African American Plantation Life
Thematic Issues in Plantation Archaeology
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Atlantic African Diaspora
Differences between lives of the enslaved vs. lives of free blacks
African-American identity
The effects of racism
Segregation & separate institutions
Accommodation & resistance
Routes to obtaining full US citizenship
Consumption & consumer Choice
Archaeology of Slavery
• in the US southern colonies & Caribbean, slavery closely linked to the
phenomenon of the plantation
• earliest work on slave sites in North American historical archaeology initiated
by Charles Fairbanks in 1968, with the following themes:
• Evidence of daily life & survival (diet, housing, etc.)
• Search for cultural retentions = Africanisms?
Plantation archaeology: a few key published sites
• Kingsley Plantation, Florida
• Cannon’s Point, Simon’s Island, Georgia
• Butler Island, Georgia
• Carter’s Grove, Virginia
• Kingsmill Plantations, Virginia
• Rich Neck, Virginia
• Monticello, Virginia
• Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, Tennessee
Chronological development - 1970s and 80s
• Charles Fairbanks – Pioneering work on plantation sites in coastal Georgia
(and Florida) from late 1960s (Fairbanks was at University of Florida)
• South Carolina contract archaeology from mid-1970s developed new
approaches and applied pattern recognition to plantation sites.
• In addition, Leyland Ferguson’s study of locally made (S Carolina) colono
earthen-wares very influential (1977)
• Virginia lots of work done on early colonial sites and the big houses of
planters.
• deposits of enslaved men and women were looked at to interpret their
lives behind the ‘big house’ (Ivor Noel Hume - Colonial Williamsburg )
• from mid 1970s studies specifically looked at slavery (Bill Kelso’s work in
Kingsmill, Virginia, etc)
Slavery and Plantation Archaeology
Plantation archaeology laid the foundations of African-American archaeology and
continues to give it direction; most understandings of African-American life are
still derived from plantation studies
The initial intentional studies had two purposes:
1.
to provide information on the daily lives or living conditions of enslaved
African Americans missing from histories
2.
to examine how African heritage influenced African-American culture
Frameworks for Plantation Archaeology
Generally one of two approaches:
1.
How did the economic function of the plantation organize plantation work?
- how did cash crop requirements or labour arrangements structure the lives
of slaves ?
- how did slaves have access to material possessions and provide food and
other items for themselves? (see Singleton, Orser)
2.
How did economic structure of plantation shape social structures and class
relations ?
Frameworks for Plantation Archaeology
A third approach more may be termed the Culturalist framework.
This attempts to looks at plantation social relations beyond purely
economic considerations.
Plantation life is defined as a complex of shared experiences formed from
the forced interactions of planters and labourers from different cultural
traditions looking at interplay of planter domination and resistance
Some researchers focus on perceived African continuities – house forms,
ceramic forms and use, ritual
Others study the process of creolization – a process of multicultural
exchange and interaction
The Myth of the Negro Past
Melville J. Herskovits (1895 – 1963)
Herskovits was a pioneer in Black studies who with his 1941 work,
The Myth of the Negro Past (1990), almost single-handedly
dismantled the long-standing belief that people of African descent
did not retain any remnants of African culture or beliefs. These
cultural retentions were termed by Herskovits to be "Africanisms.”
Kingsley Plantation, Florida, 1814-1900
Charles Fairbanks excavated at the Kingsley Plantation in Duval County, Florida
in 1968. This had been a slave training centre; he hoped to find “Africanisms”
but was not sure what to expect
Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Recent work, 2006-07
Charles Fairbanks (1984:2):
"Kingsley had been a slave importer, with perhaps an unusually
permissive attitude towards his charges. I had done what appeared to be
an adequate amount of research to establish a number of things that I
hoped to demonstrate. Among these were the search for Africanisms
among the material artifacts of those newly arrived slaves, evidence of
adaptation in housing, dress, behavior to the new situation, and data on
lifestyle......
No evidence of Africanisms was found, even though we were digging in
the structures of an unusually permissive slave owner, dealing with newly
imported slaves. Belatedly realizing that the slaves came naked and in
chains, I still could not understand why they did not recreate some African
artifacts."
Cannon’s Point Plantation, Georgia
Cannon’s Point Plantation (1794-1860)
St Simon’s Island, Georgia
Cannon’s Point Plantation, Georgia
John Otto (a Fairbanks PhD student) excavated at Cannon’s Point
• Instead of looking for residual ‘Africanisms’ he looked for
evidence of status differences
• ceramics found at sites associated with slave, overseer, &
master
Millwood Plantation, Abbeville, South Carolina
Charles Orser used a Marxian framework to look at post-bellum
tenant occupation at, where he identified five classes of plantation
occupants :
landlord, millwright, tenant, servant, and wage labourer.
Orser concluded that material differences between tenure groups
were not based entirely upon ethnicity or race but upon one’s position
in the plantation hierarchy
Leland G. Ferguson
Colono Ware
Originally defined by Ivor Noel Hume (1962) as Colono-Indian wares; now
believed to have been produced by enslaved Africans
“one of the most visible aspects of African American culture in Colonial
America” (Joseph 1993)
Some colono-ware was made into European-styled forms including cups,
chamber pots, pitchers, porringers, and pipkins; Ivor Noel Hume suggested that
Indians made them to be traded with English settlers.
