African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion," at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Forged in Philadelphia by revolutionary minds, the United States Constitution granted freedom and equality to the nation’s citizenry. Yet, many were decidedly left out. For Black Americans, free and enslaved, these concepts were elusive and, through oppression, have never been fully enjoyed. The papers in this session examine African American cultural history and communities, marginalization and rebellion, freedom and enslavement in the upper Mid-Atlantic from the colonial period to the mid-20th century. As an abolitionist stronghold, the voices, experiences, struggles, and advances of the African American community in this region have been traditionally whitewashed and ignored. Archaeologists, historians, consultants, preservationists, and artists in the region have been steadfastly working to bring nuance to African Americans’ important lives and contributions in the region and to share these findings through various forms of research and public engagement.

Other Keywords
Slavery • African American • New Jersey • Ceramics • Church • Museum • Material Culture • Spirituality • Zooarchaeology • Diet

Geographic Keywords
Mid-Atlantic • New Jersey • MIDDLE ATLANTIC • Mid-Atlantic, New Jersey • Maryland • Northeast • New York City • Northeast, United States of America • Middle Atlantic, North America

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-15 of 15)

  • Documents (15)
Documents
  • Beliefs, protection, and personal items: The Archaeology of the Basil & Nancy Dorsey Site, a free African American farm in the Sugarland Community Tara L. Tetrault, Gwendora Reese, Suzanne Johnson, and Jeff Sypeck (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Tara Tetrault. Gwendora Reese. Suzanne Johnson. Jeff Sypeck.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. We began testing the 1874 Basil and Nancy Dorsey site because the Sugarland Ethnohistory Project wanted to learn more about the early settlement. When the Dorsey’s purchased their farm it is believed that they took in members of the Haskin, & Offutt families. Using...

  • Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved in Middletown, NJ (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Zemla.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Archival documentation indicates that at least 12 enslaved African Americans lived and worked at the c. 1756 Marlpit Hall farmhouse in Middletown, NJ. Recent interior exploration of the former slave quarters has revealed concealed tangible representations of material...

  • The Devil to Pay and No Pitch Hot (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason P. Shellenhamer. Lisa A. Kraus.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the early nineteenth century, when African Americans were legally relegated to the extreme margins of society and the economy, Baltimore’s ship caulkers were a rare example of free blacks who dominated a skilled trade. The Ship Caulkers’ Houses, located at 612 and 614...

  • Dunkerhook: An African American Enclave In Paramus, New Jersey (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina Ottey. Emma Gilheany. Megan Hicks. Eric Johnson. Christopher N. Matthews.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Founded by formerly enslaved Africans, the Dunkerhook community grew to be a thriving enclave of free people of color from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. This paper will recount the historical significance of Dunkerhook as well as findings from a recent...

  • Dunkerhook: Transition, Acculturation, and Resilience (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sasha K. Thompson. Emma Gilheany. Megan Hicks. Eric D. Johnson. Christopher N. Matthews.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the mid-19th century, formerly enslaved Africans founded an emergent locality at Dunkerhook, establishing a community of their own. The community flourished an African- American occupancy in the area continued to expand into the early 20th century. Recent archaeological...

  • Echoes of Rebellion: Cultural Reverberation of the 1790s St. Domingue Rebellion in the Delaware Valley (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael J. Gall. Wade P. Catts.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Delaware Valley’s free and enslaved Afro-Caribbean-born/relocated population is a frequently overlooked component of the micro-region’s cultural history. Caribbean-produced colonoware excavated at several sites in Wilmington and at the Garrison Energy site in Dover,...

  • If This Mountain Could Talk: African-American Landscape, Culture and Memory on Sourland Mountain, New Jersey. (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian C Burrow.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Stoutsburg-Sourland African-American Museum (SSAAM), was established in a former AME church in Skillman, NJ, in 2014. Its Mission is to tell the story of the unique culture, experiences, and contributions of the African American community of the Sourland Mountain...

  • Inclusive Collaboration: A Model for Archaeologists Working with Descendant Communities (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth D. Meade. Rachel Watkins.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The tensions resulting from American archaeology’s post-colonial roots are exposed in unique ways during the archaeological investigation of burial places associated with enslavement. In the aftermath of the investigation of Manhattan’s African Burial Ground, advisory...

  • Public/Private Consumption in the Performance of Respectability and Gentility at 71 Joy Street, Boston, MA. (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle R. Cathcart.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. 71 Joy Street was home to several free Black families in the mid-late nineteenth century and working-class white tenants through the early twentieth century. Evidence of their daily lives and identity performances was discovered in the brick-lined privy sealed after...

  • The Revolutionary World of Free Black Man Jacob Francis: 1754-1836 (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only William L. Kidder.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Jacob Francis of Amwell Township, New Jersey experienced indentured servitude in New Jersey, New York, the West Indies, and Salem, Massachusetts ending on his twenty-first birthday in 1775. Overcoming resistance to Black enlistment in the Continental Army, he joined a...

  • Shared Bodies: Social Patterns in Rural East Jersey and the Formation of an African American Community (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Will M. Williams.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Using early 19th-century membership records from the Church of Paramus, this study proposes that systems of indirect enslavement used by Dutch descended families in Bergen County, New Jersey, fulfilled their domestic, farm, and possibly construction labor requirements. The...

  • "Who Would Be Free Themselves Must Strike the Blow": An Archaeology of Armed Resistance at Christiana, PA (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James A. Delle.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the aftermath of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, profiteering vigilantes and corrupt local officials consipred to kidnap and enslave African-American people in the border states of the Mid-Atlantic. Banding together in mutual aid and vigilance societies,...

  • "Will Likely Endeavor to Pass for Free": Runaway Slave Advertisements in New Jersey Newspapers, 1777-1808 (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Amemasor.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The American experiment in liberty was imperfect from the start: the Revolution advanced ideals of universal human equality, but left intact the economic and social underpinnings of slavery. Those ideals nevertheless had their effects on all sides: enslaved people and...

  • William Green Plantation Archaeological Project: Uncovering The Lives Of Indentured And Enslaved Persons In 18th Century Trenton, New Jersey (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nick Weksellblatt. Erin Meyer. George M Leader.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Built around 1720, at its largest, the William Green Plantation covered 360 acres just outside of Trenton, New Jersey. Recently, archaeological excavations at the last remaining building, the original farmhouse, have identified artifacts spanning the entirety of the...

  • Zooarchaeology and GIS: Enslaved and Free Black Diet at a Late Eighteenth– to Mid–Nineteenth–Century Delaware Farm, New Castle County, Delaware, United States (2022)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam R. Heinrich. Michael Gall.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Archaeological investigations at Locus 1 of the Rumsey/Polk Tenant/Prehistoric site (7NCF112) in St. Georges Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, United States have found spatially distinct features and artifacts that provide information about the lives of eighteenth–...