Defined by Place?: Setting the Homes of the Enslaved Community at Montpelier into a Regional Context

Summary

The plantation landscape of Montpelier is one that was rigorously defined by the Madison family.  Set within the mansion’s formal grounds and a model farm were the homes of the enslaved laborers who built and ran this plantation. Four years of excavations at half dozen homes of the enslaved community have revealed much in regard to how both the plantation owners and the enslaved community designed and laid out their homes within this constrained setting.  These include homes for enslaved domestics within the formal grounds of the mansion, a home of an artisan within a work area, and the homes set further from the mansion that are likely residences for enslaved field workers.  While these homes were defined architecturally by their distance from the mansion grounds, we seek to define how the enslaved community defined their own house/yard landscapes by comparing them other enslaved communities in the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bringing back the Community: Archaeology of an Early 19th Century Enslaved Community at James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange County Virginia   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 361