ANTH/AFRSTY 343L-- African Diaspora Archaeology
Syllabus
Professor Nedra Lee
Professor Jerry Howard
Department of Anthropology
College of Liberal Arts
Course description
This course is an introduction to African Diaspora archaeology, a burgeoning area of study
within the sub-discipline of historical archaeology. Students will explore the concept of
diaspora as a means to critically understand the factors underlying the forced dispersal of
African people. Participants will consider how archaeological studies of the African
diaspora have yielded alternate interpretations of the black past. Throughout the semester,
students will examine how archaeologists have investigated the physical and culture
landscape, foodways, ritual and religion and objects from everyday life to reveal the ways
that black people have resisted and responded to enslavement and other forms of racial
oppression.
Format and Procedures
This course fulfills the GenEd Distribution requirement in World Cultures and the
International Diversity requirement. The class will consist of weekly lectures and a series of
individual exercises that will help students obtain skills and capabilities in Verbal
Reasoning and Effective Communication in Writing. Writing assignments in this course are
suitable for the Writing Proficiency Evaluation Portfolio.
Required texts
Singleton, Theresa A. (editor)
1999 I, Too, Am America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life. University Press
of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Ferguson, Leland
1992 Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800. Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC
Battle-Baptiste, Whitney
2011 Black Feminist Archaeology. Left Coast Press, California.
Gomez, Michael
1998 Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Equiano, Olaudah
1789 The interesting narrative of the life of O. Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African,
written by himself. Dover Publications, New York.
Weekly readings will cover a variety of sources. Additional texts and articles will be available
online via Blackboard. Asterisks are placed by readings that are listed on the course
scheduled that are assigned from required books.
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Course Requirements
10% Attendance and participation
20% 2 Quizzes – dates TBA
Quizzes will cover information presented in readings and lecture and will act as a tool for
assessing how much information you are getting from the course.
Written Assignments
All written assignments will be assigned three weeks before the due-date, and you will be
expected to submit a typed copy, which includes internal citations and a final References
Cited section. While you are encouraged to discuss the assignments and materials with
other students, you are expected to write your essays individually.
20% Essay 1 – Week 5
Requires a 4-5-page write-up of your own personal study of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
The project involves manipulating historical data housed in an online database to
investigate a region of the world directly affected by the traumatic Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade. You will synthesize and analyze data about slave ship voyages by comparing and
contrasting the geography, demographics, and outcomes of specific transatlantic slave trade
passages. You will compile the data into a table form and write an essay explaining your
findings.
20% Essay 2 – Take Home Midterm Week 10
You will demonstrate your ability to synthesize ideas from lecture materials, readings, guest
lectures, and other media with your own experiences and research in a 4-5 page take-home
mid-term. The midterm will be worth 20% of your final grade. Using as your “primary data”
the dessert/baking sections of three cookbooks, you will conduct original research
pertaining to the concept of foodways and by writing an essay tracking changes through
time.
30% Essay 3 - Finals Week
Throughout the course you will become familiar with key sites and debates in African
Diaspora archaeology. With information gathered from readings you will conduct an Indepth Archaeological Site Study of an African Diasporic type-site. In essay form you will
identify, compare, and contrast the lines of evidence used by the archaeologists in their
investigations of this site in 5-7 pages.
Attendance
Please attend all classes and arrive on time. You are encouraged to inform me of any
emergencies or recurring personal obligations that may affect your attendance via email or
in person during office hours. You are always responsible for any material, including
lecture notes, films, assignments and exams regardless of whether or not you are in class. If
you miss class, please check with another student to find out what you missed. Attendance
will be taken on random days throughout the semester, and if you accumulate five or more
unexcused absences over the course of the semester, the 10% of your grade based on
attendance will be lowered automatically to a zero. The effect of this zero on your final
grade for the course would be to bring the letter grade you would otherwise receive, based
on tests and writing assignments, down a full grade (e.g., from a B to a C). If you continually
text or web surf in class you will be marked as absent. To receive the full 10%, you should
attend class regularly and be an active participant in the class.
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Late Assignments
All assignments must be completed on their assigned due date and are due at the beginning
of class. Any assigned papers must be turned in as hard copies and NOT sent as an attached
document over e-mail. For late assignments 10% of the assignment’s credit will be
deducted for each day that it is late – basically one letter grade will be deducted per day.
Make-up quizzes will be given only with the pre-approval of the instructor and require
valid documentation of the illness or emergency that prevented you from getting to class.
Make-up quizzes must be taken within one week of the original quiz date.
Respect
Class discussion and group projects can be productive only in a climate of respect for the
opinions and beliefs of all. A healthy exchange about issues may include disagreement
about ideas but it must not demean the character or background of the individuals holding
those ideas. Similarly, you must respect the classroom space and the instructor by focusing
your attention on the course during our class meetings.
Class is also not a place for catching up on missed meals or missed sleep. You must turn off
all cell phones and remove them from your desk before class begins, and you are not
permitted to take calls or text messages while in the classroom. You will be asked to
leave the room and will receive an unexcused absence for the day if you violate these
policies repeatedly.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism, or the act of claiming someone else’s work or idea as your own, is a violation of
the University’s policies on academic honesty. In this class (as in all others at UMass
Boston) plagiarism in any form will not be tolerated. We will discuss proper referencing
and plagiarism in class; however, if you have any questions whatsoever please ask me! The
complete UMass Codes of Student Conduct, which details different types of academic
dishonesty can be found at http://www.umb.edu/life_on_campus/policies/code/ and can
also be downloaded as a .pdf file. More information on avoiding plagiarism can be found
here: http://umb.libguides.com/content.php?pid=239509&sid=1976117.
Student referral
Please see me sooner rather than later if you are having difficulty with the course material
and/or with the graded assignments. Tutors are also available for help with reading and
writing through the Reading, Writing, and Study Strategies Center at Academic Support. If it
seems that you are having trouble completing assignments and are in danger of not passing
the course, I may refer you to the Director of the Student Referral Program (University
Advising Center, CC1100, 617-287-5500). The staff in this program will attempt to help you
address the difficulties that are interfering with your success in the class.
Special needs
Your success in this class is important to me. If there are circumstances that may affect
your performance in this course, please let me know as soon as possible so that we may
work together to develop strategies for adapting assignments to meet both your needs and
the requirements of the course. The Ross Center for Disability Services at UMass Boston
(617-287-7430), www.umb.edu/academics/vpass/disability provides resources for
students with disabilities. You will need to provide documentation of disability to them in
order to receive official university services and accommodations.
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For issues impacting tests, you must work out a solution with the instructor at least two
weeks in advance, and you must have documentation from the Lillian Semper Ross Center
for Disability Services (http://www.umb.edu/academics/vpass/disability/). Every effort
will be made to accommodate your particular situation.
Email You should check your UMass email account on a regular basis in order to receive
emails from the University and your Professors. I will periodically send out reminders and
other information via your @umb.edu account. Please contact
http://www.umb.edu/it/getting_services/email if you do not have a student account
and/or if you have any questions. If you would like to forward your UMass email to another
account that you check more frequently see this link:
http://www.umb.edu/it/getting_services/email/office365/o365_forward/.
List of topics and readings by class
Please complete readings in anticipation of the scheduled class meeting. Lectures and
classroom discussions will not always limit their focus to the readings, but may bring in
other material and information.
Week 1: What is the African Diaspora
Required readings:
Harrison, Faye, and Ira Harrison
1999 Introduction: Anthropology, African Americans, and the Emancipation of a
Subjugated Knowledge. In African American Pioneers in Anthropology, pp. 1–36. University
of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Palmer, Colin
2001 The African Diaspora. The Black Scholar 30(3-4): 56-59.
Week 2: Establishing the historical context of the African Diaspora
Required readings:
Gomez, Michael
1998 Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. (Chapters 1,
2, 3)
Week 3: The origins of African Diaspora archaeology
Required readings:
*Singleton, Theresa
1999 An Introduction to African-American Archaeology. In “I, Too, Am America:
Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp. 1-20,
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Kelly, Kenneth
2004 The African Diaspora Starts Here: Historical Archaeology in Coastal West Africa. In
African Historical Archaeologies, edited by Paul Lane and Andrew Reid, pp. 219-241, Kluwer
Academic/Plenum Press, New York.
Davies-Agbe, Anna S.
