Amy L. Young, The University of Southern Mississippi
Introduction
Labor was central to the experiences of enslaved African-Americanmen and women (Berlin and Morgan 1993). Historically, when wethink of slaves and labor, we tend to conjure up an image of gangsof field hands picking cotton, ignoring the important role ofgender. This, of course, is an oversimplification because allacross the South, enslaved men and women worked in a variety ofcontexts with deeply-rooted gender meanings. Here I discuss howenslaved men and women, created or reinforced their gendered roles,and working within them, labored to reduce risk for themselves,their immediate family, and for the entire slave community. Sometimesthis labor was conducted for the master, and sometimes the laborwas conducted during "free time" for themselves or family.To illustrate, I focus on three case studies.
Oxmoor
Oxmoor, the first case study, is a large plantation near Louisville,Kentucky (Young 1997a). I examined hundreds of Oxmoor documentsfor information regarding aspects of daily life for the slavesthere. Additionally, I conducted a limited archaeological surveyof the slave quarter area. These data sets allow for an examinationof the role of enslaved women who served as domestics in the bighouse. Labor for the master.
Letters written by plantation mistress Mrs. Matilda Bullittand her daughters, along with the archaeological data, providea glimpse of the roles of female domestic slaves at Oxmoor. Fiveslave women are prominently mentioned in letters. They are "Aunt"Betsy the cook, Charity, Beck, and Louisa who was also called"Mammy" Teush.
The work described in the letters (laundry, cooking for manypeople, nursing the sick, cleaning the house) was difficult, andsometimes stressful. The labor, however, seemed to be associatedwith special privileges. For example, a letter dated 1841 illustratesnot only the special place domestic slaves occupied in the Oxmoorbig house, but also the extent of the privileges that Mammy Louisa(Teush) felt she deserved:
I have been busy lately making a wedding dress; Becky is tobe married on the 27th day of this month. I suspect she will havea very fine wedding; Teush [Beck's mother] wanted me to writeinvitations to all the company; but I rather thought it wouldbe a burlesque on fashion to be writing invitations to peoplethat couldn't read, so we gave that up. Teush wants you and brotherJosh to be specially invited to the "wedding." [quotesin original] (Bullitt family papers, The Filson Club).
Another letter stated that:
Beck was married in the holidays & as they thought lookedvery beautiful, & had quite a handsome entertainment, &a select company. Cynthia [a slave] & Martha [a Bullitt daughter]presided at the brides [sic] toilette, & arranged the table;every thing went off to their satisfaction with the exceptionof a disappointment in the brides cake...(Bullitt family papers,The Filson Club).
There were other slave weddings at Oxmoor at the same timeas Beck's. These did not seem to garner the same attention inthe big house, reinforcing my interpretation that Mammy Louisaand perhaps her daughter Beck, earned special consideration. Afew days later a letter stated that:
I suppose sister & the papers have told you all the news,about Becky and Harry Howard, Aunt Betsy and Uncle Jack, Carolineand Ben all being married. These are all the marriages among theblackies that I know of, and now for the white folks...(Bullittfamily papers, The Filson Club).
The descriptions about preparations for Beck's wedding, andthe party afterward seem to illustrate that some negotiation ofrights and obligations occurred between Mammy Louisa (Beck's mother)and the Bullitt family. Relations seemed to be rather carefullybalanced. It is interesting, too, that sometimes the kinship termsAunt or Mammy are used, and at other times they are omitted inletters. In the passage about all the slave weddings, it may alsobe significant that Aunt Betsy's wedding to Uncle Jack receivedso little attention from the Bullitts because Betsy was theircook. Caroline was also a cook, but she probably worked in theslave kitchen rather than the Bullitt kitchen, explaining thelack of kinship terms.
The tone of the Bullitt letters seems to indicate that MammyTeush, Beck, and others used the traditional meanings associatedwith gendered kin/occupational terms they were assigned to remindthe Bullitts of their reciprocal obligations. The power that slavewomen gained from these roles was used to protect themselves andtheir family and to insure the security or happiness of children.For example, in 1846, Beck communicated via a letter from Mrs.Bullitt to her son which stated, "Beck asked me to let youknow she has a fine little waiting maid for you. She insists onit her children must all belong to you" (Bullitt family papers,The Filson Club). The following year, Beck again communicates:"Beck says after a while she can furnish you with an officeboy" (Bullitt family papers, The Filson Club). Knowing thatthe death of the master of Oxmoor might well result in splittingslave families, Beck attempts to control where here children mightgo. If successful, it means all her children will remain together,and in predictable circumstances. In addition, if for some otherreason, her children all
went to John Bullitt and she remained at Oxmoor, she knew shewould not completely lose touch.
The traditional meanings associated with female domestic slaves,especially those associated with Mammy seemed to result in a limitedbut possibly significant source of power that enslaved women employedto protect and provide for themselves and family. It is obviousthat Mammy Teush was trying to attain more for her daughter Beck'swedding. Beck is obviously reminding her owners of those traditionalrights and obligations when she informs John Bullitt that he ownsall her children. Enslaved women working in and around the bighouse used opportunities to ease their situations, only a smallsample of which may have been recorded in family letters.
Locust Grove
Locust Grove, the second case study, is a small plantationnear Louisville, Kentucky (Young 1995, 1997b). Few documents referto the enslaved labor force. However, three field seasons of intensivearchaeological testing at three slave house locations have provideda wealth of information about their daily lives including howwomen may have used generalized reciprocity or giving gifts inthe slave quarter community to reduce risk, build solidarity,and extend family connections..
Polly Weissner (1982) outlined this strategy as pooling riskby sharing (generalized reciprocity), often through giving gifts.Gift giving, especially non food items, is a way of symbolicallyextending and strengthening family ties or kinship bonds. Thisstrategy is described for twentieth-century poor black urban communities.Studies of the antebellum period illustrate how "family"became virtually equated with "slave community" wherefamilies were CREATED by linking non kin together and creatingfeelings of solidarity (Webber 1978:158).
Evidence from the archaeological record at Locust Grove suggeststhat slaves lived in at least three households; the south, centraland north houses. I suggest that these families sought to createties with each other and with other slave families on neighboringfarms and plantations. Kinship ties, unfortunately, are difficultto detect archaeologically. However, items like decorated ceramicsand buttons obtained in matched sets might be used to track howartifacts were distributed across the plantation and may reflectgift giving. Matched items in ceramics and other artifacts notresulting from crossmending or hand-me-downs from the big housemay indicate that these objects were shared or given among slavefamilies on the plantations.
The result of the analysis of decorated ceramics was that 32different ceramic decorative types were shared among the slavefamilies at Locust Grove. The south and central households shared20 different ceramic types, the south and north households sharedseven, and the central and north households shared five types.When vessel forms were considered, it was not uncommon to findone pattern of decorated ceramic on a whiteware or peariware teacupfrom one house, and a matching piece from a saucer in another.
Button analysis also reveals a match. A single blue transferprinted(calico) milk glass button was recovered from each of the threeslave house sites.
