Native Songs: Music and Mount Vernon’s Enslaved Community
Author(s): Jason Boroughs
Year: 2020
Summary
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
In the twilight of George Washington’s life in 1799, a community of 317 enslaved Africans and African-Americans worked the five contiguous farms that comprised the 8000 acre Mount Vernon plantation enterprise. By far the largest of three principal groups of music-makers, the enslaved community was joined by the Washington household and hired white workers and their families, each associated with unique sites of musical production. Plantations such as Mount Vernon take on heightened significance as sites of cultural exchange that ultimately led to the innovation of new traditions and new distinctly American forms of music, all the while forged in a power dynamic shaped by enslavement. Proceeding from archaeological and historical lines of evidence, this paper examines music-making at Mount Vernon in light of diasporic trends across broader Chesapeake and Atlantic plantation contexts.
Cite this Record
Native Songs: Music and Mount Vernon’s Enslaved Community. Jason Boroughs. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457162)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
African Diaspora
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Chesapeake
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Music-making
Geographic Keywords
United States of America
Temporal Keywords
18th Century
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 921