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2007 Practicing African American Archaeology in the Atlantic World. In Archaeology of
Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora, Akinwumi Ogundiran and Toyin Falola, editors, pp.
413–425. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.
Suggested readings:
*Posnansky, Merrick
1999 West Africanist Reflections on African-American Archaeology. In “I, Too, Am
America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp.
21-38. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Franklin, Maria, and Larry McKee
2004
African Diaspora Archaeologies: Present Insights and Expanding Discourses.
Historical Archaeology 38(1):1–9.
Week 4: Africa
Required readings:
Decorse, Christopher
*1999 Oceans Apart: Africanist Perspectives on Diaspora Archaeology. In “I, Too, Am
America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp.
132-158. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
* Equiano, Olaudah
1789 The interesting narrative of the life of O. Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African,
written by himself. Dover Publications, New York. (entire book)
Suggested readings:
McIntosh, Susan Keech, and Ibrahima Thiaw
2001 Tools for Understanding Transformation and Continuity in Senegambian Society,
1500-1900. In West Africa During the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaeological Perspectives,
Christopher R. DeCorse, editor, pp. 16–37. Leicester University Press, London.
Monroe, J. Cameron
2010 Dahomey and the Atlantic Slave Trade: Archaeology and Political Order on the
Bight of Benin. In Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora, Akinwumi
Ogundiran and Toyin Falola, editors, pp. 100–121. Indiana University Press, Bloomington,
Indiana.
Week 5: Archaeology of plantations and slavery
Required readings:
Essay 1 - Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Due
*Gomez, Michael
1998 Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. (Chapters 5,
6)
*Epperson, Terrence W.
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1999 Constructing Difference: The Social and Spatial Order of the Chesapeake Plantation.
In “I, Too, Am America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton,
editor, pp. 159-172. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
*Armstrong, Douglas V.
1999 Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Caribbean Plantation. In “I, Too, Am America:
Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp. 173-192.
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Suggested readings:
Ascher, Robert, and Charles H. Fairbanks
1971 Excavation of a Slave Cabin: Georgia, U.S.A. Historical Archaeology 5:3–17.
Farnsworth, Paul
1993 What Is the Use of Plantation Archaeology: No Use At All, If No One Else Is
Listening. Historical Archaeology 27(1):114–116.
Singleton, Theresa A.
2001 Slavery and spatial dialectics on Cuban coffee plantations. World Archaeology 33(1):
98-114.
Week 6: Theories of cultural retention and change
Required readings:
*Ferguson, Leland
1992 Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800. Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC, pp. xxi-62, 63-96 [Prologue, Introduction, Chapter 1, 2, 3]
Week 7: Ritual and religion
Required readings:
*Ferguson, Leland
1992 Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800. Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC, pp. 109-125 [Chapter 4, Epilogue]
Leone, Mark P., Gladys-Marie Fry, Timothy Ruppel
2001 Spirit Management among Americans of African Descent. In Race and the
Archaeology of Identity, Charles E. Orser, Jr., editor, pp. 143-157.
Gomez, Michael
1998 Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. (Chapter 7)
Suggested reading:
Gomez, Michael
1998 Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. (Chapter 8)
Cabak, Melanie A., Mark D. Groover, and Scott J. Wagers
1999 “Health care and the Wayman AME Church." Historical Archaeology (1995): 55-76.
Week 8: Archaeology of race and racism
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Required readings:
*Perry, Warren and Robert Paynter
1999 Artifacts, Ethnicity, and the Archaeology of African Americans. In “I, Too, Am
America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp.
299-310. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Orser, Charles E., Jr.
1998 The Challenge of Race to American Historical Archaeology. American
Anthropologist 100(3):661–668.
Franklin, Maria
2001 The Archaeological Dimensions of Soul Food: Interpreting Race, Culture, and AfroVirginian Identity. In Race and the Archaeology of Identity, pp. 88–107. The University of
Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Mullins, Paul S.
1999 Race and the Genteel Consumer: Class and African American Consumption,
1850-1930. Historical Archaeology 33(1): 22-38.
Week 9: Power and Resistance--the Caribbean and South America
Required readings:
*Gomez, Michael
1998 Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the
Colonial and Antebellum South. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. (Chapter
10)
Agorsah, Kofi
1993 The Archaeology and Resistance History in the Caribbean. African Archaeological
Review 11:175–195.
