The Apotheosis of Nate Harrison

Summary

Historical accounts of famed San Diego pioneer Nate Harrison (ca. 1833-1920), a former enslaved African-American from the antebellum South, underwent meaningful transformations during the 20th century.  Secondary narratives of the region’s first African-American homesteader grew into some of the county’s most popular and exotic legends.  Local authors repeatedly altered specific details of Harrison’s emancipation, longevity, living quarters, and other related biographical phenomena, resulting in the creation of new myths long after Harrison died in 1920.  Traditional archaeological seriations can be extended to historical texts to show precisely when and how these narrative changes occurred.  Some transformed gradually over time; others changed in a punctuated manner that corresponded with groundbreaking socio-political changes across the nation.  In identifying dynamism in the historical records, this paper is able to situate recent discoveries from the ongoing Nate Harrison Historical Archaeology Project excavations in an archaeology of legend.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018   •
• "Born a Slave, Died a Pioneer": Nate Harrison and the Historical Archaeology of Legend

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 166