Exploring Sustainability and the Realities of Plantation Agriculture at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the past thirty years, landscape archaeology has been used to study Thomas Jefferson’s retreat

home and plantation located in Bedford County, Virginia. A goal of this work has been to cultivate a

deeper understanding of the individuals who lived and labored on Poplar Forest plantation as well as

how their households were connected with the broader world in which they lived. Among other things,

this interdisciplinary work has developed detailed understandings of the property’s environmental

history, extending from the Native American occupation of the property through the 20th century. This

includes a special focus on details related to the lives of the enslaved African Americans who lived on

the property from colonial settlement through emancipation. While the destructive nature of

plantation agriculture and the harsh system that supported it were clearly unsustainable; the historical

archaeology and ecology of Poplar Forest and the surrounding community also reveals instances of

continuity and resiliency amidst the steady flow of change overtime. These and other topics pertinent

to the concept of sustainability may be discussed in the future along a new parkway entrance road at

Poplar Forest, designed to bring visitors through historic plantation fields, woodlands, and wetlands

before arriving at Jefferson’s retreat.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25401