Damages, Depredations, Sufferings And Destruction: The Landscape Of Conflict And The "Late War With Great Britain"

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The World Turned Upside Down: Revisiting the Archaeology of the American Revolution" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The eight-year long War for American Independence left physical scars on the new United States. Where armies moved and fought, they left behind devastation. Those scars are reflected in the depredation claims, damage claims, citizens’ petitions for redress and other written records that document the scope of the destruction. Depopulation and dislocation of communities, damages to houses, mills, fences, fields, and loss of personal property and estate marked the war in many areas of the country. Archaeological evidence serves as the physical reminder of this violent period of America’s history. In this paper, we will highlight several landscapes of conflict – the Mohawk Valley, the Delaware River Valley, and Gloucester County, Virginia – and the long-term effects of war in these places. Contrary to the view sometimes put forward by economic historians it took years, sometimes decades, for the population and the local economy to recover from wartime destruction.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The World Turned Upside Down: Revisiting the Archaeology of the American Revolution   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology