An Archaeology Of Freedom: Exploring 19th-Century Black Communities And Households In New England.

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in 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.

For decades, historical archaeologists have worked to give voice to the experiences of historic black communities, but relatively few studies within the sub-discipline of African Diaspora Archaeology have been situated in New England. This symposium will present recent archaeological research focused on free black communities and households in Boston and Nantucket, MA. With slavery abolished in Massachusetts by 1783, the experiences of individuals within free black communities were shaped by this new, post-slavery racialized state. The papers presented here critically explore the effects of this racialization in the formation, expansion, and politicization of these communities throughout the 19th-century. Topics to be discussed include the role and effect of African Meeting Houses, the spatial structure of free black communities, the intersectionality of black identities at the community and household level, experiences of domesticity, and the position of historic black New Englanders within the African Diaspora.