Race, Racism, and Montpelier

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Race, Racism, and Montpelier," at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In “How to be an Anti-Racist”, Ibram X. Kendi (2019: 18) describes racism as the “marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequalities.” Montpelier, home to James Madison, our nation’s fourth President, Father of the Constitution, and architect of the Bill of Rights as well as over 300 people enslaved by the Madisons, was at the center of the creation of national policies and ideas that outlined how rights were distributed in the United States. This session will examine Montpelier’s plantation landscape by examining how Madison built racist policy into the landscape, and how it influenced the behavior and ideas of African Americans enslaved by the Madisons, and the white people who lived, worked, and visited. This session will also discuss our efforts, mistakes, and mishaps to enact anti-racist policies in the Montpelier Archaeology Department to combat racism in our home institution and throughout archaeology.