Spirits And Spirituality: Drinking, Smoking, And Racial Uplift In 19th Century Nantucket, MA

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "An Archaeology Of Freedom: Exploring 19th-Century Black Communities And Households In New England." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Boston University and UMass Boston excavations at the Nantucket African Meeting House and neighboring Boston-Higginbotham House provide a unique opportunity to investigate the relationship between institutions and individual materiality. Throughout the 19th century, African Meeting Houses encouraged free black communities to refrain from drinking and smoking as part of a larger project of racial uplift. This paper explores the effect of this messaging on drinking and smoking practices at the Boston-Higginbotham House through a diachronic analysis of bottle glass and pipe densities. Results are put into conversation with contemporary African Meeting Houses in New England, such as the Boston African Meeting House, to broaden archaeological understandings of the role of community institutions in shaping racial identity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• An Archaeology Of Freedom: Exploring 19th-Century Black Communities And Households In New England.   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 454