The Evolution Of African American Settlement On A Georgia Plantation

Summary

Investigations of an African American slave and freedpeople settlement near Savannah, Georgia revealed the sequence of its internal organization between its establishment as a plantation slave quarter in the 1820s and its abandonment at the end of the century.  Reconstruction of the quarter's layout suggested that at the time of its establishment, houses were arranged in an informal cluster according to principles the slaves established. Later in the antebellum period, the quarter took on a linear configuration that corresponded to a more typical plantation layout.  This change was accompanied by new architectural styles. Almost immediately after the Civil War, however, the settlement organization reverted to a clustered arrangement associated with the African-American Gullah/Geechee culture.  The study thus documented the presence of African or African-American settlement traits in the early 1800s as well as suggesting their quick re-adoption once planter-enforced settlement rules were removed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Narratives Not Forgotten: New Directions in Plantation Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 54