Carving a Kingdom from the Trunk of the Plantation Tree: Archaeology of the Hutchinson House and the Legacy of the "Black Kings" of Edisto Island

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Emancipation provided the Gullah Geechee with the opportunity to craft their own communities and economies. On Edisto Island, prominent Gullah Geechee were known as the “Black Kings” of the Island.  James Hutchinson was one of the kings, and created a community landscape by forming a consortium of freemen who purchased and subdivided former plantation lands.  His son Henry would build a home on one of these lots that would serve as a refuge to others during severe weather, and operated a cotton gin to process cotton grown by other community members.  This home is currently being restored by the Edisto Island Open Land Trust.  Archaeological survey of the Hutchinson House illustrates the transition of the landscape from the plantation era to the Hutchinson’s community, the ways in which the landscape was conceived and organized, and the archaeological imprint of this transition.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• First Steps on a Long Corridor: The Gullah Geechee and the Formation of a Southern African American Landscape   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology