African Americans, Resistance, and the Spiritual Alteration of the Physical Environment on the Levi Jordan Plantation, Brazoria County, Tx
Author(s): Tara Ruttley; Cynthia Ericson; Kenneth Brown
Year: 2017
Summary
In 1986, the University of Houston began conducting archaeological excavations at the Levi-Jordan Plantation in Brazoria County, Tx in an effort to recover contextual material that would reveal information about the enslaved community, sharecroppers, and tenants who lived at the plantation. Established in 1848, the plantation was home to nearly 150 slaves at its pre-civil war peak, and was a major producer of both sugar and cotton. Early excavations of the curer’s cabin and church revealed evidence of ritual deposits that manifested symbolic representations of African belief systems. While these deposits were first identified in the quarters, two similar deposits have been unearthed near the main house. In 2015, excavations began at the plantation sugar mill to test a model of the placement of ritualistic protective deposits by the enslaved laborers. This paper presents the results of this investigation.
Cite this Record
African Americans, Resistance, and the Spiritual Alteration of the Physical Environment on the Levi Jordan Plantation, Brazoria County, Tx. Tara Ruttley, Cynthia Ericson, Kenneth Brown. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Fort Worth, TX. 2017 ( tDAR id: 435439)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
African
•
Slavery
•
spiritualism
Geographic Keywords
North America
•
United States of America
Temporal Keywords
1840-1900
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 410