These data suggest that generalized reciprocity in the formof giving gifts of non food items may have transpired betweenslave families at Locust Grove. Because of the nature of the gifts,domestic materials like ceramics and buttons, this activity wasprobably the domain of slave women. It is possibly significantthat the matched objects are considered luxury items by archaeologists.Sharing of these items, however, suggests that such "luxury"objects may have had different meanings for African-American women(Singleton 1995:128). It might not have been important to havea matching tea set. Rather a saucer from a friend or family membersymbolizing the reciprocal obligations may have been significant.For the enslaved African Americans at Locust Grove, the giftsof plates, teacups, or buttons, rather than being viewed as highstatus items, could have been seen as objects used and appreciatedin friendly social contexts and symbolic of the reciprocal bondsbetween slave households and families. Gifts forged families fromnon kin.
The extension of bonds of kinship outside the immediate familywould have been particularly important where there was a highrisk of being sold away. In the event that a parent (either motheror father) was sold away, and the child or children kept behind,strong bonds of kinship would help insure the future of dependentoffspring robbed of biological parents. Further, when faced withbeing overworked, driven too hard, or beatings; a reaction fromthe entire slave community would have been difficult for the planterto withstand. Finally, emotional support from within the communityduring crises like birth, illness, and death would have been particularlyimportant to a group of people often denied access to comfortsof a formal church and professional medical care.
Saragossa
Saragossa, the final case study, is a large cotton plantationnear Natchez Mississippi (Young 1998, 1999). Archaeological testing,especially at the Fourth House yielded data concerning housing,possessions, and diet, especially hunting (Jenkins 1999; Tuma1998, 1999a, 1999b). A total of 1368 animal bones was recoveredfrom the Fourth House.
The identifiable portion of the Saragossa assemblage consistsof both domestic and wild species. Domestic animals include pig,cow, sheep/goat, and chicken. A number of wild species were alsoidentified. Interestingly, even though whitetailed deer is commonlythe dominant wild species in southeastern archaeological assemblages,only 11 specimens were identified from the Fourth House. Box turtle,oyster, squirrel, opossum, rabbit, aquatic turtle, gar, bigmouthbuffalo, raccoon, Canada or blue goose and other fish were identifiedfrom the Fourth House. Catfish is the dominant wild resource representedby 27 specimens and probably reflects easy access to the MississippiRiver.
The bulk of the diet for the enslaved African Americans atSaragossa, as represented in the faunal assemblage, came fromdomestic species, most often, pig. Beef was not uncommon. Wildspecies, it seems, provided occasional fare for the slaves. Deer,squirrel, raccoon, rabbit, and various fish are still availablein the immediate area today. Much of the smaller game speciesare attracted to cultivated areas or poultry yards, and couldhave been obtained through opportunistic or garden hunting. Theimportance of hunting, however, may not be immediately apparentbased on the relative frequencies of wild animal bones in thearchaeological assemblage.
In addition to the archaeological research, ethnographic fieldworkin the slave descendant community is also underway. Hunting andfishing were just some of the many activities investigated duringthe course of the ethnographic work. In the case of hunting, thiswork was done by a male ethnographer who "apprenticed"himself to the older male hunters in the community. The hunterswere quite accustomed to teaching young men how to hunt, and thestudent was well received.
Hunting in the descendant community, as in the South generally,is traditionally a male dominated activity with a long history(Marks 1991). While some of the techniques, especially the technology,of hunting have changed considerably since the antebellum era,it was believed that hunting today, as a tradition passed fromfather to son, would reflect some of the practices of the past.In other words, the harvest of wild resources in this modern communitymay inform the research of similar activities of the antebellumslave community.
The modern descendant community consists of just over 60 peopleliving near the old plantation (Tuma 1999b). Most residents arerelated to four sisters who own the real estate. Men marry intothe neighborhood. The small community suffers constantly fromeconomic hardships. Many adult women work outside the home infast food restaurants in Natchez. One constant topic of conversationsin the community revolves around money (or the lack of it). Anotherconstant topic of conversation, especially among men, is hunting.
Hunting is an exclusively male activity (women are considered"bad luck"), but women and children fish. Most huntersare adults, but youngsters learn to hunt by participation. Asfor many Southerners, hunting seems to be a rite of passage intomanhood in the descendant community. Unemployment in the communityis very high, many adult males (over 20 years of age) are unemployedfor part of the year and underemployed for much of the rest ofthe year. As welfare is greatly scorned, hunting is viewed asa way that unemployed/underemployed men can contribute economicallyto the household and the community (Tuma 1999b).
Hunting is typically a group activity. Communal deer drivesare held in which men with shotguns and rifles line up in thewoods, spaced several hundred meters apart, and other hunterswith dogs drive the deer into an ambush. In this case, dogs areconsidered as absolutely necessary for a successful hunt (Tuma1999b). Communal deer drives necessitate cooperation of the menin the community.
The game and fish, once acquired, are distributed thought thedescendant community in a number of ways. Typically, the firstactivity after successful hunting or fishing is a communal feast.Therefore, when someone (or in the case of communal drives) agroup is successful, the whole community benefits. Surplus fromthe hunt or fishing trip is distributed among various freezersin the community (Tuma 1999b).
As for many southerners, hunting is considered to be very importantfrom a number of perspectives. First, hunting feeds the community,so must be considered a significant subsistence, and thereforeeconomic, activity. Considering the high rate of underemployment,this activity is very important. Hunting in the antebellum communitywould have had similar functions.
The second function of hunting is to create and maintain genderidentity. As lines demarcating the sexes are blurred in the modernworkplace, hunting seems to be an important way of reaffirmingmasculine identities in this neighborhood. Designations like "fieldhand" which ignored gender differences also blurred linesbetween men and women in slavery. Today, "To engage in huntingis to emulate, to defend, and to advocate what is a tried, proven,and proper way of becoming and being a man." Hunting on SaragossaRoad is definitely a source of male pride.
The third function of hunting in the Saragossa community isto integrate strangers into the community. For Southerners ingeneral, regardless of race, hunting "allows residents theopportunity to assess the stranger's behavior and assign him aknown category of persons." Because the men have marriedinto the Saragossa community in recent years, they have learnedto live together and cooperate (as kin) through group hunting.In a community where pooling scarce resources and cooperationis essential for the survival of all, effectively assessing andintegrating newcomers is a very important activity. It gives newcomersa chance to prove themselves by providing an important economiccommodity to the group. As the enslaved population at Saragossawas constantly shifting, hunting would have integrated newly purchasedstrangers into the community.
Conclusions
Archaeological, historical, and ethnographic studies have providedimportant data that illustrate how enslaved African Americansacross the South labored in a variety of contexts, often utilizingtheir assigned or created gender roles to promote solidarity withinthe slave quarter community and to protect and provide for theirfamilies. Such behaviors helped to offset the dangers inherentin the institution of slavery and minimize risk. Both men andwomen operated within their separate gender spheres to effectbetter lives for themselves and their families.
References Cited
Berlin, Ira and Philip Morgan
1991 Introduction. In Cultivation and Culture: Labor and theShaping of Slave life in the Americas. University Press ofVirginia, Charlottesville.
Jenkins, Cliff
1999 Slave Subsistence at Saragossa Plantation. Paper presentedat the 1999 Southeastern Archaeological Conference, November 10-13,1999, Pensacola, Florida.
Marks, Stuart A.
1991 Southern Hunting in Black and White: Nature, History,and Ritual in a Carolina Community. Princeton University Press,Princeton.
Singleton, Theresa A.
1995 Archaeology of Slavery in North America. Annual Reviewof Anthropology 24:119-140.
Tuma, Michael
1998 Slave Subsistence at Saragossa: Preliminary Report on FaunalData. Mississippi Archaeology 33(2): 125-138.
1999~ Ethnoarchaeology of the Subsistence Behaviors Among ARural African-American Community in Southwestern Mississippi.Paper presented at the 1999 Southeastern Archaeological Conference,November 10-13, 1999, Pensacola, Florida.
1999b Foodways and Vertebrate Animal Use in a Rural Black Neighborhood:Ethnoarchaeological Evidence and Implications for Interpretationof Zooarchaeological Antebellum Samples. Report on file, Departmentof Anthropology and Sociology, The University of Southern Mississippi.
Webber, Thomas L.
1978 Deep Life in the Rivers: Education in the Slave QuarterCommunity, 1831-1865. W. W. Norton, New York.
Weissner, Polly
1982 Risk, Reciprocity, and Social Influences on !Kung San Economics.In Politics and History in Band Societies, edited by EleanorLeacock and Richard Lee, pp. 61-84. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge.
Young, Amy L.
1995 Risk and Material Conditions of the African-American Slavesat Locust Grove, An Archaeological Perspective. Ph.D. dissertation,Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
1997~ Historical and Archaeological Investigations of Slavesand Slavery at Oxmoor Plantation. Report submitted to the KentuckyHeritage Council, Frankfort, KY.
1997b Risk Management Strategies Among African-American Slavesat Locust Grove Plantation. International Journal of HistoricalArchaeology 1:5-37.
1998 Preliminary Archaeological and Historical Investigationsat Saragossa Plantation, Natchez, Mississippi. MississippiArchaeology 33(1): 1-18.
1999 Archaeological Investigations of Slave Housing at SaragossaPlantation, Natchez, Mississippi. Southeastern Archaeology18(1): 57-68.
Top of Page
Diana diZerega Wall, City College of the City Universityof New York
Introduction
Over the last quarter century, archaeologists working in thesouthern United States have made enormous strides in the studyof the enslaved people of African descent who lived there. Workingat both plantation and urban sites, numerous assemblages thatcan be linked with Africans have been discovered. Until recently,however, there have been relatively few attempts on the part ofarchaeologists studying sites in the north to explore the experienceof enslaved Africans there (for exceptions, see Fitts 1996 andPerry personal communication 1999). I believe that this is truefor two reasons. First, European Americans living in the northhave tended to deny the importance of slavery the history of theregion. Secondly, the nature of slavery in the north makes itmuch more difficult to examine than in the south (a point whichI develop more fully below). Recently, this situation has begunto change in New York City and in this paper, I describe someof the finds made there.
The discovery of the African Burial Ground in New York Cityin 1991, and the subsequent successful effort on the part of membersof the city's modern African-American community to gain controlof the archaeological project brought New York's long traditionof enslavement home to many New Yorkers in a very powerful way.The first arrival of enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam in 1626followed the European settlement by only one year, and Africanscontinued to make up most of the city's enslaved labor force forover two centuries, more than half of the city's history (Wilson1994). Throughout the eighteenth century, enslaved Africans madeup between 14 and 21 percent of the city's population (Rosenwaike1972:8). The Howard University team's study of the people whowere interred in the African Burial Ground and their culturalcontext in the eighteenth-century city is revealing enormouslyimportant information about life and death in New York's enslavedcommunity (e.g., Blakey 1997; Howard 1998; Perry 1997, 1998).
Notwithstanding this ground breaking project, to date therehas been little success at discovering archaeological depositsassociated with the homes of people of African descent in thecity, primarily due to the nature of the settlement system ofenslavement in New York.
Slavery in New York was very different from that in those partsof the world where the enslaved worked in a plantation economyand lived in their own spatially separate quarters. The enslavedin New York usually lived under the same roofs as their owners,forming part of the urban colonial household. Some lived in cellars,others in garrets, and others still in the so-called "Negrokitchens" that were located in their owners backyards (Foote1991:91; White 1991:9). While a large percentage of the city'shouseholds included enslaved members, they lived in 40 percentof the households on Manhattan Island in 1703 (Foote 1991:91),most of these households included only one or two slaves. Accordingly,the enslaved were widely dispersed among white households throughoutthe city.
This settlement system has ramifications for archaeologiststrying to study the African presence in colonial homes in NewYork. Until recently, it had been assumed it would be impossibleto study the African presence in colonial homes for two reasons.First, some thought that the practice of housing the enslavedunder the watchful eyes of the slave holders denied the enslavedthe privacy afforded them in the southern quarters, a privacywhich allowed them "to practice African traditions openlyand build a culture of resistance" (Fitts 1996:57-58). Second,others thought that the archaeological remains of the sustainingcultural life that the enslaved were able to create in the intersticesof the dominant culture would be invisible archaeologically inthese combined households (e.g., Wall
1995).
Recent work, however, suggests that it is time to re-thinkthe assumption that it is not possible to see the African presencein these multiracial homes. (Here I use the word "racial"in the cultural and not the biological sense.) This work, whichhas focused on the enslaved in the south, points to the importanceof developing different lines of evidence to link archaeologicalassemblages to people of particular ethnic or racial groups. Threelines of evidence are of particular importance.
One consists of archaeological context, a concept originallystressed by Kenneth Brown and Doreen Cooper (1990; see also Cochran1999:6-7). Two different kinds of contexts have been shown relevantfor identifying artifacts associated with African life in thesouth. In one, artifacts are found in spaces over which Africanshad some, albeit limited, control. These include the cabins inthe quarters where they lived on the plantations and the kitchensand laundries of the big houses where they worked in southerncities like Annapolis and Williamsburg (e.g., Leone and Fry 1999;Samford 1996:109). There, both indoors and out, archaeologistshave found pits that were used for storing a variety of objects,ranging from food remains to personal valuables and includingartifacts used in rituals associated with traditional African-Americanspiritual life (e.g., Cooper and Brown 1990; Kelso 1984; Leoneand Fry 1999 McKee 1992; Mouer 1991). Other caches were put inthe ground as part of rituals (Leone and Fry 1999). They wereplaced in key locations, such as the northeast corners of roomsand under hearths and door sills, by religious specialists "todirect spirits, protect, diagnose, and foretell" (Leone andFry 1999:380).
A second archaeological context consists of rivers and otherbodies of water that served as the final resting place for objectsused in other rituals. Leland Ferguson (1992) has made a convincingcase linking bowls inscribed with "x"s that have beenfound in stream and river beds with cosmograms designed by theBakongo in today's Kongo and Angola.
A second line of evidence consists of the artifacts themselves.Some objects have been identified as having been important inthe spiritual lives of Africans living in North America (e.g.,Patten 1992; Samford 1996; Leone and Fry 1999). These artifactsinclude discs which are sometimes perforated (including buttons,coins, and ceramic sherds roughly shaped into circles which areoften referred to as gaming pieces in the literature), quartzcrystals and pieces of glass, cowrie shells, glass beads, NativeAmerican stone tools, black pebbles, marbles (including some incisedwith "x's"), blue-painted white ceramic sherds, andobjects made out of metal, including pins, locks, keys, nails,etc. (compiled from Klingelhofer 1987; Leone and Fry 1999; Patten1992; Russell 1997). However, it is not to determine whether anyparticular object held spiritual significance for African Americans.The objects do not speak for themselves; they are all multivalentand might have one set of meanings in one context for one groupof people and another set of meanings in a different context and/orfor another group of people (Brown and Cooper 1991; Cochran 1999;Perry 1997:14). For example, although buttons can have ritualsignificance in one context for some people, they are also usedby many people in other contexts for fastening clothing. Further,some of these artifacts also had spiritual meaning for the membersof other groups, such as the quartz crystals, glass beads, andobjects made of copper, which had spiritual connotations for someNative American groups (e.g., Cantwell and Wall in press; NativeAmericans continued to form part of the enslaved population inNew York until the 1740s [Davis in Jackson 1995:1076]). Thereforeit is not possible to use particular kinds of artifact as fossilesdirecteurs to make a link with people of African descent;instead the presence of particular kinds of artifacts has to becombined with other kinds of evidence, particularly the evidenceof context (Brown and Cooper 1990; Cochran 1999; Wilkie 1997:102).
A third line of evidence consists of the documentary record,which can be used to link enslaved Africans with the site wherethe artifacts were found. Archival records sometimes show whetheror not enslaved Africans and Native Americans lived on a particularsite during the period when artifacts were deposited in the ground.
What is obvious in looking at these different kinds of evidenceis that each alone is insufficient to link artifact assemblageswith people of African descent in interracial homes. Althoughwe know that storing objects in cache pits has a long traditionin some African cultures and that enslaved Africans are reportedin contemporary accounts to have done this in New York (e.g.,Foote 1991:283), we also know that anyone can dig a hole undera kitchen floor and use it as a hiding place and that in factthe members of many groups have been documented as having doneso (Samford 1996:100; see Kelso 1984:123, Yentsch 1991, Sanford1991, Chambers 1992). We have to assume that a button found asyard scatter was probably lost from clothing. And knowing thatAfricans lived in an interracial home in its own right does notprovide a link between them (or the Europeans they lived with)and any of the assemblages found associated with that home. Itis only when we can combine several of these lines of evidencethat we can infer that particular artifacts were probably associatedwith particular groups of people.
Bearing this line of reasoning in mind, I went back throughsome of the collections that have been excavated in New York overthe last 20 years to see if I could identify assemblages thatmight have been associated with enslaved people of African descent.The collections included those from: the Stadt Huys Block site,excavated under the direction of Nan Rothschild and myself in1979-80 (Rothschild et al. 1987); the 7 Hanover Square site, excavatedunder the direction of Rothschild, Arnold Pickman, and myselfin 1981 (Rothschild and Pickman 1990); the Broad Financial Centersite, excavated under the direction of Joel Grossman in 1984 (Grossman1985); and the Assay site, excavated under the direction of RoselleHenn and myself in 1984 (Louis Berger and Associates 1991).
Underground Caches
To date, at least six pits that can be interpreted as undergroundcaches have been uncovered at these New York sites (see Table1). Most of these pits, which date to the late seventeenth andearly eighteenth centuries, were lined with barrels, baskets,or bricks. Some of these features may in fact have been originallymade for other purposes: it has been suggested, for example, thatone (Comp. 38) had served as a drain (Grossman 1985; Dallal 1995)and that several others (Comps. 13, 14, 62, and 63) may have functionedas privy pits (Cantwell and Wall in press). In all but two cases,the spatial relationship between these features and the buildingsassociated with them cannot be confirmed since the building foundationshad been destroyed; however, in each case the features are withinapproximately 25 to ~s feet of the front property line,which was coterminous with the fronts of the houses during thisperiod. These locations probably place many of them within theboundaries of the homes that were on the properties in the colonialcity; in other words, many of them could have been located underthe floors of kitchens and the other ground floor domestic spacesthat were often the domains of the enslaved. In the two caseswhere the features can be positioned in relation to contemporarybuilding foundations, at the King's House tavern at the StadtHuys Block and a house at 7 Hanover Square, the pits were locatedtoward the rear of the houses, in areas where kitchens were located.
Artifacts from the Caches
The artifacts found in these features fall into two differentgroups. Some were objects that anyone, regardless of their culturalaffiliation, might have hidden there: they were inherently valuablein colonial New York. In one case, the tavern at the Stadt HuysBlock, an underground barrel was found which contained approximately20 bottles of liquor along with clay tobacco pipes (Rothschildet al. 1987:132, 134). This cache was apparently abandoned whenthe tavern burned in 1705. However, the meanings of some of theartifacts from other features are more equivocal; seen throughmodern western eyes, some might be interpreted as trash (see Dallas1995). However, in light of the artifacts uncovered in the cachesin the quarters of the southern plantations and discoveries inAnnapolis and Williamsburg, it seems probable that many of theNew York pits contained objects hidden there by enslaved Africans.The pits contain a large number of metal artifacts, relativelyunusual finds in New York during the colonial period, when metalobjects were recycled rather than discarded, as well as the ceramicdiscs, pieces of glass, buttons, pins, etc., often found in cachepits in the south (see Table 1).
Documentary History
Unfortunately, in regard to documentary history, there areenormous gaps in the tax, conveyance, and census records usedto reconstruct the micro histories of properties in New York forthe late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These gaps areso great that it can be impossible to identify the names of householdersfor a particular period. In those cases where it is possible toidentify the names of householders, it can be impossible to identifywhether or not enslaved people were also living in the house duringthe target period when the artifacts were placed in the ground.In some cases, however, we do know who the householders were atthe critical period, and we have begun research designed to linkthe presence of enslaved Africans to the properties where thesepits were found. The results so far are promising. One of theproperties, Lot 14 at the Broad Financial Center site, was ownedby members of the Kierstede family, a family which was known tohold slaves. When Sara Roelofs Kierstede died in 1693, for example,she left six enslaved people, including five Africans and oneIndian, to her children. One, a "Negro boy, Hans," wasleft to her daughter Blandina (Pelletreau 1893:225); Blandinais thought to have lived on the Kierstede property during theperiod when objects were placed in one of these pits. Other pits,on Lot 8 at the Broad Financial Center site, were on propertyowned by the van Tienhoven family. Most of the members of thisfamily who were listed in the 1703 census also owned slaves. Anda court record tells a tragic story linking the King's House Tavernat the Stadt Huys Block with at least one enslaved person: In1697, when Elias Boudinot entered the kitchen of the tavern lookingfor an enslaved African who had run away, he saw the said NegroDick with a Negro woman he calls his wife." A scuffle ensued,during which Dick wounded three men with a knife with which hehad been eating bread and butter; one of the men died (Goodfriend1992:118). Unfortunately, we do not know the outcome of this trial.We need to do much more archival research on this and on the historyof the tavern and the other properties. Hopefully, this researchwill provide more information about the Africans living in thesehomes.
The Spoon from the East River
Another find that might be attributed to people of Africandescent who lived in New York. In this case, a late eighteenth-centuryspoon was discovered under the landfill at the bottom of the EastRiver at the Assay site. As archaeologists worked to uncover thelarge wooden wharf complex at this site, they found a number ofobjects embedded in the river bottom silts. The wharf had beenbuilt c. 1790. Shortly after 1800, additional landfill was added,moving the shoreline further to the east and sealing the riverbottom deposits in this area. One of the artifacts found in thesilt was a spoon that had several x s scratched on the insideof its bowl. In 1984, when the find was made, the archaeologistsdid not even notice the "x's", and if they had, theymight have assumed that they had been scratched there accidentally.However, Ferguson's (1992) work suggests another interpretation(see also Klingelhofer 1987).
Ferguson was the first archaeologist to notice the presenceof incised "x's" on the B~s of some handbuilt colonowarebowls from the Carolina Lowcountry. Similar motifs have also beenfound on the bowls of spoons found on plantations in Virginia.Ferguson has interpreted these marks as cosmograms derived fromthe Bakongo of West Africa, in today's Angola and Kongo, formerlyZaire. The Bakongo use this cosmogram to depict the relationshipbetween the earth and the water and the living and the dead: thehorizontal line represents the water that serves as the boundarybetween the living and their ancestors, while the vertical linerepresents the path of power across the boundary, from below (theland of the ancestors) to above (the land of the living). Thebowls are thought to have served as containers for minkisi orsacred medicines which "control the cosmos connecting theliving with the powers of the dead." (Ferguson 1992:114).It is possible that the spoons played a similar role.
Table 1 The sites, features, dates of deposit, and the namesof associated European-American families where the artifacts werefound.
| Broad Street | 8 | Comp. 13 | barrel-lined pit | c. 1660 | Van Tienhoven |
| Broad Street | 8 | Comp. 38 | basket-lined pit | post 1670 | Van Tienhoven |
| Broad Street | 8 | Comp. 14 | barrel-lined pit | 1690s | Van Tienhoven |
| Broad Street | 14 | Comp. 62 | barrel-lined pit | 1680s | Kierstede/Bayard |
| Broad Street | 14 | Comp. 63 | brick-lined pit | c. 1715 | Kierstede |
| Stadt Huys | 9 | T.C. AQ | barrel-lined pit | c. 1705 | King's House Tavern |
| 7 Hanover Square | 14 | T.C. 0, 0' | unlined pit | 1760-80 | ? |
| FEATURES | ARTIFACTS |
| Comp. 13 | 3 large pcs. of Delft tile, 50 glass beads, 1 quartz flake, jawbone, i marble, 1 pc. coral, 1 pc. mica |
| Comp. 14 | 2 large pcs. of a pair of Chinese export porcelain saucers, i louse comb, 2 pcs. mica, 3 pcs. chert, i glass bead, 4 marbles, 1 knife (?) with an antler handle, 1 pc. lead shot, i wine bottle, 1 pin, 1 lead fishing sinker |
| Comp. 38 | 1/2 Delft plate, iron nails, 2 pcs. lead window caning, 1 pc. lead shot, 1 thimble, i needle fragment, 17 marbles, quartzite flakes, 3 glass beads, 3 shell beads (wampum) |
| Comp. 62 | 2 red earthenware gaming pieces, 1 wineglass stem, 1 chert, 1 jasper, 1 glass bead, 1 delft plate, 1 latten spoon bowl, 1 large pewter plate fragment, 1 turtle carapace, 1 pc. keratin, 15 pins and pin fragments, 3 mica, 1 brass wall candle holder, 1 brass candle snuffer, 1 drawer pull, 1 pin, 28 nails and nail fragments |
| Comp. 63 | 1 whistle made from a pipestem, 1 ear of a Delft porringer, 1 louse comb, ~ marbles, 35 pcs. chitin, 8 wine glass stems; 1 wine bottle, 2 pins, 1 thimble, 2 buttons, 1 green glazed earthenware bowl, |
| T.C. AQ | c. 20 wine bottles, several tobacco pipes |
| T.C. 0,0' | 2 creamware bowls, 1 glass bottle stopper, copper disc or coin?, 2 chert flakes, layer of white sand |
| Note: With one exception, the lists are from the inventories included with the site reports and/or site records; the artifacts themselves have yet to be examined. The inventory sheets are not available for this deposit in T.C. AQ at the Stadt Huys Block. | |
Most of the marked colonoware bowls were found in the watersof rivers and streams, confirming their roles in rituals involvingthe waters that separate the living from the dead. To my knowledge,no colonoware bowls have been found in New York or elsewhere inthe north. But the discovery of the spoon with its inscribed "x's"in what had been the waters of the East River suggests the possibilitythat this ritual may have been practiced there.
Conclusion
I want to close with several points. First of all, this paperpresents an approach for linking particular assemblages of artifactswith enslaved people of African descent who were living in biracialhomes, alongside the Europeans who enslaved them. This approachhas the potential for complementing the study of the dead at theAfrican Burial Ground with glimpses of the home lives of the enslavedin New York City. However, the approach has further ramificationsfor studying the lives of the enslaved that lived throughout thenorth, where the settlement system was characterized by biracialhomes in both rural and urban areas. Hopefully, archaeologistswho are working in the north and who are interested in studyingthe lives of the enslaved there will no longer simply assume eitherthat enslaved Africans in the north constructed a culture thatwas extremely different from that in the south or that the tracesof the culture that they did create would be invisible. Instead,I hope that they will begin to look for underground storage pitsdug beneath domestic spaces and caches placed under floors, inthe northeast corners of rooms and under hearths and door sills.I think they will be surprised at what they find. In fact, archaeologistsworking with architectural historians recently discovered whatcould be such a cache under the floor of a second story loft ata farmhouse in Brooklyn (Ricciardi et al. 2000).
Secondly, this argument also has another implication that Imentioned but did not develop in the body of this paper. If wehave to make a case for linking particular assemblages with peopleof African descent who were living and/or working at these sites,we also have to make a case for linking other assemblages withpeople of European or Native American descent who shared thesesites with them, instead, as often seems to be the case, of simplyassuming that unless otherwise indicated, all artifacts were associatedwith the site's European inhabitants.
Finally, as has been pointed out by several archaeologists(e.g., Singleton and Bograd 1995; Samford 1996; and Russell 1997),now that we are in a position to link assemblages with peopleof African descent in both the north and in the south, we needto develop relevant research questions and bridging argumentsthat use that data to understand the experiences of Africans inAmerica.
