Phase III Data Recovery Excavations at St. Anne’s Slave Settlement (9GN197), Glynn County, Georgia

Summary

From 17 March to 25 April 2003, Brockington and Associates, Inc., conducted Phase III archaeological data recovery excavations at the St. Anne’s site (9GN197). The site overlaps 9GN203, a prehistoric Late Woodland habitation area. Phase III archaeological data recovery investigations at 9GN203 are reported by Powis (2005), and all prehistoric materials recovered during the St. Anne’s study are discussed in his report.

This study was completed for planning purposes for the Sea Island Company. The real estate development project is still in an early planning phase, and no state or federal agencies have (as yet) required environmental permits. Regardless, this cultural resource investigation was completed to the Secretary of the Interior’s standards and to standards and guidelines required by the Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Site 9GN197 represents five houses comprising the slave quarters, and a cattle-powered cotton gin. These archaeological data provide primary information regarding slave life conditions, available from no other source. The St. Anne’s settlement was initially established in 1824 by Roswell King Jr., the hired overseer at Hampton Plantation. King described St. Anne’s as “temporary housing” for workers who worked 50 to 60 acres of reclaimed marshland for cotton production. Frances “Fanny” Kemble visited these houses 15 years later (1838-1839) and described them as “wretched hovels” “not fit to keep out the weather.” The present archaeological investigations both verify descriptions and identify discrepancies in Kemble’s journal.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Brockington and Associates, Inc.

Keywords

Temporal Coverage

Calendar Date: 1824 to 1860 (primarily 1824-1845)

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Principal Investigator(s): Scott Butler

Landowner(s): The Sea Island Company (Sea Island, Georgia)

Submitted To(s): The Sea Island Company (Sea Island, Georgia); Georgia State Historic Preservation Office

Record Identifiers

Brockington and Associates, Inc., report number(s): 1935

File Information