African American Plantation Life

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African American Plantation Life
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Thematic Issues in Plantation Archaeology

• Atlantic African Diaspora
• Differences between lives of the enslaved vs.
  lives of free blacks
• African-American identity
• The effects of racism
• Segregation separate institutions
• Accommodation resistance
• Routes to obtaining full US citizenship
• Consumption consumer Choice

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Archaeology of Slavery

• in the US southern colonies Caribbean, slavery
  closely linked to the phenomenon of the
  plantation
• earliest work on slave sites in North American
  historical archaeology initiated by Charles
  Fairbanks in 1968, with the following themes
• Evidence of daily life survival (diet, housing,
  etc.)
• Search for cultural retentions Africanisms?

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Plantation archaeology a few key published sites

• Kingsley Plantation, Florida
• Cannons Point, Simons Island, Georgia
• Butler Island, Georgia
• Carters Grove, Virginia
• Kingsmill Plantations, Virginia
• Rich Neck, Virginia
• Monticello, Virginia
• Andrew Jacksons Hermitage, Tennessee

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Chronological development - 1970s and 80s

• Charles Fairbanks Pioneering work on plantation
  sites in coastal Georgia (and Florida) from late
  1960s (Fairbanks was at University of Florida)
• South Carolina contract archaeology from
  mid-1970s developed new approaches and applied
  pattern recognition to plantation sites.
• In addition, Leyland Fergusons study of locally
  made (S Carolina) colono earthen-wares very
  influential (1977)
• Virginia lots of work done on early colonial
  sites and the big houses of planters.
• deposits of enslaved men and women were looked at
  to interpret their lives behind the big house
  (Ivor Noel Hume - Colonial Williamsburg )
• from mid 1970s studies specifically looked at
  slavery (Bill Kelsos work in Kingsmill,
  Virginia, etc)

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Slavery and Plantation Archaeology

• Plantation archaeology laid the foundations of
  African-American archaeology and continues to
  give it direction most understandings of
  African-American life are still derived from
  plantation studies
• The initial intentional studies had two
  purposes
• to provide information on the daily lives or
  living conditions of enslaved African Americans
  missing from histories
• to examine how African heritage influenced
  African-American culture

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Frameworks for Plantation Archaeology

• Generally one of two approaches
• How did the economic function of the plantation
  organize plantation work?
• - how did cash crop requirements or labour
  arrangements structure the lives of slaves ?
• - how did slaves have access to material
  possessions and provide food and other items for
  themselves? (see Singleton, Orser)
• How did economic structure of plantation shape
  social structures and class relations ?

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Frameworks for Plantation Archaeology
A third approach more may be termed the
Culturalist framework. This attempts to looks at
plantation social relations beyond purely
economic considerations. Plantation life is
defined as a complex of shared experiences formed
from the forced interactions of planters and
labourers from different cultural traditions
looking at interplay of planter domination and
resistance Some researchers focus on perceived
African continuities house forms, ceramic forms
and use, ritual Others study the process of
creolization a process of multicultural
exchange and interaction
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The Myth of the Negro PastMelville J.
Herskovits (1895 1963)

• Herskovits was a pioneer in Black studies who
  with his 1941 work, The Myth of the Negro Past
  (1990), almost single-handedly dismantled the
  long-standing belief that people of African
  descent did not retain any remnants of African
  culture or beliefs. These cultural retentions
  were termed by Herskovits to be "Africanisms.

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Kingsley Plantation, Florida, 1814-1900

• Charles Fairbanks excavated at the Kingsley
  Plantation in Duval County, Florida
• in 1968. This had been a slave training centre
  he hoped to find Africanisms
• but was not sure what to expect

