Cultural Overview of City Point, Petersburg National Battlefield, Hopewell, Virginia

Summary

In August 2001, the National Park Service and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation initiated a cultural overview of the City Point Unit of the Petersburg National Battlefield in Hopewell, Virginia under Supplementary Agreement #CA4000-2- 1017. The scope of work included the compilation and presentation of “a cultural overview of the City Point area that includes the placement of prehistoric and historic resources in the context of James River and Chesapeake archaeology.” The following report presents this cultural overview of City Point, beginning with evidence for Paleo-Indian activity in the James River region and concluding with a consideration of the twentieth-century history and landscape of the City Point Unit of the Petersburg National Battlefield. Particular attention is paid to the role of the site as a protohistoric Appomattuck village; to the possibility that City Point is the location of the 1613-1622 English village of Charles City; and to the centrality of the African American experience at City Point from at least as early as 1635 through to the present. Specific recommendations incorporated in the cultural overview include the necessity for a comprehensive archaeological survey of the City Point property to ascertain the location and preservation of significant buried resources, which can be drawn upon for future research and interpretation into the whole of human history at the site. Another critical recommendation of the report is the need to address the maritime resources associated with City Point, and the ongoing threats to their integrity, which include extensive looting of shipwrecks and material culture in the James and Appomattox Rivers in territory administered by the National Park Service, as well as the ongoing impact of erosion of the bluffs at City Point.

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Principal Investigator(s): Marley R. III Brown

Prepared By(s): The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Submitted To(s): Petersburg National Battlefield

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