Schavelzon, Daniel
2007 The vanishing people: Archaeology of the African population in Buenos Aires. In
Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora, Akinwumi Ogundiran and Toyin
Falola, editors, pp. 372-382. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.
Suggested reading:
Wilkie, Laurie
2000 Culture Bought: Evidence of Creolization in the Consumer Goods of an Enslaved
Bahamian Family. Historical Archaeology 34(3): 10-26.
Week 10: Archaeology of freedom and emancipation
Required readings:
Essay 2 - Midterm Take Home - Foodways Due
*Heath, Barbara J.
1999 Your Humble Servant: Free Artisans in the Monticello Community. In “I, Too, Am
America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp.
193-218. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
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*Deagan, Kathleen A. and Jane Landers
1999 Fort Mose: Earliest Free African-American Town in the United States. In “I, Too, Am
America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp.
261-282. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Shackel, Paul A.
2011 New Philadelphia: An Archaeology of Race in the Heartland. University of California
Press, Berkeley, pp. 75-91 (Chapter 6 --Race and the Illusion of Harmony)
Suggested reading:
Armstrong, Douglas
2011 Excavating Inspiration: Archaeology at the Harriet Tubman Home, Auburn, New
York. In Materiality of Freedom: Archaeologies of Postemancipation Life, Jodi A. Barnes,
editor, pp. 263–276. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.
Week 11: Gender and Black Feminism
Required readings:
*Battle-Baptiste, Whitney
2011 Black Feminist Archaeology. Left Coast Press, California, pp. 7-9, 19-108.
Week 12: Intersectionality
Required readings:
*Battle-Baptiste, Whitney (continued)
2011 Black Feminist Archaeology. Left Coast Press, California, pp. 109-171
Suggested readings:
Barnes, Jodi A.
2011 Land Rich and Cash Poor: The Materiality of Poverty in Appalachia. Historical
Archaeology 45(3): 26–40.
Week 13: Public archaeology and the politics of the past
Required readings:
Franklin, Maria
1997 “Power to the People”: Sociopolitics and the Archaeology of Black Americans.
Historical Archaeology 31(3): 36–50.
LaRoche, Cheryl J., and Michael L. Blakey
1997 Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground.
Historical Archaeology 31(3): 84–106.
McDavid, Carol
2011 From “Public Archaeologist” to “Public Intellectual”: Seeking Engagement
Opportunities Outside Traditional Archaeological Arenas. Historical Archaeology 45(1): 24–
32.
Suggested readings:
Babiarz, Jennifer J.
2011 White Privilege and Silencing Within the Heritage Landscape: Race and the Practice
of Cultural Resource Management. In The Materiality of Freedom: Archaeologies of
Postemancipation Life, Jodi A. Barnes, editor, pp. 47–57. University of South Carolina Press,
Columbia.
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Week 14: Archaeology and memory
Required readings:
*Chappell, Edward A.
1999 Museums and American Slavery. In “I, Too, Am America: Archaeological Studies of
African-American Life, Theresa A. Singleton, editor, pp. 240-258. University Press of Virginia,
Charlottesville.
Bograd, Mark
1992 Apologies Expected: Facing Up to Slavery at Historic House Museums. History News
47(1): 20–21.
Stahl, Ann
2004 Making History in Banda: Reflections on the Construction of Africa’s Past. Historical
Archaeology 38(1): 50–75.
Osei-Tutu, Brempong
2007 Ghana’s “Slave Castles,” Tourism, and the Social Memory. In Archaeology of Atlantic
Africa and the African Diaspora, Akinwumi Ogundiran and Toyin Falola, editors, pp. 185–
198. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.
Week 15: The archaeology of the black experience in New England
Required readings:
Essay 3 - Final Essay - In-Depth Archaeological Study Due
Deetz, James
1977 Parting Ways. In In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life,
Anchor Books, New York, pp. 187-211.
Garman, James C.
1994 Viewing the Color Line Through the Material Culture of Death. Historical
Archaeology 28(3): 74–93.
Suggested reading:
Paynter, Robert
2001 The Cult of Whiteness in Western New England. In Race and the Archaeology of
Identity, Jr. Orser, Charles E., editor, pp. 125–142. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
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