Laboring in the Landscapes of Learning: The Archaeology of Slavery at Virginia’s Colleges and Universities
Other Keywords
Slavery •
Education •
Plantation •
Gardens •
Race •
Thomas Jefferson •
University •
Ethnoarchaeology •
Silence •
Remembering
Temporal Keywords
Antebellum •
19th Century •
18th-Century •
1780-1860 •
1825 - 1895
Geographic Keywords
North America •
Coahuila (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Nuevo Leon (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-5 of 5)
- Documents (5)
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Enslavement at Liberty Hall: Archaeology, History, and Silence at an 18th-Century College Campus and Ante-Bellum Slave Plantation in Virginia (2016)
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Liberty Hall Academy, the forerunner of Washington and Lee University, operated outside of Lexington, Virginia from 1782 until 1803. When fire consumed the institution’s academic building, the school relocated a half-mile closer to town. Following the move, Andrew Alexander and Samuel McDowell Reid, wealthy local residents and trustees of the school, operated their family farms at the site. Alexander owned between twelve and twenty-four slaves, and on the eve of the American Civil War, Reid...
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"For the instruction of Negro Children in the Principles of the Christian religion": The Bray School Archaeological Project at the College of William and Mary. (2016)
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In 1760, backed by Benjamin Franklin and the College of William and Mary’s faculty, the London based philanthropy known as the Associates of Dr. Bray founded a unique school in Williamsburg, Virginia "for the instruction of Negro Children in the Principles of the Christian religion." Students, male and female, enslaved and free, attended the school where they were taught Anglican catechism in addition to reading, writing and possibly sewing. As the stated objective of the Bray School was...
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"I Likewise Give To Indiana & Elizabeth The Following Slaves...": The Founding of Sweet Briar College and its Racially Charged History (2016)
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In 1858, a transplanted Vermonter, Elijah Fletcher, died in Amherst, Virginia, leaving his antebellum plantation and over 140 enslaved individuals to three of his children. His oldest daughter, Indiana Fletcher Williams, combined this inheritance with some of her own wealth and founded Sweet Briar College in 1900 through a directive in her will. In 2001, I began researching the descendants of the enslaved community, studying an on-campus slave cemetery, and designing brochures and exhibits to...
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The Landscape of Slavery within Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village: The Pavilion VI Garden (2016)
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Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village was built, operated and maintained on the labor of enslaved African Americans. The University of Virginia's unique built environment, the context of slavery within larger central Virginia, and the responsibilities of the white faculty and staff who supervised the operation of the educational institution created a context for slavery unlike other academic institutions. This paper will focus on the landscape of slavery in the nineteenth-century University of...
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Slavery, Race, and the Making of a University in the Capital of the Confederacy (2016)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
In 1994, comingled human remains were accidentally discovered during construction at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) campus of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). The association of these remains with MCV should not have been unexpected. Found in an abandoned well and dating to the first half of the 19th century, these human remains from people of African descent bear grim witness to the desecration of interred individuals in a bid to advance medical knowledge—knowledge that largely...