A Critical Race Theory and Archaeological Approach to Enslavement at the Dinsmore Plantation

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Global Black Archaeologies: Mobilizing Critical, Anti-Racist, De/Anti-Colonial, and Black Feminist Archaeologies in Uncertain Times", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This article uses critical race theory, archaeological data, and historical archives to examine enslavement and the social and economic dichotomy of slave owners and the enslaved at the Dinsmore plantation. Artifacts recovered from the archaeological excavation of a slave cabin and a geophysical survey (e.g., ground penetrating radar and magnetometry) of the Dinsmore cemetery demonstrate that the lives of slaves were not valued by the slave owners who referred to them as family. In reality, these data demonstrate that the Dinsmore family treated their slaves as property. Thus, it is important to give a voice to those who were enslaved at the Dinsmore plantation and accurately portray the historical consequences of slavery and systemic racism that continues to disproportionately affect African Americans in the United States.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Global Black Archaeologies: Mobilizing Critical, Anti-Racist, De/Anti-Colonial, and Black Feminist Archaeologies in Uncertain Times   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow