Identifying "Missing" Slave Cabins On Low Country Georgia Plantations

Summary

Historical archaeologists are familiar with the tensions that exist between documentary, oral history, and archaeological data. On many coastal Georgia plantations, a clear expression of such tension is seen in the documented presence of large slave populations that lived and worked on plantations and the typically miniscule  number of cabins in which the slaves presumably resided, as indicated by historic maps or from in situ structural remains. Typically this dramatic discrepancy is simply ignored, and a minimalist cabin frequency is assumed, no matter the demographic and temporal conundrums this approach entails. Enslaved families had to live somewhere though time and space. This paper offers suggestions about where their elusive cabins may be located, and how they can be identified by archaeologists.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Regional Retrospective Analysis of the Antebellum Atlantic Seaboard   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 803