480 p., By the end of 1825, 6,000 African Americans had left the United States to settle in the free black Republic of Haiti. After arriving on the island, 200 immigrants formed an enclave in what is now Samaná, Dominican Republic. The Americans in Samaná continued to speak English, remained Protestant (in a country of devout Catholics), and retained American cultural practices for over 150 years. Relying on historical archaeological methods, this dissertation explores the processes of community formation, maintenance, and dissolution, while paying particular attention to intersections of race and nation.
Discusses an investigation into the archaeology of the African Diaspora carried out in 2001 in Guadeloupe. In this first attempt to identify archaeological remains associated with the living spaces of enslaved Africans in the French West Indies
271 p., Uses W.E.B. Du Bois' reference to the worlds 'within and without the veil' as the narrative setting for presenting the case of an African-Bahamian urban cemetery in use from the early 18th century to the early 20th century. The author argues that people of African descent lived what Du Bois termed a 'double consciousness.' Thus, the ways in which they shaped and changed this cemetery landscape reflect the complexities of their lives. Since the material expressions of this cemetery landscape represent the cultural perspectives of the affiliated communities so changes in its maintenance constitute archaeologically visible evidence of this process. Evidence in this study includes analysis of human remains; the cultural preference for cemetery space near water; certain trees planted as a living grave site memorial; butchered animal remains as evidence of food offerings; and placement of personal dishes on top of graves.
189 p., A study of cultural resource management initiatives and the extent to which archaeological surveys and excavations include or exclude African Caribbean contemporary and historic communities, throughout these processes. Data were collected through archival research, interviews and surveys and analyzed qualitatively to examine the degree to which stakeholders, particularly those who have been historically marginalized, have been incorporated into these processes.
Archaeologists are studying changes in slaves' lives in the Caribbean and the United States. Some 57,000 artifacts have been recovered from Papine, ranging from tools to ceramics to glass bottles to beads. A number of ackee trees grow on the site, and oral tradition has it that ackee and other fruit trees are good indicators of historic habitation sites.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
509 p., Presents a diverse, richly textured picture of Africans' experiences during the era of the Atlantic slave trade and offers the most comprehensive explanation of how African lives became entangled with the creation of the modern world. Includes Emmanuel Kofi Agorsah's "Scars of brutality : archaeology of the Maroons in the Caribbean."
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
319 p., Africans in Jamaica developed and exhibited a multiplicity of cultural identities and a complex set of relationships amongst themselves, reflective of their varied cultural, political, social, and physical origins. In the context of late-18th and early-19th century Buff Bay, Jamaica, most Africans were enslaved by whites to serve as laborers on plantations. However, a smaller group of Africans emerged from enslavement on plantations to form their own autonomous Maroon communities, alongside the plantation context and within the system of slavery. These two groups, enslaved Africans and Maroons, had a very complex set of relationship and identities that were fluid and constantly negotiated within the Jamaican slave society that was in turn hostile to both groups.
Kelly,Kenneth G. (Author) and Hardy,Meredith D. (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
Gainesville: University Press of Florida
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
250 p, Introduction /Kenneth G. Kelly and Meredith D. Hardy -- -- French Protestants in South Carolina: the archaeology of a European ethnic minority /Ellen Shlasko -- -- French refugees and slave abuse in Frederick County, Maryland: Jean Payen de Boisneuf and the Vincendière Family at L'Hermitage Plantation /Sara Rivers-Cofield -- -- Commoditization of persons, places, and things during Biloxi's second tenure as capital of French colonial Louisiana /Barbara Thedy Hester -- -- The Moran site (22HR511): an early-eighteenth-century French colonial cemetery in Nouveau Biloxi, Mississippi /Marie Elaine Danforth -- -- The greatest gathering: the second French-Chickasaw War in the Mississippi Valley and the potential for archaeology /Ann M. Early -- -- Colonial and Creole diets in eighteenth-century New Orleans /Elizabeth M. ScottShannon Lee Dawdy -- -- Colonoware in Western colonial Louisiana: makers and meaning /David W. MorganKevin C. MacDonald -- -- Living on the edge : foodways and early expressions of Creole culture on the French colonial Gulf Coast frontier /Meredith D. Hardy -- -- La Vie Quotidienne : historical archaeological approaches to the plantation era in Guadeloupe, French West Indies /Kenneth G. Kelly -- -- Archaeological research at Habitation Loyola, French Guiana /Allison BainRéginald AugerYannick Le Roux -- -- Commentary /John de Bry.
One of the central goals of archaeology is the definition of regional cultural succession. Since at least the 1960s, archaeology has purported to have moved beyond the strictures of Culture History, and yet the constructs of that paradigm (styles, periods, cultures) continue to be used routinely. This work aims to show that by doing so, one is still implicitly subscribing to that theoretical perspective's assumptions and biases.
186 p., Preacher's Cave, an archaeological site in North Eleuthera, Bahamas, is arguably one of the most important historical places in that country. This large cave, isolated in a natural setting, has long been associated in the popular imagination with the first English colonists who shipwrecked in the Bahamas in 1648 and laid the foundation for the modern nation. Before the present work, no systematic scientific archaeological work had ever been conducted at this site. These excavations, in conjunction with the written record, also suggest that the area surrounding the site is the location of the first free black community in the country.
The article reports on archaeologists search for archaeological sites of the Maroons, runaway slaves of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in West Indies. Archaeologists claim that Maroons have the ability to become invisible. The efficacy of their tactic has made them elusive to slavery. It states that the constant threat of recapture and castigation on the island of Saint Croix led them to hide in remote, defensible spots that were hard to see. Moreover, archaeologists face difficulties in predicting the locations of the Maroons because they are do not leave any evidence of their presence.
Paul R. Fish (author / Department of Anthropology), Charles M. Baker (author / Department of Anthropology), Charles Pearson (author / Department of Anthropology), and Institute of Community and Area Development, University of Georgia
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
June 1977
Published:
Institute of Community and Area Development, University of Georgia
Location:
City Planning & Landscape Architecture Reference and Resource Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 29; Folder: 18
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
209 p, Contents: Introduction -- The first human colonization of the Caribbean -- The Saladoid phenomenon -- The Taíno -- The Caribbean on the eve of European contact -- The Caribbean after the arrival of Europeans -- Conclusions