Note and Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium"New York City Urban Archaeology: Twenty Years Later,"organized by Meta Janowitz, Society for Historical Archaeology,Quebec, 2000. I thank Arnold Pickman, Anne-Marie Cantwell, NanRothschild, and Sherrill Wilson for reading and commenting onearlier drafts of this paper. Any errors of fact or interpretationare unfortunately my own.
References Cited
Berger, Louis, and Associates
1991 Archaeological and Historical Investigations at the AssaySite, Block 35, New York, New York. Report on file with the NewYork City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Blakey, Michael L.
1997 The African Burial Ground: The Biology of Enslaved Africansin Colonial New York. Paper presented at the conference Race andEthnicity in American Material Life, Winterthur, DE.
Brown, Kenneth L., and Doreen C. Cooper
1990 Structural Continuity in an African-American Slave and TenantCommunity. Historical Archaeology 24(4):7-19.
Cantwell, Anne-Marie, and Diana diZerega Wall
in press The Archaeology of New York City: An 11,000 Year Chronicle.Yale University Press, New Haven
Chambers, Douglas B.
1992 Afro-Virginian Root Cellars and African Roots? A Commenton the Need for a Moderate Afrocentric Approach. African-AmericanArchaeology 6:7-10.
Cochran, Matthew D.
1999 Hoodoo and Conjuration: Contextualizing 19th Century African-AmericanFolk Practices. Paper presented at the Council for Northeast HistoricalArchaeology Conference, St. Mary's City, Maryland.
Dallal, Diane
1995 Van Tienhoven's Basket: Treasure or Trash? In One Man'sTrash is Another Man's Treasure, edited by Alexandra van Dongan,et al., pp. 215-223. Museum Boymans-van Beuningen Rotterdam andJamestown Settlement Museum, Williamsburg, VA.
Ferguson, Leland
1992 Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America,1650-1800.Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington,D.C.
Fitts, Robert K.
1996 The Landscapes of Northern Bondage. Historical Archaeology30(2):54-73.
Foote, Thelma Wills.
1991 Black Life in Colonial Manhattan, 1664-1786. Ph.D. dissertation,History of American Civilization, Harvard University, Cambridge.
Goodfriend, Joyce P.
1992 Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in ColonialNew York City, 1664-1730.Princeton University Press,Princeton, NJ.
Grossman, Joel W.
1985 The Excavation of Augustine Heerman's Warehouse and Associated17th Century Dutch West India Company Deposits: The Broad FinancialCenter Mitigation Final Report. Report on file with the New YorkCity Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Howard University, African Burial Ground Project
1998 New York African Burial Ground: Skeletal Biology Report,1st Draft. Prepared by Howard University for the United StatesGeneral Services Administration. On file at the Office of PublicEducation and Information, African Burial Ground Project, NewYork, New York.
Jackson, Kenneth T., ed.
1995 The Encyclopedia of New York City. Yale UniversityPress, New Haven.
Kelso, William
1984 Kingsmill Plantations, 1619-1800: An Archaeology of CountryLjfe in Colonial Virginia.Academic Press, Orlando.
1986 Mulberry Row: Slave Life at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.Archaeology 39(5):28-35.
Klingelhofer, Eric
1987 Aspects of Early Afro-American Culture: Artifacts from SlaveQuarters at Garrison Plantation. Historical Archaeology 21(2):112-119.
Leone, Mark P., and Gladys-Marie Fry
1999 Conjuring in the Big House Kitchen: An Interpretation ofAfrican-American Belief Systems Based on the Uses of Archaeologyand Folklore Sources. Journal ofAmerican Folklore 112(445):372-403.
McKee, Larry
1992 The Ideals and Realities Behind the Design and Use of 19thCentury Slave Cabins. In The Art and Mystery of HistoricalArchaeology, edited by Anne Elizabeth Yentsch and Mary C.Beaudry, pp. 195-214. CRC Press, Boca Raton.
Mouer, Daniel
1991 "Root Cellars" Revisited. African-American Archaeology5:5-6.
Patten, Drake
1992 Mankala and Minkisi: Possible Evidence of African-AmericanFolk Beliefs and Practices. African-American Archaeology 6:5-7.
Pelletreau, W. S., ed.
1894 Abstracts of Wills on File in the Surrogate's Office, Cityof New York. Collections of the New York Historical Societyfor the Year 1893.
Perry, Warren R.
1997 Analysis of the African Burial Ground Archaeological Materials.Update: Newsletter of the African Burial Ground and Five PointsArchaeological Projects 2(2):1, 3-5, 14.
1998 Archaeological Update from the Foley Square Laboratory.Update: Newsletter of the African Burial Ground and Five PointsArchaeological Projects 2(6):3-5.
Ricciardi, Christopher, Alyssa Loorya, and Maura Smale
2000 Excavating Brooklyn, New York's Rural Past: The HendrickI. Lott Farmstead Project. Paper presented at the Society forHistorical Archaeology meeting, Quebec, Canada.
Rosenwaike, Ira.
1972 Population History of New York City. University Press,Syracuse, New York.
Rothschild, Nan A., and Arnold Pickman.
1990 The Archaeological Excavations on the Seven Hanover SquareBlock. Report on file with the New York City Landmarks PreservationCommission.
Rothschild, Nan A., Diana diZ. Wall, and Eugene Boesch.
1987 The Archaeological Investigation of the Stadt Huys Block:A Final Report. Report on file at the New York City LandmarksPreservation Commission.
Russell, Aaron E.
1997 Material Culture and African-American Spirituality at theHermitage. HistoricalArchaeology 31(2):63-80.
Samford, Patricia
1996 The Archaeology of African-American Slavery and MaterialCulture. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 53(1):87-114.
Sanford, Douglas
1991 A Response to Anne Yentsch's Research Note on Below Ground"Storage Cellars" Among the Ibo. African-AmericanArchaeology 5:4-5.
Singleton, Theresa A., and Mark D. Bograd
1995 The Archaeology of the African Diaspora in the Americas.Guides to the Archaeological Literature of the Immigrant Experiencein America, 2, Society for Historical Archaeology.
Wall, Diana diZerega
1995 Remarks. Prepared for the symposium "African BurialGround Project: Prospectus and Preliminary Results of Researchat Howard University, American Anthropological Association, Washington,DC.
White, Shane
1991 Somewhat More Independent. University of Georgia Press,Athens.
Wilkie, Laurie A.
1997 Secret and Sacred: Contextualizing the Artifacts of African-AmericanMagic and Religion. Historical Archaeology 31(4):81-106.
Wilson, Sherrill D.
1994 New York City's African Slaveowners: A Social and MaterialCulture History. Garland, New York.
Yentsch, Anne
1991 A Note on a 19th Century Description of Below Ground "StorageCellars" Among the Ibo. African-American Archaeology 4:3.
Books Available for Review
Berlin (1998) Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuriesof Slavery in North America.
Buckley(1998) The British Army in the West Indies.
Johnson(1996) The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude,1783-1933.
Martin (1999) Britain's Slave Trade.
Matthews(1998) Honoring the Ancestors.
Morgan(1998) Slave Counterpoint: Black Culturein the l8th-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry.
PaquetteandEngerman (eds.) (1996) The LesserAntilles in the Age of European Expansion.
Pwiti & Soper (eds.)(1996) Aspects of AfricanArchaeology
Singleton (ed.)(1999) "I, Too Am America":Archaeological Studies of African-American Life.
Raboteau(1980) Slave Religion.
Trotter & Smith (eds.) (1997) African-Americans inPennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives.
Walsh (1997) From Calabar to Cater's Grove: The Historyof a Virginia Slave Community.
Please contact one of the book review editors if interestedin reviewing any of these volumes:
Fred McGhee
1240 Barton Hills Dr. #207
Austin, TX 78704
(512) 912-0906 (home)
(512) 475-7904 (work)
email: fredmcghee@mail.utexas.edu
Mark Warner
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Justice Studies
University of Idaho
P.O. Box 441110
Moscow, Idaho 838441110
(208) 885-5954 (work)
mail: mwarner@uidaho.edu
Landscape Transformations and the Archaeology of Impact:Social Disruption and State Formation in Southern Africa, WarrenR.
Perry, 1999. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York. 195pp., tables, tables, figures, bibliography, index.
Terrence W. Epperson
Perry provides an excellent example of how historical archaeologycan be used to test, and ultimately refute, a widely acceptedhistoriographic model, in this case one that , for over a century,has served the interests of European colonists and their alliesin southern Africa. Landscape Transformations and the Archaeologyof Impact is based upon extensive fieldwork in Swaziland (anominally independent country almost totally surrounded by SouthAfrica) and synthesis of previous archaeological, documentary,and oral historical work conducted in neighboring South Africaand Mozambique. Appreciation of this work will be enhanced byreading it in conjunction with the author's personal account ofthe sociopolitical context within which he conducted his Swazilandfieldwork in 1984, 1985, and 1987 (Perry 1998).
The object of Perry's analysis is what he calls the "SettlerModel" of the Mfecane/Difaqane, the early decades of thenineteenth century that were characterized by the reign of ShakaZulu (c. 1790-1828), the rise of the Zulu state, and a periodof cataclysmic internecine warfare and widespread famine and populationdisplacement. Mfecane is thought to be a Xhosa term meaning "thecrushing" and "Difaqane is a Sotho-Tswana cognate meaning"the scattering." According to Perry, the Settler Modelis predicated upon three fundamental assumptions: First, the neargenocidal warfare, cattle raiding, starvation, and forced migrationsthat characterized the early nineteenth century were internallygenerated. Second, European involvement in, and responsibilityfor, these conflicts was minimal. Finally, the black-on-blackviolence resulted in the depopulation of large areas and the concomitantformation of refugee communities forced to seek asylum with nearbyEuropean settlers. Settler Model theorists differ regarding thefundamental causes of these events (e.g. demographic pressure,environmental degradation, ivory trade), but concur in their minimizationof European involvement and attribution of responsibility primarilyto the rise of the Zulu state. The image of benevolent white settlersproviding refuge to terrorized, displaced black refugees and subsequentlyoccupying an "empty" landscape had, and continues tohave, obvious ideological utility for European colonists and alliedEuropean-sanctioned African elites. In fact, this Settler Modelserved as a cornerstone of the historical rationale for apartheidin South Africa.
Perry begins by examining three fundamental, often unstated,underlying assumptions of the Settler Model: First, "Africansociety was composed of a series of relatively discrete ethnicgroups that had their origin in the past and persisted into relativelyrecent times." Second, "these ethnic groups were poorlyarticulated one to the other, little systematic interaction betweenthe groups can be used to understand cultural transformation."Finally, "These social relations were disrupted in the earlynineteenth century by the Mfecane/Difaqane when local conditionsled the pre-Zulu ethnic group to become a predatory state."(pp. 21-22). In his most important and innovative move, Perrythen operationalizes the Settler Model, treating it as a hypothesisto be tested archaeologically. He develops region specific, quantifiablearchaeological correlates for the model, including such factorsas: military fortifications, residential settlements, cattle enclosures,cattle culling patterns (as reflected in the age and sex profilesevident in archaeological assemblages), grain storage facilities,royal tombs and settlements, and presence of European trade goods.In a rigorous statistical analysis, the Settler Model is thentested against the results of Perry's fieldwork in Swaziland andhis synthesis of the archaeological literature.
Not surprisingly, Perry finds "that the Settler Modelof the Mfecane/Difaqane is wrong: it has the wrong people in thewrong places with the wrong political organization, and it incorrectlyassumes a lack of political/economic ties between regions."(p. 139). Noting that archaeologists need to be more attentiveto issues of power, Perry concludes with specific suggestionsand hypotheses for future research. He states that the scale ofanalysis must be expanded to include the influence of Europeanpenetration and to account for tensions and contradictions arisingfrom the articulation of disparate modes of production. Makinga careful differentiation between European "racial commodityslavery" and the various African forms of incorporation thatalso produced coerced labor, Perry urges careful considerationof the illegal (and hence largely undocumented) trade in Africancaptives for the internal European market
I have two minor quibbles, neither of which affects the validityof the research design, the author's findings, or the hypothesesfor future research. The first involves Perry's characterizationof the Settler Model of the Mfecane/Difaqane. Perry concurs withCobbing's (1988) critique of the work of Omer-Cooper (1969) andothers, stating that their characterization of the Mfecane/Difaqaneprovides an "alibi" for the actions of the Europeansettlers. Although Perry briefly discusses how some African andAfrican Diaspora scholars have developed vindicationist analysesof the Mfecane/Difaqane by stressing Shaka's military accomplishmentsand the importance of Zulu agency in resisting European penetration(pp. 13-14), the main thrust of his argument unequivocally holdsthat the "Zulucentric" model "vilifies the Zulu"(p. 141). However, this analysis elides both the historiographiccomplexities of the Mfecane/Difaqane model and the continuingpower of images of Zulu military prowess in the South Africanpolitical struggles. Historian Joseph C. Miller has noted theconnection between the Mfecane/Difaqane model and the "nationalist-eravision of African history of the 1960s". Miller states thatOmer-Cooper "drew the term 'Mfecane' from a large body ofearlier historical writing but infused it with new significanceas a time of revolutionary African state building and accordedit major importance as a source of pride and independence of spirit,in the historical consciousness of the African communities wholater came under white rule." (Miller 1997:154). Perry'sanalysis would have been enhanced by fully embracing these historiographiccontradictions, by realizing that the settler model's efficacyas an ideological construct derives in part from that fact thatthe alibi for European invasion also simultaneously vilifies andglorifies the role of the Zulu in the history of southeasternAfrica.
The second quibble involves the production values of the volume.In a work of this brevity and expense (high cost-per-page ratio)one is disappointed to find low quality, dot matrix graphics (particularlyFigure 1.2). In addition, the location map should reflect thepolitical subdivisions of post-apartheid South Africa (i.e. Mpumalangarather than Eastern Transval, KwaZulu-Natal instead of Zululand).Finally, the discussion of landscape diversity would have beenenhanced by an interpretative topographic map.
These minor objections notwithstanding, Landscape Transformationsand the Archaeology of Impact remains a masterful work thatwill be of interest to scholars working throughout the AfricanDiaspora.
References Cited
Cobbing, Julian
1988 The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo.Journal of African History 29(3):487-519.
Miller, Joseph C.
1997 Mfecane, in Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara,John Middleton, Editor in Chief, Vol. 3, pp. 153-156.
Omer-Cooper, John
1969 The Zulu Aftermath: A Nineteenth-Century Revolution inBantu Africa, 2nd Edition. Longman, London and Ibadan.
Perry, Warren R.
1998 Dimensions of Power in Swaziland Research: Coercion, Reflexivity,and Resistance. Transforming Anthropology
7(1):2-14.
Virginia Commonwealth University's Caribbean Cultures StudyAbroad Program, July 28th-August 19th, 2000. Students of anymajor and any class are invited to join Dr. Dan Mouer (Sociologyand Anthropology) and Dr. Bernard Moitt (History) in a three-week,six-credit program in BARBADOS, West Indies. Students will earnthree credits in Anthropology, and three credits in African-AmericanStudies. For further information, please see Dr. Mouer's web pageabout the course, at: http://saturn.vcu.edu/~dmouer/barbados2000.htmor contact Dan at dmouer@saturn.
Archaeological Field School, University of Missouri-St.Louis, Session I: Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, June 12-30, 2000, and Session II: Arrow Rock, Missouri, July 10 - 28,2000. This six-week archaeological field school will spendthe first three weeks at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Parkexploring portions of a Miss issippian (A.D.l000-1400) earthenmound. The second three weeks will be spent in Arrow Rock, Missouri,exploring its industrial and African-American heritage. Excavationsin Arrow Rock will concentrate on a stoneware pottery factory(1854-1870) and a late nineteenth/early twentieth-century African-Americancommunity. Contact: Dr. Tim Baumann, (314) 516-6021, tbaumann@umsl.eduWebsite: http://www.umsl.edu/~anttbaum/fieldschool2.htm.
Call for Papers: Ethnicities. This new international,cross disciplinary journal will provide a critical dialogue betweendebates in sociology, politics, and related disciplines. Articlesare now being sought for the early issues of the journal. Potentialcontributors are encouraged to set their work, wherever possible,in a transnational and/or transregional perspective. Contact theeditors for more information: Stephen May & Tariq Modood,Ethnicities, Sociology Department, University of Bristol,12 Woodland Road, Bristol B58 1UQ, UK Email: ethnicities-journal@bristol.ac.ukWebsite: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Sociology.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, A Database on CD-ROM. Eltis,David, Behrendt, Stephen D., Richardson, David and Klein, HerbertS. (eds.) Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN: 0-521-62910-1$195.00. This CD-ROM contains the records of 27,233 transatlanticslave ship voyages made between 1595 and 1866 from all over Europe.The disk contains software that allows users to process data bythe time periods and geographic regions of their choice. It alsopermits the downloading of data in ascii format for use in otherprograms. Interactive maps that allow users to establish the structureof transatlantic connections are also included.
WAC Inter-Congress on the African Diaspora, April 23-29,2001, Cura~ao, Netherlands Antilles. The Jacob Gelt DekkerInstitute will host the first WAC Inter-Congress on the AfricanDiaspora the goal of which is to bring together multi-disciplinaryspecialists to broaden understanding of the newest developmentsin African Diaspora research. Pre-Registration and Paper Abstractforms are now available at http://www.wac.uct.ac.za/curacoa/flrstcircular.htm.Dr. Jay B. Haviser, Chairman, WAC Inter-Congress on the AfricanDiaspora, The Jacob Gelt Dekker Institute for Advanced CulturalStudies, Kiipstraat 9, Willemstad, Cura~ao, Netherlands Antilles.Tel. +5999-462-1411/1400, Fax. +5999-462-1401, Email: dekkerinstitute@attglobal.net.
Dr. Gladys Marie Frye, English Dept., University of Maryland,is researching enslaved African adornments. She is searching forartifacts related to enslaved Africans' adornment in the Africandiaspora (to the Carib. and US) from the seventeenth to the nineteenthcenturies, up to the end of the Civil War. She is most interestedin: hairpins, combs, items related to hair preparation (such asstraightening combs), buckles, belts, bangles, bracelets, neckbands,necklaces, earrings, nose rings, nose sticks, lip plugs, fingerrings, ankle rings, toe rings, ribbon and textile fragments, etc.She is also interested in locating photographs of enslaved Africanswearing items of adornment. Please contact Dr. Frye at (202) Universityof West Florida, seeks information concerning slave presencesin an industrial context for her thesis project.
Ms. Leigh A. Rosborough, Anthropology Dept., She isinvestigating a lumber mill in northwest Florida that was occupiedfrom roughly 1763 until 1821, during the colonial occupation ofPensacola. The presence of slaves is documented on an 1816 mapof the site. Survey and testing located what appears to be theoverseer's residence and several associated slave cabins. Sheis looking for sources, either primary or secondary, historicalor archaeological, books or articles, which relate to mills, mines,etc., particularly indicating the presence of both settlers andslaves. Email: Flwersun@aol.com.
Top of Page
Editor/Publisher: John P. McCarthy, 615 Fairglen Lane,Annapolis, MD 21491 (301) 220-1876 johnpmccarthy@archaeologist.com
Assistant Editor: Paul Mullins, Anthropology Department, Cavanaugh 413, IUPUI, 425 University Blvd. Indianapolis IN 46202
Book Reviews: Fred McGhee 1240 Barton Hills Dr. #207Austin, TX 78704 (512) 912-0906 (home) (512) 475-7904 (work) email:fredmcghee@mail.utexas.eduMark Warner Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and JusticeStudies University of Idaho P.O. Box 441110 Moscow, Idaho 83844-1110(208) 885-5954 (work) email: mwarner@uidaho.edu
Progression: Carol McDavid, 1406 Sul Ross, Houston,TX 77007 dutch@neosoft.com
Subscriptions, by the calendar year, are: $6.00 student; $8.00individual;$15.00 institutions/outside the USA. Payable by checkto:
"African-American Archaeology"
Amount enclosed $_____________
Name:_______________________________________________________________________________
Institution:____________________________________________________________________________
Address Line 1 _________________________________________________________________________
Address Line 2 _________________________________________________________________________
City, State/Prov., Zip/Postal Code, Country:______________________________________________________
Daytime Telephone: (______)_____________________ E-mail: ___________________________________
Mail to:
African-American Archaeology
c/o John P. McCarthy, RPA
615 Fairglen Lane
Annapolis, MD 21401
Electronic version compiled by ThomasR. Wheaton, New South Associates, Inc.