Identifying with the Help: an Examination of Class, Ethnicity and Gender on a Post-Colonial French Houselot

Summary

The French presence in the Middle Mississippi River valley has received relatively little attention through archaeological investigation. Outbuildings (as well as those living and/or working within outbuildings) in these French contexts, has received even less reflection and deserves to be addressed to understand more fully what life was like in French North America. First owned by the Janis family in the 1790s, the Janis-Ziegler property was designed to house and sustain both the main family and the slaves that they owned. This paper will first examine the function of a post-colonial outbuilding in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. It will also examine various aspects of identity (class, gender, and ethnicity) in the dynamics between masters and slaves to better understand conditions under which slaves lived. The goal of this paper is to paint a clearer, more precise picture of living conditions through material culture’for both the elite and their slaves’within the French community of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Historical Archaeology of French America   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-61,06