Additional Slave Settlements at Cannon’s Point Plantation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Enslavement" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Thanks to a recent clear cutting approach to eliminating stands of pine-beetle-infested trees at Cannon’s Point Plantation, St. Simons Island, Georgia, an additional slave cabin settlement has been identified. A systematic survey was carried out at the site by the University of Tennessee during the summer of 2018, resulting in the recovery of domestic ceramics, bottle glass, buttons, pipe stems and bowls, tabby mortar and cut nails, and faunal remains; a barrel well was also excavated. None of this material was known by John Otto during his landmark study of Cannon’s Point in the 1970s. We discuss the probable reasons for this serious omission to the Cannon’s Point data base by exploring the reliance that historical archaeologists place on cartographic information, and identifying some of the unique challenges that are associated with undocumented slave settlements.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019   •
• Archaeologies of Enslavement

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 443