Another category may be similar to forms important in West Africa. The social
meaning of colonowares was investigated by Ferguson (Ferguson, 1989 1991)
Crosses found on pots related to Kongo religion and the making of minkisi or
sacred medicines – Congo-Angolan peoples also associated the pots with water;
many have been found in water.
Butler Plantation, Georgia
• Theresa Singleton’s
undertook PhD research
on Butler Plantation
• Examined treatment of
slaves at plantation
infirmary
• Found evidence for selfmedication, and care
Theresa Singleton
• Current research in Ghana and Cuba
• Advocates Afro-centric perspective on
the archaeology of the African Diaspora
• Notes that Fairbanks’ early efforts
constituted a “moral mission” to remedy
gaps in our knowledge
• Observes that contemporary
archaeologists of the African Diaspora
are more interested in social action
• Concern for descendant groups
• Interested in getting more AfricanAmericans involved in historical
archaeology
Carter’s Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
Carter's Grove is a 750 acre site located on the north shore of the James
River. The plantation was built for Carter Burwell and was completed in
1755.
Carter’s Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
Social contestation – reflecting desire to control people and
or landscapes. House near the fields and overseerers
houses to watch over slave quarters
Carter’s Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
Carter’s Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
Carter’s Grove, slaves converted back windows into doors, providing access to
common enclosed area within, shielded from view by the cabins (Epperson
1990a:34)
Kingsmill Plantation, Virginia
Kingsmill Plantation
The Utopia Quarter at Kingsmill
Sub-floor pits
Root cellars of storage pits have interested many scholars
Especially prevalent in Virginia (Carter’s Grove, and Kingsmill, and
Monticello) Usually 2 x 3ft to 5 x 8ft and 2-4 ft deep.
Not found in Georgia (with 1 possible exception) and South Carolina
Is this African derived – or slaves making their own spaces – or hiding
things?
Not a mark of ethnicity, but of status within plantation, with a variety of
uses
Kingsmill Plantation
Kingsmill Plantation
Rich Neck Plantation
Maria Franklin
Interested in development of Afro-Virginian culture. Particular interest in
gender issues, women, children, foodways, spiritual beliefs. Advocates an
African feminist perspective
Rich Neck Plantation
Rich Neck was one of the founding plantations
of Middle Plantation, preceding Williamsburg.
Rich Neck’s architectural sophistication set it
apart from nearly all of its colonial neighbours.
Started in 1636 by Richard Kemp, the
Secretary of the Colony, the plantation grew to
over 4,000 acres in size by the midseventeenth century.
Richard Kemp and his wife Elizabeth built two
structures entirely in brick, a rarity in 1640s
Virginia.
Brick-built houses
Rich Neck Plantation
Slave quarters
Biomass measures reveal
that over 3/4 of the
potential meat at the site
would have come from
cattle, pigs, sheep/goat,
and unidentifiable large and
medium mammals, with
cattle forming the largest
share. Similar rankings
were suggested by the
meat weight calculations.
Rich Neck Plantation near Williamsburg
Monticello,Virginia
"My opinion has ever been that, until more can be
done for them, we should endeavor, with those
whom fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed
and clothe them well, protect them from ill usage,
require such reasonable labor only as is
performed voluntarily by freemen, and be led by
no repugnancies to abdicate them, and our duties
to them."
--Thomas Jefferson, 1814
Monticello, Virginia
Monticello
Monticello
Monticello
Slave dwellings – Mulberry Row
Five log dwellings for slaves were located on Mulberry Row in 1796. The
Mulberry Row cabins were occupied mainly by household servants -- women
who did the cooking, washing, house cleaning, sewing, and child tending.
The log cabins range in size from 12'x14' to 12'x20 1/2', with earth floors and
wooden chimneys.
Archaeological excavations at these sites uncovered the cabin foundations,
small brick-lined root cellars (in which slaves stored food and kept personal
possessions), and thousands of discarded artifacts.
Monticello
Evidence for four or more architectural phases, spanning the 18th -19th
centuries. Two of these phases clearly date to Jefferson's tenure. They
are represented by the remains of the "Negro Quarter," built in the 1770s
and by the traces of Buildings r, s, and t, dating to the 1790s.
Monticello
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
Jackson built a Federal- style, two-story brick
dwelling for his family between 1819 to 1821,
and lived there from 1837, after retiring from
the U.S. Presidency.
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
Slave cabins at The Hermitage were a standard 20-foot square cabin for
each family unit. Most were constructed of brick, but some were log.
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
Archaeology of African Slavery - trends
• Move away from the archaeology of the “Great House of the Big Man”
• To the exploration of the lives of the “Big Man’s” slaves
• archaeologists see evidence humane treatment by masters
• Evidence commonly found:
catted chimneys
root cellars (sub-floor pits)
Colono ware
Emerging themes
Atlantic African diaspora
Resistance
Cultural resiliency/creolization
• Expressed through syncretism:
• in dress
incorporate symbolism w/dress provided by slave masters
• religious syncretism
• recognizing elements of African foodways & food preparation
techniques
• examining traditional medical practice & hygiene
• oral discourse - tales, songs, etc.
Key points
• Fairbanks initiated a new area of research
interest when he began excavating slave sites
• Initial interest in “filling in gaps” and answering
“what” questions have shifted to “why” and
“how” questions and towards social action
• African-American archaeology now one of the
most vibrant areas of research in historical
archaeology & now includes many
archaeologists of African descent