Reframing the Refuge: Interpreting Enslavement at Monocacy National Battlefield through Black Feminist Perspectives

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Black Studies and Archaeology" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In 1793 the Vincendiere family fled Saint Domingue with 12 of their enslaved, and settled on a plantation in Frederick, Maryland known as “L’Hermitage". Previous archaeological interpretations at L’Hermitage focused on the Vincendieres attempts at a French-Caribbean model of enslavement in a predominantly German-Protestant community, as well as the ways spacing and symmetry of domestic structures reflect the Vincendieres attempt at constant supervision. In contrast, relatively little is known about the day to day life of the individuals enslaved by the Vincendieres, or their interaction and integration into previously established Black communities in Maryland.

This paper centers the perspective of the enslaved in order to provide alternative interpretations and contextualization of existing archaeological data. In building on theoretical frameworks from Black Studies and Cultural History, I explore the ways that interdisciplinary approaches to archaeological research can provide more holistic, and in so inclusive, interpretations of the historical record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Black Studies and Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology