Reconstructing the Landscape of Death: A City-Site Approach to the Study of African American Burials

Summary

This paper summarizes the main findings of an analytical synthesis of archaeological, documentary, and oral history evidence about burial practices relating to enslaved and free African Americans within the geographic confines of the town-sized museum of Colonial Williamsburg and its environs. It addresses a persistent query in the living-history interpretation of this colonial Virginia capital, specifically; «Where did they bury slaves and free blacks?» In the late eighteenth century, the town registered more than one-half of its population as black. With a scattering of archaeologically-studied African American burials and an alleged mid-nineteenth cemetery relating to the same population that remains unexcavated in its historic core, the question impinges on the museums ongoing study and restoration of its designated areas. The paper also highlights socio-religious formations of African Americans to underscore the significance of a city-site approach to the archaeological study and historical reconstruction of the social and cultural landscape of death in Williamsburg, Virginia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Discovering what Counts in Archaeology and Reconstruction: Lessons from Colonial Williamsburg   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-9,09