Wounded Spaces, Memory Places: The case of Portland’s African American crewmembers and meaning-making in maritime archaeology

Summary

In 1898, the passenger steamship, Portland, sank with approximately 200 people onboard. In lieu of a physically accessible memorial on land, the narrative that emerges following a ship’s sinking becomes the memorial, with archaeology often informing the ways meaning-making is negotiated in the wake of traumatic events. As part of the symposium, “Confronting the Deep North: Addressing the Legacies of Injustice through Education of African Diaspora Sites in the Northeast of the United States,” this paper discusses the short and long-term impacts on local and regional community identities, specifically Portland’s African American community as one-third of the ship’s crew were African Americans. Their lives and roles that they played in the ship’s community and the larger African American community in Portland exemplify the ways that African Americans negotiated the limited range of options to seek out economic stability and social and cultural associations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow