beliefs and musical traditions suggest how an approach informedby West African cultural traditions can be used to reinterpret African-Americanarchaeological data and guide research designs on future excavations.
Spiritual Beliefs - Religion is one of the strongest elementsof the African American community and the importance of spirituality inlife can be traced back to West African belief systems. While beliefs aredifficult to recover archaeologically, humans often use physical manifestationsto help express their beliefs. The Jordan Plantation conjurer's kit anda similar find from the basement of the Carroll House in Annapolis, Marylandare two situations where objects were recovered in contexts indicating theyhad been used in religious ceremonies.
Additional archaeological findings indicative of African American religiousbeliefs have most likely been misinterpreted either because their contextwas not as tightly defined, or through lack of a perspective informed byWest African traditions. For example, during the destruction or renovationof several standing nineteenth-century slave quarters in Virginia and NorthCarolina, objects have been discovered inserted between the interior andexterior walls of these buildings. These objects, including a bottle containinga button, several cloth sugar and tobacco bags holding with plant materialand an iron knife, are fairly innocuous until they are examined in relationto cultural practices of the Bakongo. Bakongo religious and medicinal practicesinvolve using minkisi, sacred objects which embody the spiritual being andgenerally consist of some type of container, such as a gourd, pot, bag,or snail shell filled with medicines, such as chalk, nuts, soil, or stones.
The use of minkisi has not been restricted to Africa; Robert Farris Thompsondiscusses examples in Cuba and New York City. The objects placed intentionallywithin the walls of slave cabins were probably also associated with AfricanAmerican translations or adaptations of Bakongo or other West African religiousand medicinal practices. These two slave cabins do not appear to be isolatedexamples. Two peeled and sharpened forked sticks discovered between theinner and outer walls of the Stagville Plantation quarter in Durham, NorthCarolina were interpreted, based on slave narratives, as objects to wardoff witches. Similarly, an English delftware drug jar found buried underneaththe floor of the eighteenth-century Brush-Everard kitchen in Williamsburg,Virginia and another earthenware vessel from a slave work area at Oxon HillManor in Maryland may have also been related to similar practices.
Using late eighteenth-century Virginia store accounts, Ann Smart Martinhas found that, among other items, enslaved African Americans were purchasingmirrors. Mirror glass has been found at numerous 18th and 19th-century slavesites in Virginia. While these mirrors may have been used in the traditionalsense as looking glasses, research has indicated that mirrors held spiritualsignificance in West African cultures and those of their descendants. Mirrorsare believed to have represented the reflective surface of water, whichconstituted the world of deceased ancestors, and have been documented asdecorating early twentieth-century graves in the African Kongo and in Georgiaand South Carolina. Other forms of material culture, such as cowrie shells,beads, and pierced coins, were also likely to have been used in religiouspractices.
Music - As indicated here, the presence of West Africanbased religious traditions is strongly suggested in the material cultureof slave sites. The same appears true in music as well. Music traditionsfrom West Africa have been documented in African American culture throughnineteenth-century paintings, photographs, and traveler's descriptions.Given the importance of music in African and African-American life, andits documentation in these other sources, musical evidence should be evidentarchaeologically. Excavations to date, however, have recovered only limitedevidence of musical instruments, primarily mouth harps. Other types of artifacts,however, could also have been used in making music. For example, two commonlyrecovered items are iron keys and jawbones from large mammals, such as horses,pigs, and cows. These generally have been interpreted as functioning intheir typical uses as security devices and as food. An alternate explanationfor these objects would be a musical one. The practice of scraping an ironrod or key over the jawbone of a large animal occurs within African, aswell as African-American music traditions. This hypothesis could be easilytested by examining the jawbones for wear patterns caused by the scrapingof the keys. Additionally, playing metal washboards by placing thimblesover the fingers, popular in African American blues, was derived from thepractice of playing the jawbone and spoon playing originated from the Africantradition of playing the bones.
The presence of buttons in larger percentages on slave sites than onthose of other ethnic origins, has been interpreted as a byproduct of usingold clothing in quiltmaking. An alternative explanation is that in someinstances buttons may have been used in a fashion similar to that of cowrieshells strung around gourds as a percussion instrument called a shekere.Since the recovery of gourds from a typical archaeological context wouldbe rare, testing this hypothesis would involve soil sampling from archaeologicalcontexts containing large quantities of buttons to test for traces of pollenor carbonized seeds.
Conclusion - These discussions provide a few suggestionsfor ways African American archaeology can be viewed from a West Afrocentricperspective and how it affects the way artifacts and other findings canbe viewed. This work is at a very preliminary stage and the next task isto systematically test these and similar hypotheses on excavated site data.As suggested by these examples, enslaved Africans and African Americansretained and modified West African spiritual traditions in ways that canbe documented archaeologically. In doing so, they appear to have used Europeanmanufactured and natural objects in way which had relevance to West Africanspiritual traditions.
Submitted by Mack E. Mark
Howard University
The New York African Burial Ground Project involves the curation, reconstructionand analysis of the skeletal remains of approximately 400 ancestral Africanswho lived, labored and died in colonial New York. The results of this researchwill shed light on their origins in West Africa, the stresses they facedwhile being enslaved on these shores, as well as the processes of bioculturaladaptation they underwent. In essence, giving a voice to our ancestors whohave been silenced for over two centuries.
The initial stage of the research entails the cleaning, reconstruction,anthropomorphic recordation, pathological assessment and photographic documentationof the skeletal remains. The target date for the completion of this phaseis February, 1996. Presently, 130 individuals have gone through this process.
The preliminary research has already yielded some interesting findings.There are many examples of individuals exhibiting work or load bearing stresses.Most of the hypertrophy of muscle attachments uncovered so far are in theupper body (shoulders and arms). Enthesopathies have been observed, wherelesions are left in muscle attachments due to muscle tears as a result ofextreme labor. Osteophytosis has been found in several cervical vertebraeof individuals prior to old age, resulting from carrying heavy burdens ontop of the head. Additionally, squatting facets have been found in the tarsalbones of three individuals, showing that they tended to squat, rather thansit, while working, which is customary in some West African societies.
Evidence of tobacco smoking (pipe notches in the dentition) has beenfound in several men and women. Another significant discovery is that dentalanalysis has uncovered at least five different dental modification patterns(tooth filing). These cultural practices will aid in determining the Westand Central African sociocultural origins of these individuals. The reconstruction,recordation and preliminary analysis of the numerous infants and childrenhave revealed the severe and disproportionate impact of stresses upon theyoungest members of this population. Porotic hyperostosis and craniosynostosishave been observed in a number of children. Dental pathologies, such asenamel hypoplasia and hypocalcification, as well as caries formation havebeen found in the deciduous and permanent dentitions of children. Alongwith numerous examples of delayed skeletal growth and development, theseskeletal indicators point to the stressful conditions that these childrenfaced.
Finally, there are a number of cases of traumatic fractures, the mostinteresting of which involves two women. One exhibits trauma to the headthat led to a circular fracture at the base of the skull which may havecaused her death. In the other woman, it is clear that she was shot in theback or side by a musket ball which fractured her left ribs and scapula.In addition, she has a perimortem torsion fracture of her right radius andulna and multiple fractures of the face. Obviously, these traumatic fracturesare clear signs of the violent conditions this population faced under enslavement.
Specialized studies in the future will include DNA sampling and chemicalisotope analysis, histomorphometry, demographic profiles, analysis of burialartifacts and practices, the analysis of disease processes, as well as studiesfocusing on biocultural continuity and change for this population. The entirephase of data collection of the New York African Burial Ground skeletalpopulation will be completed by 1998, and the reburial of the remains willfollow.
Tours of our laboratory facilities at Howard University are availableto the public and visiting scholars on Friday and Saturday mornings. Wecan accommodate tours of 30 persons or less. Alternative times for toursalso can be arranged. Call Mr. Mark E. Mack (202) 806-5256 to schedule atour (all tours must be scheduled prior to arrival).
Submitted by Barbara Heath
Poplar Forest
Archaeologists at Jefferson's Poplar Forest are currently excavatingthe site of an early nineteenth-century slave cabin located approximately650 feet east of the octagonal dwelling house which Jefferson constructedin 1806 to serve as "an occasional retreat." Artifacts recoveredat the site from feature fill and the plowzone suggest that the cabin wasoccupied from the mid 1790s through the first decade of the nineteenth century.The artifactual data combined with documentary evidence suggests that thebuilding may have been torn down during Jefferson's campaign to reorganizethe plantation landscape in 1812-1813. Still later in the nineteenth century,the site was plowed.
The site was discovered during testing of Poplar Forest's property boundaryduring the spring of 1993, when a test pit came down on the corner of whatturned out to be a root cellar. Testing to the north and south have identifiedthe limits of the site and the probable location of another dwelling onan adjacent knoll. The site sits on a gentle slope, and the predicted locationof additional buildings at the top of the knoll lies on land no longer ownedby Poplar Forest. To date, archaeologists have uncovered the footprint ofa building that measures roughly 15 by 25 feet. Three shallow, unlined pits,or root cellars, sat within the structure. No in-situ evidence of chimneyswas preserved; however, the presence of daub in the fill of the root cellarssuggests the presence of wooden chimneys at each gable end of the structure.Like most piedmont Virginia dwellings, this structure was probably builtof log.
A variety of artifacts have been excavated from the root cellars, includingbuttons (bone, silver plated and brass), a small assemblage of glass beads,architectural debris and hardware, imported ceramics, bottle glass, whatappears to be the bowl of a pewter spoon, a small faunal assemblage anda collection of charred seeds. Faunal analysis conducted by Susan TrevarthenAndrews of Poplar Forest resulted in the identification of one cow, onepig, one chicken, one turkey, one white tailed deer, one opossum, one easterngrey squirrel, one eastern cottontail rabbit and unidentified fish. Eggshell was also recovered. Floral analysis undertaken by Leslie Raymer ofNew South Associates will be completed this winter.
Excavations have continued around the structure in an attempt to documentthe layout of the yard. A total of 30 ten-foot units have been excavatedto date. All units have been subdivided into five by five foot units forremoval of plowzone, and all have been screened through one-quarter inchmesh.
Artifacts recovered in the plowzone indicate both domestic and industrialactivities occurring at or near the site. A quantity of clinkers, piecesof iron waste and tools that appear to have been reworked suggest that ablacksmith's shop was near the dwelling. No structural remains of such abuilding have been located.
Sixteen fragments of soapstone tobacco pipes have also been recoveredfrom the site, one of which came from the fill of a root cellar. Two largerpieces of broken soapstone may be byproducts of pipe making on the site.Research into these objects is currently underway. The archaeology departmenthas recently received a two year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, halfof which will support continued investigations at this site.
Submitted Charles Orser
Illinois State University
In June 1994, the McLean County Historical Society and the local BlackHistory Project co-sponsored a two-week dig at the Wilbur Barton homesitein Normal, Illinois, occupied by the Barton family from the 1890s to the1980s. Volunteer workers, directed by Edward B. Jelks, explored the backyardof the house, where a privy and the remains of a horse barn were partiallyexcavated. From these features and from an extensive sheet midden a sizeablesample of artifacts was collected. The archaeological finds, augmented byoral history from members of the Barton family, document the utilizationof space on the home lot, as well as domestic activities in general.
This is the second archaeological project in the ongoing Black HistoryProject: a study of the Bloomington-Normal black community from the initialEuroamerican settlement ca. 1820 to the present. The first took place in1992, when excavations were carried out around the Weyman Methodist Churchand attached parsonage in Bloomington, dating from the 1840s, under thedirection of Mark Groover and Melanie Cabak. Their report on the WeymanChurch project will appear soon in Historical Archaeology.
Submitted by Thomas Loftfield
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
The University of North Carolina at Wilmington is currently conductinghistorical archaeological investigations of African-European acculturationin Barbados, West Indies. The project started as an outgrowth of excavationsat the site of Charles Towne on the Cape Fear, a failed seventeenth-centurycolony in North Carolina which was supplied, funded and peopled from Barbados.The dearth of excavated seventeenth-century sites and materials in Barbadosneeded for comparative purposes led Dr. Thomas Loftfield of UNCW, Dr. RobertKeeler of the Oregon Committee for the Humanities, and Dr. Lindley Butler,Historian-in-Residence at Rockingham Community, Wentworth, North Carolina,to examine possible sites on the island for further excavation. Of all sitesvisited the most promising was Codrington College on the rugged and isolatedeast coast. The Codrington estates started as very successful sugar plantationsin the 1640s. At the death of Christopher Codrington III in 1711, his Barbadianestates were willed to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel inForeign Parts, the developing missionary arm of the Church of England. TheS.P.G. set about the task of developing a college on the property which,according to the terms of the will, was to teach surgery and theology toattend to both the bodies and souls of men, especially the African slaveson the island. The building was designed in 1714 by Christian Lilly, a memberof the Royal Engineers. Construction began in 1715 with the fabric completedby 1723, but fluctuations in the price of sugar delayed opening until 1745.Up until 1983, when the Codrington Trust was repatriated to Barbados, theS.P.G. kept meticulous records of not only the college, but the plantationswhich continued to support the college, as well. Because the grounds aroundthe seventeenth-century mansion house and sugar factory had become a collegeyard, prehistoric, seventeenth-century, eighteenth-century and nineteenth-centurymaterials all lie in the ground virtually undisturbed. Combined with S.P.G.records and Codrington papers, the rich archaeological deposits at Codringtonconstitute an excellent laboratory for investigating many problems dealingwith early colonial settlement, the development of sugar, the developmentof the institution of slavery, and the process of creolization which meldedelements of European and African heritage to create the modern Barbadianculture.
To date, excavations have been undertaken in seventeenth-century depositsof refuse from the great house, the kitchen for the great house, and a thesugar factory. Materials recovered have yielded information on Europeanand African diets, on the development and use of locally made ceramics,and on the early development of the sugar industry. Most recently, testinghas been undertaken at the seventeenth to nineteenth-century CodringtonPottery Manufactory, where the plantation made redwares for use in the sugarindustry and for domestic use, as well. The ceramic data have shed interestinglight on the role of industrial production in the survival of African traitsin pottery.
The work at Codrington has progressed by means of field schools in archaeologyheld each summer since 1991. The field schools are jointly sponsored byUNCW and the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, in Barbados.In this setting students from the U.S. work and learn with students fromUWI, producing an international, intercultural, interracial learning experience.The project benefits students in the U.S. while assisting local Caribbeanstudents in the exploration of their own particular heritage. Students interestedin participating in this project can obtain information from Dr. ThomasLoftfield, Department of Anthropology, UNCW, Wilmington, North Carolina28403-3297.
Submitted by New Orleans District COE
R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. under contract with theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, recently completed extensiveexcavations at the site of Nina Plantation in New Roads, Louisiana. Locatedapproximately 20 miles upriver from Baton Rouge, the plantation was originallycalled Pecan Grove when it was established ca. 1822 by Jean Ursin Jarreau.It remained in the Jarreau family until 1857 when Charles Allen purchasedthe plantation, with its house, slave cabins, kitchens, cotton gin, sugarhouse, other outbuildings, and 84 slaves, and renamed it Nina Plantation.
The plantation grew both sugar and cotton through the nineteenth century,but by the late nineteenth century, riverine erosion had forced the relocationof the artificial levee to the rear of the plantation complex, leaving itunprotected from frequent flooding. Most of the buildings were abandonedand subsequently razed. Excavations in 1993-4 revealed alluvial depositsof up to 1.5 meters covering the remains of the buildings.
A 3600 square meter area was found to contain the remains of the mainhouse, two outbuildings, two cistern foundations, and a wood-lined well.One of the two outbuildings was a detached kitchen that also served as aresidence, probably for the cook. The other outbuilding probably servedas residence for household slaves/servants. The main house had been raisedon substantial brick piers, while the outbuildings were constructed usingearthfast techniques. A substantial alluvial deposit from a documented,mid-nineteenth century flood separates antebellum and postbellum depositsacross the site, thus allowing analysis of spatial and temporal changesin activity patterns. The 150-200,000 artifacts recovered during the excavationsare currently undergoing analysis.
Submitted by Paul Farnsworth
Louisiana State University
The River Road African American Museum & Gallery opened earlier thisyear at Tezcuco Plantation in Burnside, Louisiana. The museum is the creationof the Hambrick family, and is directed by Kathe Hambrick. It is dedicatedto collecting, preserving and interpreting artifacts related to the historyand culture of African-Americans. The museum pays tribute to the hundredsof slaves who were purchased and brought to Burnside, Louisiana, and theirdescendants who continue to live in the rural communities along the Mississippi.It is a much needed attempt to redress the balance of history as presentedat most of the antebellum plantation houses along the river. The museumhouses African-American art and memorabilia collected from the surroundingparishes, as well as artifacts, photographs and historical documents. Artifactsfrom recent archaeological excavations at Oakley and Ashland-Belle Heleneplantations are included in the exhibits. The museum's hours are Wednesday- Sunday 1-5 p.m. For more information contact Kathe Hambrick at (504) 644-7955.
Submitted by Paul Farnsworth
Louisiana State University
The Burnside Cemetery is a rural African-American cemetery located ina rectangular wooded area approximately 500 meters behind (northeast) ofHoumas House plantation home. The cemetery is surrounded on all sides bysugar cane fields, and has become completely overgrown. Although the cemeteryfirst appears on the 1935 U.S.G.S. map, its location relative to HoumasHouse suggests that it may date back as far as the antebellum period.
At the suggestion of Kathe Hambrick, as a community service activityin cooperation with the River Road African American Museum and Gallery,students from Louisiana State University's 'African-American Experiencein Louisiana' course spent two weekend days in late May locating, clearingand recording the graves under the direction of Dr. Paul Farnsworth. Thegoals were to locate graves, make them accessible for family members tovisit, clear them of fallen trees and vegetation, map their precise location,and record all information from headstones, etc. The map and grave markerinformation is being used by Kathe Hambrick to trace the families of thedeceased to arrange for visits and restoration of the graves.
In total, 18 graves were positively identified, and a number of otherpossible graves were also recorded. Four burials were in concrete vaults,four were low mounds of earth, three just had simple headstones, three hadcrosses (2 iron, 1 concrete), three were covered by cement slabs (one ofwhich had a low concrete wall around three sides), and one grave was enclosedby a low brick wall. Eight grave markers gave names, dates and a varietyof other information. Three males and five females were represented. Deathdates ranged from 1935 to 1961, while age at death ranged from 34 to 73with a mean of 55.9 years (n=7).
While not an archaeology project, the application of archaeological mappingand recording techniques to a community service project and the cooperationbetween the River Road African-American Museum and the anthropology &archaeology students and faculty from LSU provides an example of the sortsof community outreach activities that archaeologists can participate into develop bonds with the African-American communities which we study.
Whom We Would Never More See: History and Archaeology Recover theLives and Deaths of African-American Civil War Soldiers on Folly Island,South Carolina. By Steven D. Smith. Topics in African-American History3, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, 1993.
This monograph is a popular account of the discovery and excavation ofa Civil War brigade cemetery containing the remains of members of the 55thMassachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the 1st North Carolina Colored Infantryfrom New Bern and James City, North Carolina. The soldiers died while stationedon Folly Island, South Carolina during the siege of Charleston, and someof their exploits were recounted in the movie Glory. In 1987, the cemeterywas discovered during the development of a residential community, and theSouth Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology conducted excavationsto remove the remains before they were destroyed. Later, the Institute returnedto excavate portions of the surrounding camps. The monograph discusses thehistory of the siege, the two regiments, and how archaeologists determinedwhich regiments were represented by the human remains. One chapter is devotedto life and death on Folly Island, based on the history and archaeology.The final chapter discusses the military reburial of these soldiers aftertheir study. The monograph avoids archaeological jargon and overwhelmingtechnical data and concentrates instead on relating the story with excellentillustrations, maps and a popular writing style. It is a most successfulattempt at bringing the conclusions and interesting facts of history andarchaeology to the general public.
Over the past few years I have received, in one fashion or another, publicationsthat the academic world is wont to call "grey literature", butwhich for most of us in contracting is our bread and butter. I mean, ofcourse, contract reports and other unpublished or not very widely distributedreports. Some of these have proved useful to me, and I feel they deservewider distribution. The following is a brief synopsis of a few which youmight find useful along with where to get a copy.
In Those Days, African-American Life Near the Savannah River(Sharyn Kane and Richard Keeton 1994). This is one of a series of nicelyprinted publications that the National Park Service in Atlanta has beenproducing recently using non-technical authors. This 91 page booklet isa popular synthesis of the extensive work conducted by the Corps of Engineersat the Richard Russell Lake prior to its inundation in the early 1980s.It is based in part on portions of a two volume technical synthesis by DavidAnderson and Joe Joseph of perhaps the largest project or series of projectsever conducted in Georgia and South Carolina. The present volume deals onlywith the African-American sites, documents and oral interviews. It is wellillustrated and provides a good background for the general reader and theinterested professional. The archaeological discussion relies heavily onChuck Orser's work at Millwood Plantation, and Elaine Ramsey was primarilyresponsible for the history and oral interviews. Best of all it is free,and still available at Interagency Archaeological Services, National ParkService, 75 Spring Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30303.
Prehistory and History Along the Upper Savannah River: TechnicalSynthesis of Cultural Resource Investigations, Richard B. Russell MultipleResource Area (David G. Anderson and J.W. Joseph 1988). You can tellthis is a contract report by its title and length (641 pages). This is thetechnical synthesis upon which the popular report noted above was excerpted.It has more detailed data on all aspects of the archaeology and historyof the lake area. It, too, is free, and is necessary for anyone doing archaeologyor history in the piedmont southeast. Unfortunately, copies are no longeravailable, but if IAS were to get enough requests, who knows, maybe theywould print up a few more.
In the last issue, I mentioned Richard Westmacott's African-Americangardening volume. There is also a thesis on African American gardening inpiedmont Georgia written by Elise Eugenia LeMaistre, and entitled InSearch of a Garden: African Americans and the Land in Piedmont Georgia.Westmacott was her major professor. It was written for her master's in landscapearchitecture in 1988 and provides descriptions and a typology of gardensand general farm layouts. It should be available through the departmentof landscape architecture at the University of Georgia in Athens, which,by the way is one of the better landscape architecture schools around.
A few years ago (1989 to be exact), the faculty and staff of the Instituteof Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina roundedup a series of invited papers for a volume entitled Studies in SouthCarolina Archaeology, Essays in Honor of Robert L. Stephenson. Threearticles touch upon African-American themes. Martha Zierden and Jeanne Calhounprovide a synthesis of recent urban archaeology in Charleston with a discussionof urban slave sites. Leland Ferguson provides some pre-Uncommon Groundthoughts on the place and interpretation of slave-made and Indian-made ceramics.This subject is further explored by Pat Garrow and Tom Wheaton in an articleon the slave and Indian-made ceramics from the Yaughan and Curriboo plantationslave quarters. The volume is nicely printed, edited by Glen Hanson andAl Goodyear, and available as Anthropological Studies #9 of the OccasionalPapers of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology (note the new spelling)and Anthropology at USC in Columbia.
Archaeological Data Recovery at Long Point Plantation (38CH321),Mark Clark Expressway (I-526), Charleston County, South Carolinais a contract report by Eric Poplin and Michael Scardaville of Brockingtonand Associates in 1991. While it does not present much in the way of interpretationor analysis it does contain useful comparative data on plantation artifactsincluding slave material. As the South Carolina Department of Highways andPublic Transportation is one of the few agencies around that attempts tofulfill its obligation to make data available to the public that pays forit, copies of the report may still be available from the department in Columbia.
Finally, but certainly not least, is a tome by David Babson on investigationsat Belle Helene plantation in Louisiana entitled Pillars on the Levee:Archaeological Investigations at Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation, Geismar,Ascencion Parish, Louisiana. The report recounts work undertakenat the slave quarters and other outbuildings in 1989. The project was atesting program to determine the National Register eligibility of the site,and not data recovery. It was therefore unable to provide an indepth analysisof the site, but like the Long Point Plantation project, it does provideuseful comparative data on artifacts and artifact distributions. This reportis still available from David at the Midwestern Archaeological ResearchCenter, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois 61761. There is a smallfee, at least there was for me.
There is also a journal that many people may not be aware of that occasionallyhas a bearing on African-American archaeology. This is Nyame Akuma,the bulletin of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists. For those of youwanting to build up your bibliography on African archaeology, this may bea place to start, although nearly all of the articles are prehistoric; italso helps to know some French. The journal is more of an extended and intensiveset of current research notes, which provides a broad perspective on a necessarilyvery broad subject. Illustrations of pottery profiles and decorative motifsare interesting, but so far, there are no incised Xs. It costs $20 to subscribe,payable to SAFA. Write to Dr. Steven A. Brandt, Treasurer-SAFA, 427 GrinterHall, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.
Washington, D.C. November 1- The Afro-American Historical and GenealogicalSociety will celebrate its eighteenth anniversary at its Annual Conference,April 27-29, 1995, with scholarly presentations on issues important to AfricanAmericans interested in history and genealogy. Papers and proposals forpresentations are requested for this historic gathering. Submissions shouldfocus on the use of public records in documenting the African American presenceand contributions, including:
Requirements: Submissions should include a cover letter, a one-page biographyand a one-page abstract and/or two-page abstract for a panel which can beused in preparing the preliminary program. Send to:
1995 CONFERENCE PROGRAM COMMITTEE
c/o AAHGS, INC.
P O Box 73086
Washington, D.C. 20056-3086
No proposal may be faxed. No exceptions. The deadline for receiving
topicproposals is February 1, 1995.
Conference site:Howard University Hotel (Washington, D.C.)
Sponsors:Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and Public History
Departmentof the History Department of Howard University
Conference working theme: Historians and Genealogists :Using Public
Records--WritingOur History
Annual Conference, National Association of African-American Studies:14-18 February 1995, at Virginia State University.
Those wishing to make presentations, the deadline for 50-word abstractsof papers (on letterhead) is 17 December 1994. For more information, contactLemuel Berry Jr., Executive Director, NAAAS, Virginia State University,P. O. Box 9403, Petersburg, VA 23806. Telephone: 804/524-6708
Georgia State University, Department of Anthropology, invites applicationsfor an anticipated tenure-track assistant professorship in urban archaeologybeginning September, 1995. Geographic focus should be on the Southeast U.S.,the Caribbean, Mexico or Central America. Applicants should have a Ph.D.in anthropology and a record of research, including publications, in urbanarchaeology. The applicant will be expected to teach undergraduate and graduatecourses in archaeological theory and methods. Salary commensurate with qualificationsand experience. Women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. Applicationdeadline: March 1, 1995. Send letter of application, vita and names of threereferences to Chair, Search Committee, Department of Anthropology, GeorgiaState University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3083. Georgia State University,a unit of the University System of Georgia, is an equal opportunity andaffirmative action employer.
The following are excerpts from an article published in the WashingtonPost about the "slave auction" held on October 10, in ColonialWilliamsburg. I tried to get a formal statement from Colonial Williamsburg,or at least a copy of any press releases they may have prepared. They suggestedthe newspaper articles about the event. The NAACP did not return my calls.Many readers outside the mid Atlantic may not have heard about the re-creationof a slave auction, and even though such an event does not deal directlywith archaeology, archaeology has provided and will continue to provideone of the main sources of information on slave life. As such, we as archaeologistscannot ignore the social and political impact of what we do and how it isviewed and used by the public. As the following excerpts show, there isno clear, "politically correct" position on whether or not suchauctions should be held. My own personal view is that it is not only wrong,but it is potentially dangerous, to pretend that slavery did not exist orwas too painful to talk about, and that events such as the one at Williamsburg,if done in the proper context and with a seriousness of purpose, can bringto life for people who might otherwise ignore it, the trauma and personalprice of slavery. What would really be a travesty would be a Disneyesquedepiction of plantation life.
Tamara Jones, Staff Writer
. . .
For the first time, the tourist attraction that calls itself living historywas depicting the most shameful chapter of Williamsburg's past--the buyingand selling of human beings.
The performance was an emotional departure on the streets of ColonialWilliamsburg, where the usual Monday fare includes such presentations as"How Now, Red Cow: Dairying in the 18th Century" or "ThomasJefferson Discourses About Horticulture." It was a far cry, too, fromthe wandering history lectures of costumed characters such as the cobbleror constable, or some 30-minute film on "The Process of Making a Barrel."
Featuring four black staffers from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation'sAfrican-American research department portraying slaves on the auction block,the skit proved to be as much a commentary on the present as the past.
As the crowd outside swelled to several hundred--people coming out ofcuriosity or coincidence or for the controversy--the event's organizersand performers inside joined hands and prayed for strength before openingthe doors of the moss-covered tavern.
A small group of protesters immediately broke into a chorus of "WeShall Overcome" as the presentation's announcer emerged.
. . .
Speakers from the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conferencethreaded their way through the crowd to angrily decry the pending performanceas "the degradation" and "trivialization" of AfricanAmericans and their heritage.
. . .
Christy Coleman, director of the foundation's African-American departmentand organizer of the performance, came out in costume and cheerfully toldthe crowd: `We came here to teach the story of our mothers and grandmothersso each and every one of you will never forget what happened to them.'
. . .
After urging the audience to withhold judgment until the program wasover, Coleman retreated and the auction began. The spectators were silent.Sukie, a laundress, was sold first, for 42 pounds sterling to her free husband.Billy, a carpenter with his tools, went next for 70 pounds; then Daniel;and finally a weeping Coleman as the pregnant Lucy. The show was over.
Coleman then took the mike to answer questions from the crowd. How wererunaway slaves punished? First time, up to 39 lashes on the bare back. Secondtime, pilloried. Third time, death. Were children slaves too? Yes, Colemanreplied. A 3-year-old cold pick worms off tobacco leaves. A 4-year-old couldfeed chickens.
[Upon being allowed a chance to address the crowd at the conclusion ofColeman's question and answer period, the protesters declined.]
. . .
As the crowd began to disperse, Rosalind Smith, a black mother of two,gathered her children. She had taken the oldest, 9-year-old Christina, outof school `so she could see this history. I wanted her to see it so shewould really know that it happened and that there's nothing to be ashamedof.
`When I was in school it wasn't taught,' Smith said.
. . .
The decision to play Daniel did not come easily to Owens, 26, who reflectedafterward on the `myriad emotions' he went through standing on the auctionblock. `I felt proud. I felt angry. I felt extreme sadness,' he said.
`So many people don't know what's going on,' he added. `The protest [bythe NAACP & SCLC] gives the appearance of being ashamed, instead ofbeing proud of our triumph.
Coleman isn't sure whether she'll try to put on another such reenactment,but her hesitation has nothing to do with what she believes to be the integrityof the project. `Is it dehumanizing? No, it's not! It's humanizing,' shesaid. `It puts a face to what happened. People will remember what they seeand feel and hear far more than what they read.'
I appreciate the interest in the Newsletter and the encouragement I havereceived from you throughout the year. I especially appreciate the supportyou have shown by way of submissions. Just when I think I will not haveenough material, my trusty regional editors come through and I end up witha larger Newsletter than I had planned. Thank you all.
Please remember that the Newsletter can now accept photos and line art,but you will have to submit any artwork in a camera ready format. Pleaselet others know about the Newsletter and consider submitting something yourself.You can submit printed text, a Mac or DOS diskette, or, even better, e-mailme at tomwheaton@newsouthassoc.com. See you on HISTARCH.
Do not forget the African-American Cross-Cultural Workshop at SHA inWashington. Esther White and Barbara Heath have organized quite a show onColonoware ceramics.
Sincerely:
Tom Wheaton
Editor
Electronic version compiled by Thomas R. Wheaton, New South Associates, Inc.