African Diaspora (Other Keyword)
26-50 (102 Records)
This paper uses two geographically disparate case studies to explore the roles of freedom and coercion in the lives of emancipated and self-emancipated people. Comparative archaeologies of freedom have much to teach us about the robust and enduring legacies of slavery. In mid- to late 19th-century Kenya, runaways (in Swahili, watoro) established independent settlements in the hinterlands after escaping enslavement on the coast. In 1879, hundreds of so-called "Exodusters"— African-American...
Diachronic and Spatial Perspectives for Exploring the Ethnogenesis of Afro-Andean Populations in Southern Coastal Peru (2018)
Ecclesiastical records suggest that the Ingenio Valley in Nasca’s northern Rio Grande Drainage has been defined by a predominantly black population since the early 17th century, most of whom worked as enslaved laborers on the two large Jesuit wine haciendas and a number of smaller secular estates in the valley. In this paper I approximate Afro-Andean ethnogenesis in the coastal valleys of Nasca from multiple temporal and spatial scales, considering both historical documentation and...
Domesticity Through Decoration: An Analysis of Early 19th-Century Ceramic Decorative Motifs from the Boston-Higginbotham House, Nantucket, MA. (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "An Archaeology Of Freedom: Exploring 19th-Century Black Communities And Households In New England." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Boston’s of Nantucket, a family of African and Native American descent, greatly impacted the development of the free black community of New Guinea during the late 18th-19th centuries. During the 1820s-1830s, Mary Boston-Douglass, a woman who married into the Boston family,...
Dress, Labor, and Choice: An Intersectional Analysis of Clothing and Adornment Artifacts (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Gender Revolutions: Disrupting Heteronormative Practices and Epistemologies" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the midst of racialized servitude, sexual exploitation, and economic disenfranchisement, that marked the post-emancipation era in the United States, African American women were styling their hair with combs, lacing glass beads around their necks, dyeing coarse-cotton fabric with indigo-berry and...
The Earliest Bioarchaeological Evidence of the African Diaspora in Renaissance Romania (2017)
Little documentary or archaeological information currently exists regarding the presence of people of African descent in Eastern Europe during the historical period. Known to have arrived in Europe with the Romans, free and enslaved Africans were common members of European society by the advent of the Renaissance, especially in the Moorish territories and the Ottoman Empire. At the cemetery site of Suceava, located in northeastern Romania, archaeologists in the 1950s excavated two sets of...
Enslavement to Enlistment: the US Military in 19th Century African American Migration and Resettlement (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Bridging Connections and Communities: 19th-Century Black Settlement in North America" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. As has been recently pointed out, the role of the military in African diaspora studies has been little considered, especially as a vector of migration and resettlement. The site of Fort Snelling in Minnesota offers numerous examples of how such migration was facilitated in the 19th century,...
Examining Racialized Space: Understanding Free Communities Of Color Through Property Records (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "An Archaeology Of Freedom: Exploring 19th-Century Black Communities And Households In New England." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. By the 19th century, slavery was abolished in New England and African Americans living in the region were legally free. Despite this, they occupied a tenuous position in American society, with political, economic, and social inequality a constant reality, and the continued...
Forestalling Liberation: Enslaved Refugees in the Pee Dee Region of South Carolina, 1861-1865. (2018)
The well-publicized liberation of Port Royal in late 1861 was a major concern for slaveholders who operated plantations along the coast or near potential military targets. In an attempt to keep their enslaved communities in bondage, many large planters abandoned their plantations and relocated their bondsmen to sparsely populated inland regions far from the probable path of Union forces. The refugeeing of enslaved laborers put entire communities in perilous circumstances tearing apart support...
Forgotten Families of the Furnace: Ancestral Origins and Genetic Relationships Reflected in Death (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Retrospective: 50 Years Of Research And Changing Narratives At Catoctin Furnace, Maryland", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 2015, funding was awarded to the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society to provide data-grounded interpretation of a cemetery and its skeletal remains (circa 1790-1840) previously impacted by development. Phase I involved updated analysis, including assessments of demography, bone and...
Fort Mose: Marginality in Spanish Florida (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies of the Long Emancipation", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Fort Mose was the first legally sanctioned free black community in Spanish North America. In 1693 the Spanish governor of Florida guaranteed the legal freedom of self-emancipated Africans and African Americans if they converted to Catholicism, built and occupied a fort on the frontier of St. Augustine, and fought against Spanish...
Freedom and/or Sovereignty in Black Mobile (2023)
This is a poster submission presented at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 2019 the remains of the Clotilda were located along the Mobile River near Africatown, Alabama. As the last slave ship to enter the United States, the rediscovery of the Clotilda, coupled with the publication of Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon, caused a resurgence in attention to the Africatown community. Founded soon after Emancipation by captive Africans who arrived on the Clotilda,...
The Freeman Family Of Black Governors: Agency And Resistance Through Three Generations (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Enslavement" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. From the mid-18th to mid-19th century, African American communities in New England t developed their own political and cultural structure headed by elected officials known as Black Governors or Black Kings. Black Govenors/Kings operated at the local level and performed several important social functions including heading events, resolving conflicts and...
From Freetown to the City Up North: Mapping Rural to Urban Migration in Early Twentieth Century Austin, Texas (2018)
The mobility patterns of rural black southerners who relocated to southern cities during the early 1900s is an often-overlooked topic in discussions of early twentieth century rural to urban migration. Using geographic information systems (GIS) software to map and analyze census records, city directories, and other historical documents, this paper presents a micro-level case study of the migration and settlement patterns of former residents from Antioch Colony, Texas between the years of 1900...
Historical Archaeology of the Marsh Sugar Plantation, Avery Island, Louisiana (2016)
The Marsh Plantation was a sugar plantation on Avery Island, Louisiana, established in 1818 by northeastern transplants John Marsh and William Stone. Enslaved and "indentured" African Americans were brought from New York and New Jersey by the partners to work the sugar fields and mill. Through two field seasons, we learned more about the lives of the enslaved and free people, as well as the early sugar industry in Louisiana. Issues of heritage tourism, namely, the elision of slavery and the...
A History We Can All See: Using Archaeology In The Secondary Classroom (2023)
With a paucity of written records, archaeology-centered activities offer a unique lens to explore sites of the African Diaspora throughout the Northeast and understand the lives of those who inhabited them. The first step is to engage middle and high school educators in understanding the power of material culture. The authors will share their strategies for training educators to use the methods and findings of archaeological inquiry to engage students in significant and meaningful conversations...
Household Archaeology and Slavery in Tidewater Virginia (2020)
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper focuses on the results of fieldwork at an urban plantation in colonial Williamsburg that once belonged to John Coke, a tradesman and tavern owner. In order to address questions concerning the enslaved household economy and labor, I compared the artifacts from Coke’s quarter to those of two other tidewater plantation sites. An approach which positions these households...
Illegitimate Children, Single Parents, and Methodism in an African American Enclave in the Dominican Republic (2015)
In previous research on an African American enclave in Samaná, Dominican Republic baptism and marriage records have provided a wealth of information; this data has been looked at for marriage patterns within and beyond the confines of the community, naming practices, and even spatial information regarding where individuals lived. This paper, however, will begin a discussion on a component of these documents which has, to date, gone unexplored: legitimacy rates and the baptism of illegitimate...
In Search of Freedom: Investigating 19th Century African American Settlement Development in Southern Indiana (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Silenced Lifeways:The Archaeology of Free African-American Communities in the Indiana and Illinois Borderlands" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. During the early 19th century, free African Americans began moving from North Carolina to Orange County, Indiana, developing a small farming community in Southeast Township. This community, known today as the Lick Creek African American Settlement, thrived for several...
In the Most Unlikely of Places: Marley R. Brown III, the College of William & Mary, and Foundational Moments in African Diaspora Archaeology (2015)
Through the nineties, there were significant moments in the development of African Diaspora archaeology as a field and as a practice. We were moving our focus from the Main House to the daily lives of captive people and interpreting plantation landscapes differently. We witnessed major archaeological discoveries, such as the African Burial Ground in New York City and the Levi Jordan Plantation in Texas, and it was the beginning of lively debates about the practice of community engagement. These...
In the Smokehouse and the Quarter: exploring communities of consumption through faunal remains at the Montpelier plantation (2017)
During the 2015 field season the Montpelier Archaeology Department excavated two smokehouses located in area known as the South Yard, home to enslaved domestic laborers. The excavations unearthed a large faunal assemblage spread across the yard between these structures. This paper serves as the initial findings of my Masters internship through the University of Maryland, which will look at the diet across the three enslaved communities present at Montpelier by comparing...
Interpreting Slavery from Urban Spaces: African Diaspora Archaeology and the Christiansted National Historic Site (2016)
The Christiansted National Historic Site in the US Virgin Islands has served as a landmark site documenting the history of African Diaspora and Danish occupation in St. Croix from 1733-1917. Three archaeological projects surrounding the Danish West India and Guinea Company Warehouse have uncovered a wealth of cultural resources that have lasting implications for the largely Afro-Caribbean descendent Crucian community and for future interpretations of urban slavery in Caribbean contexts....
An Intersectional Analysis of Personal Adornment at the African Meeting House in Boston (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "An Archaeology Of Freedom: Exploring 19th-Century Black Communities And Households In New England." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Built in 1806, the African Meeting House in Boston was a prominent social institution for the free Black community residing on Beacon Hill. Beyond functioning as a church, the African Meeting House was used as a school, housing for community members, as well as a meeting space...
Jumping the Legal Color Line: Negotiating Racial Geographies in the 19th Century (2015)
The legal status and civil rights of Free Persons of Color in the U.S. were constantly being negotiated throughout the 19th century from state to state, and varied from relative amounts of freedom and legal rights to strict "Black Laws" barely removed from slavery. This paper explores the ways in which Free Black Pioneers utilized the changing state and local boundaries (and with them, quickly changing legal status for Free People of Color) to their advantage, capitalizing on their racial...
Liberia’s Plymouth Rock?: Archaeologies of Freedom-Making, Settler Colonialism, and National Heritage on Providence Island (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Global Archaeologies of the Long Emancipation", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The 2022 bicentennial of the arrival of Black Americans to West African shores was a moment of reflection for many Liberians. In the wake of civil war, many questioned the celebratory tone of the occasion and challenged settler heritage narratives. At the same time, Providence Island featured prominently in official programming,...
Looking Through Dirty Dishes: The Preliminary Results of a Ceramic Analysis at Pandenarium (36ME253) (2018)
In recent years, African Diaspora archaeology has become one of the most impactful means by which archaeologists supplement our current understanding of the past. Not only does this subfield have the potential to benefit descendant and local communities, but it also enables professionals to fill in the blank gaps left by the systematic disenfranchisement and intentional illiteracy of an entire group of people. One site with the potential to enhance our understanding of the African Diaspora is...