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Kingsley Plantation, Florida
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Kingsley Plantation, Florida
Recent work, 2006-07
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Charles Fairbanks (19842) "Kingsley had been a
slave importer, with perhaps an unusually
permissive attitude towards his charges. I had
done what appeared to be an adequate amount of
research to establish a number of things that I
hoped to demonstrate. Among these were the search
for Africanisms among the material artifacts of
those newly arrived slaves, evidence of
adaptation in housing, dress, behavior to the new
situation, and data on lifestyle...... No
evidence of Africanisms was found, even though we
were digging in the structures of an unusually
permissive slave owner, dealing with newly
imported slaves. Belatedly realizing that the
slaves came naked and in chains, I still could
not understand why they did not recreate some
African artifacts."
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Cannons Point Plantation, Georgia
Cannons Point Plantation (1794-1860) St Simons
Island, Georgia
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Cannons Point Plantation, Georgia

• John Otto (a Fairbanks PhD student) excavated at
  Cannons Point
• Instead of looking for residual Africanisms he
  looked for evidence of status differences
• ceramics found at sites associated with slave,
  overseer, master

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Millwood Plantation, Abbeville, South Carolina
Charles Orser used a Marxian framework to look at
post-bellum tenant occupation at, where he
identified five classes of plantation occupants
landlord, millwright, tenant, servant, and
wage labourer. Orser concluded that material
differences between tenure groups were not based
entirely upon ethnicity or race but upon ones
position in the plantation hierarchy
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Colono Ware
Leland G. Ferguson
Originally defined by Ivor Noel Hume (1962) as
Colono-Indian wares now believed to have been
produced by enslaved Africans one of the most
visible aspects of African American culture in
Colonial America (Joseph 1993)
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Some colono-ware was made into European-styled
forms including cups, chamber pots, pitchers,
porringers, and pipkins Ivor Noel Hume suggested
that Indians made them to be traded with English
settlers. Another category may be similar to
forms important in West Africa. The social
meaning of colonowares was investigated by
Ferguson (Ferguson, 1989 1991) Crosses found on
pots related to Kongo religion and the making of
minkisi or sacred medicines Congo-Angolan
peoples also associated the pots with water many
have been found in water.
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Butler Plantation, Georgia

• Theresa Singletons undertook PhD research on
  Butler Plantation
• Examined treatment of slaves at plantation
  infirmary
• Found evidence for self-medication, and care

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Theresa Singleton

• Current research in Ghana and Cuba
• Advocates Afro-centric perspective on the
  archaeology of the African Diaspora
• Notes that Fairbanks early efforts constituted a
  moral mission to remedy gaps in our knowledge
• Observes that contemporary archaeologists of the
  African Diaspora are more interested in social
  action
• Concern for descendant groups
• Interested in getting more African-Americans
  involved in historical archaeology

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Carters Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
Carter's Grove is a 750 acre site located on the
north shore of the James River. The plantation
was built for Carter Burwell and was completed in
1755.
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Carters Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
Social contestation reflecting desire to
control people and or landscapes. House near the
fields and overseerers houses to watch over slave
quarters
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Carters Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
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Carters Grove, Williamsburg, Virginia
Carters Grove, slaves converted back windows
into doors, providing access to common enclosed
area within, shielded from view by the cabins
(Epperson 1990a34)
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Kingsmill Plantation, Virginia
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Kingsmill Plantation
The Utopia Quarter at Kingsmill
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Sub-floor pits
Root cellars of storage pits have interested many
scholars Especially prevalent in Virginia
(Carters Grove, and Kingsmill, and Monticello)
Usually 2 x 3ft to 5 x 8ft and 2-4 ft deep. Not
found in Georgia (with 1 possible exception) and
South Carolina Is this African derived or
slaves making their own spaces or hiding
things? Not a mark of ethnicity, but of status
within plantation, with a variety of uses
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Kingsmill Plantation
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Kingsmill Plantation
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Rich Neck Plantation
Maria Franklin
Interested in development of Afro-Virginian
culture. Particular interest in gender issues,
women, children, foodways, spiritual beliefs.
Advocates an African feminist perspective
32
Rich Neck Plantation
Rich Neck was one of the founding plantations of
Middle Plantation, preceding Williamsburg. Rich
Necks architectural sophistication set it apart
from nearly all of its colonial neighbours.
Started in 1636 by Richard Kemp, the Secretary
of the Colony, the plantation grew to over 4,000
acres in size by the mid-seventeenth century.
Richard Kemp and his wife Elizabeth built two
structures entirely in brick, a rarity in 1640s
Virginia.
Brick-built houses
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Rich Neck Plantation
Slave quarters
Biomass measures reveal that over 3/4 of the
potential meat at the site would have come from
cattle, pigs, sheep/goat, and unidentifiable
large and medium mammals, with cattle forming the
largest share. Similar rankings were suggested by
the meat weight calculations.
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Rich Neck Plantation near Williamsburg
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Monticello,Virginia
"My opinion has ever been that, until more can be
done for them, we should endeavor, with those
whom fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed and
clothe them well, protect them from ill usage,
require such reasonable labor only as is
performed voluntarily by freemen, and be led by
no repugnancies to abdicate them, and our duties
to them." --Thomas Jefferson, 1814
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Monticello, Virginia
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Monticello
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Monticello
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Monticello
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Slave dwellings Mulberry Row Five log
dwellings for slaves were located on Mulberry Row
in 1796. The Mulberry Row cabins were occupied
mainly by household servants -- women who did the
cooking, washing, house cleaning, sewing, and
child tending. The log cabins range in size from
12'x14' to 12'x20 1/2', with earth floors and
wooden chimneys. Archaeological excavations at
these sites uncovered the cabin foundations,
small brick-lined root cellars (in which slaves
stored food and kept personal possessions), and
thousands of discarded artifacts.
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Monticello
Evidence for four or more architectural phases,
spanning the 18th -19th centuries. Two of these
phases clearly date to Jefferson's tenure. They
are represented by the remains of the "Negro
Quarter," built in the 1770s and by the traces of
Buildings r, s, and t, dating to the 1790s.
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Monticello
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Andrew Jacksons Hermitage
Initially Jackson operated this cotton farm with
nine African-American slaves, but this number
gradually grew to forty-four slaves by 1820.
Jackson rapidly converted the farm into a
prosperous 1,000-acre plantation and supervised
the construction of many outbuildings, including
a distillery, dairy, carriage shelter, cotton gin
and press, and slave cabins at the field
quarters. Jackson typically grew two hundred
acres of cotton as his cash crop with the
remainder of the farm dedicated to producing food
stuffs for the for the Jacksons, their slaves,
and livestock. Jackson also used part of The
Hermitage for his true passion in life, raising
racehorses. Andrew and Rachel lived in the log
farmhouse until the winter of 1820-1821. .
Andrew Jackson died on June 8, 1845 From
Jacksons letters, maps, and other documents
Hermitage archaeologists know that there were at
least one hundred buildings and structures on the
Hermitage Property during Jacksons life. While
some of these buildings have been found, most
have not.
Jackson built a Federal- style, two-story brick
dwelling for his family between 1819 to 1821, and
lived there from 1837, after retiring from the
U.S. Presidency.
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Andrew Jacksons Hermitage
Slave cabins at The Hermitage were a standard
20-foot square cabin for each family unit. Most
were constructed of brick, but some were log.
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Andrew Jacksons Hermitage
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Andrew Jacksons Hermitage
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Archaeology of African Slavery - trends

• Move away from the archaeology of the Great
  House of the Big Man
• To the exploration of the lives of the Big
  Mans slaves
• archaeologists see evidence humane treatment by
  masters
• Evidence commonly found
• catted chimneys
• root cellars (sub-floor pits)
• Colono ware

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Emerging themes

• Atlantic African diaspora
• Resistance
• Cultural resiliency/creolization
• Expressed through syncretism
• in dress
• incorporate symbolism w/dress provided by slave
  masters
• religious syncretism
• recognizing elements of African foodways food
  preparation techniques
• examining traditional medical practice hygiene
• oral discourse - tales, songs, etc.

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Key points

• Fairbanks initiated a new area of research
  interest when he began excavating slave sites
• Initial interest in filling in gaps and
  answering what questions have shifted to why
  and how questions and towards social action
• African-American archaeology now one of the most
  vibrant areas of research in historical
  archaeology now includes many archaeologists of
  African descent