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The Archaeology of Black Americans in Recent TimesAuthor(s): Mark P. Leone, Cheryl Janifer LaRoche and Jennifer J. BabiarzSource: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 34 (2005), pp. 575-598Published by: Annual ReviewsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064899 .

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The Archaeology of Black

Americans in Recent Times*

Mark P. Leone,1 Cheryl Janifer LaRoche,2 and Jennifer J. Babiarz3

department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742; email: [email protected]

2 Department of American Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742; and Department of History, University of Maryland University College,

Adelphi, Maryland 20783; email: [email protected]

3 Department of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712; email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2005. 34:575-98

The Annual Review of

Anthropology is online at

anthro.annualreviews.org

doi: 10.1146/

annurev.anthro. 34.081804.120417

Copyright ? 2005 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

*Mark Leone was invited to write this review by

Annual Reviews. In order

of effort, our contributors are Cheryl LaRoche,

Mark Leone, and Jennifer Babiarz.

0084-6570/05/1021

0575$20.00

Key Words

African diaspora, maroon, race, gender

Abstract

A review of work on African Americans through archaeology takes

place under diasporic studies and relies on literature that defines

the North American black experience. The focus is on the estab

lishment of freedom by the founding of maroon communities and

independent settlements of free people, as well as on the use and

interpretation of African diasporic history and theory, particularly

by archaeologists using knowledge of the diaspora to effect modern

political change.

515



Contents

DIASPORA. 576

COMMUNITY STUDIES WITHIN THE DIASPORA. 577

RACE, RACISM, AND

ETHNICITY.580

IDENTITY, ETHNICITY, AND

HUMAN GENETICS. 581

MATERIAL CULTURE IN THE DIASPORA. 582

RITUAL, SPIRITUALITY, AND

MEMORY. 584

GENDER IN AFRICAN AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY. 585

CONTEMPORARY USES OF ARCHAEOLOGY. 587

ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, AND IDENTITY. 589

CONCLUSION. 590

DIASPORA

The legacy of the African diaspora has within it a quest for independence that until recently

received little scholarly attention. Because of

the political position of diaspora studies, our

job is to highlight the scholarship of that

legacy within the range of responses to en

slavement that locates slavery in a less promi nent position than it previously occupied as

the defining diasporic experience. In this re

view we identify how archaeologists have ex

plicated racialized landscapes, using them to

reveal the structures of racism and the me

chanics of oppression inherent in the forma

tion of the African diaspora. Studies centered

on transadantic slavery omitted independent

communal responses such as that seen in

Haiti in the late eighteenth century (Trouillot

2002). Some contemporary research focuses

on the role of resistance and escape from

oppression as vehicles for understanding the

black diaspora.

We see the African diaspora as not

only an enormous, almost global event, but also

a scholarly development. We report scholar

ship aimed at investigating antiblack racism

and at highlighting transnational as well as

local, political, and communal responses to

enslavement. We see the diaspora as

being

approached successfully not only through

the traditional critiquing of profit-making systems, mosdy capitalism and colonialism,

and their supporting ideology of racism, but

also through understanding identity forma

tion, ethnicity, and intersectionality.

"The archaeology of the post-Columbian

African Diaspora has the potential to be

come one of the most important kinds

of archaeology in the world" (Orser 1998,

p. 63). Orser provides a road map for the fu

ture of the subfield. As archaeologists working on

plantation sites move beyond functional

ism, topics worthy of pursuit include the ma

terial aspects of freedom from enslavement,

the archaeology of cultural identity, and the

archaeological examination of racism. Mod

ern archaeology proceeds with the under

standing that the influences of global capital

ism, imperialism, colonialism, and racism are

alternately and simultaneously in operation.

From East Africa (Kusimba 2004) to Canada

(Nevin 1994, 1998; Powell & Nevin 1998),

diasporic archaeological investigations follow

other disciplines in the study of ethnicity by

reemphasizing the historical interconnected

ness of Africa and the colonial sites occupied

by Africans and their descendants through out the Adantic world (Lovejoy & Trotman

2003a, p. 1). For some time now, the con

tinually evolving topic of identity has moved

away from a common monolithic "African"

toward diverse ethnic communities that com

prise the diaspora. The mutability of dias

poric identity is evinced in modern contexts

as well, as the term African American is be

ing increasingly applied to African descen

dants throughout the Americas. The field is

moving toward studies of black communities,

whether those communities are maroon sites

or free black settlements. Plantation sites ar

chaeology continues to occupy the discipline,

although excavations at seventeenth- and

$j6 Leone LaRoche Babiarz



Figure 1

Adrinka symbols on

hand-carved wooden

coffins from Ghana

prior to on-site

reburial at the

African Burial

Ground (ABG), New York City. Photo: Cheryl J. LaRoche.

www.annualreviews.org The Archaeology of Black Americans in Recent Times C-l



eighteenth-century plantations located from

Massachusetts to western Maryland also chal

lenge traditional definitions of plantations and

reveal that static nineteenth-century interpre

tations of Southern plantation sites are ge

ographically narrow and temporally limited

(Malakoff 2004). Investigations byMrozowski (2003), Sawyer & Perry (2003), Rivers et al.

(2003), Catts & Silber (2003), and Bankoff &

Winter (2003), among others, into Northern

plantations are finding direct economic and

familial connections between Northern plan

tation sites and properties in the Caribbean, which often functioned as provisioning

plantations.

The historical archaeology of African

Americans in the Americas has been dom

inated by excavations of plantations in

the American South and the Caribbean

(Singleton 1995, Orser 1998). Singleton (1985, 1999), Agorsah (1994), and Orser

(1996) helped move the discourse away from

plantation archaeology toward the archaeol

ogy of the African diaspora. No longer con

cerned with recordation of black historical el

ements, the transformed goal of archaeology

posited by Singleton evolved from the study of a

"forgotten people to the story of the for

mation and transformation of the black At

lantic world" (Singleton 1999, p. 1). Seeking to include Africanist archaeologists in the dis

course, Agorsah (1994) looked to both sides of

the Atlantic to inform the "dual character of

the archaeology of the diaspora" (Singleton 2001). Orser (1998) articulates the future of

the subfield in his discussion of broadening historical archaeology to include sites outside

the United States for a fuller conceptualiza tion of the experiences of African-descendant

populations around the world. Moving the lo

cus away from the European encounter, Orser

is more interested in the global encounters

of Africans in the post-Columbian world and

includes the African presence in early mod

ern Europe, which has usually been over

looked (Orser 1998). Singleton highlights not

only cultural identity, race, gender, and class

but also "cultural interaction and change;

relations of power and domination; and

the sociopolitics of archaeological practice"

(Singleton 1999, p. 1). Revealing the rich

vein of diasporic studies, Franklin & McKee

(2004) seek current methodological, theoret

ical, and/or political locations of the African

diaspora. To build on these directions, in ad

dition to race and racism, we focus on the ar

chaeology of resistance at maroon sites and

other black communities; the Underground Railroad (UGRR) movement in the United

States; the material manifestations of iden

tity, human genetics, spirituality, recent works

on gender, and the contemporary uses of

archaeology.

COMMUNITY STUDIES WITHIN THE DIASPORA

Specialists in African American studies are

needed to bring robust interpretations to the

archaeological record (Singleton 1997). As

Africans, African Americans, and indigenous

peoples within the diaspora bring meaning ful contributions to their various fields of

study, the tone and scope of the research

agenda shifts away from enslavement to

ward freedom, away from oppression toward

resistance, and away from passivity toward

agency.

Orser identifies "the romantic notion

of African rebels openly defying the slave

regime" as one of the attractions of maroon

sites. In addition to information pertaining to

power relationships, social connections, and

economic, political and spiritual life, he ob serves that a "romantic and noble character

of research" intrigues archaeologists (Orser

1998, p. 69). The historical overemphasis

placed on slavery has created the illusion that

the quest for a balanced conveying of expe

riences within the diaspora is instead a ro

mantic need to reconceptualize a history of

slavery and disempowerment. Resistance is a

phenomenon that cannot be separated from

slavery or oppression. This has also been re

peatedly stated by several scholars such as

Singleton (1985), Beckles & Shepherd (1991),

UGRR:

Underground Railroad

ABG: African burial

ground

www.annualreviews.org The Archaeology of Black Americans in Recent Times 577



and Heuman (1986). Therefore, resistance

and escape remain an inseparable part of New

World history (Agorsah 1994, p. xii) and as

such should constitute an inseparable part

of the research agenda within historical ar

chaeology. Consider, for example, the colonial

power in Jamaica, which recognized that the

escapee community determined the course of

historical events. The British, "from the time

of Charles II in 1658 to George III in 1795, had to ceaselessly grapple with the desperate

fight of the slaves, who were struggling for

their freedom, and escapees also struggling

to maintain their freedom" (Agorsah 1994,

p.ix).

Archaeology is a vehicle through which

the origin, evolution, and material compo

nents of diasporic communal formations can

be understood. From the earliest moments

of slavery, escapees across the diaspora used

flight to alleviate their conditions (Price 1979,

Morgan 1999). Tens of thousands of blacks es

caped Southern slavery by fleeing to North ern states, the Old Northwest, Florida, and

other parts of the American South (Franklin & Schweninger 1999, Chadwick 2000). They found refuge among Native American settle

ments and in every part of North America

(Henson 1877; Katz 1986,1987). Archaeolog ical excavations at Garcia Real de Santa Teresa

de Mose in Spanish Florida, for example, of

fer insight into original communities of self

liberating enslaved workers (Deagan 1995).

Escapees not only found refuge with the Span ish in Florida, but also established maroon

settlements in the swamps of Virginia, North

Carolina, and Louisiana. They traveled west

ward to Texas and California (LaRoche 2004). In addition to these domestic locations,

they sought international refuge in Canada,

Mexico, the Caribbean, South America,

Africa, and England, revealing a constant

striving for freedom beyond the narrow

regional parameters. Autonomous "free"

settlements of self-liberators were a diasporic

reality. Runaways could be found in the for

bidding terrain of the hills of Brazil (Funari

1999), Suriname (Agorsah 1997, 2001),

Jamaica, or Columbia (Mullin 1972, Price 1979, Heuman 1986, Palmi? 1995,

Schwegler 2000a,b). Excavations at Palmares,

a large seventeenth-century

maroon kingdom

in northeastern Brazil, Weik's (1997, 2004)

exploration of black semin?le maroon sites

and Latin American sites, and Agorsah's

(1994) work on maroon settlements in

Jamaica continue to shed light on these

obscure settlements (LaRoche 2004).

Through maroon societies, black commu

nal affiliations manifest as primary cultural

expressions in the landscape and form the

first evidence of cohesive solidarity while si

multaneously harboring runaways (Agorsah

1994). These counter communities "became

the bases to which others might flee" (Harding 1981). By the end of the 1530s, colonial liter

ature from Jamaica began referring to Afro

American runaways (Franco 1968, p. 93; see

also Guillot 1961, p. 38). Between 1672 and

1864, no fewer than 50 maroon colonies ex

isted in the American South (Christian 1995). These diasporic sites hold major implica tions for the future of diasporic archaeol

ogy and offer historical archaeologists a dif ficult and challenging opportunity to explore resistance through landscape studies. Fanon

(1968) describes consciousness of blackness

within such black communities as a place

of comfort and safety away from the the

white gaze, the possibilities of violence, and

the menacing, "otherizing" implicit within

white space. Stable and enduring maroon set

dements frequently required sustained mil

itary action to dislodge the self-liberated,

freedom-appropriating communities in an at

tempt to force the freedom seekers to live

in these destabilized white spaces. Stamped with the image of fugitive slaves, these early maroon colonies generally are not analyzed

or included among the first free black sites.

"Maroon communities represent the first free

black settlements where freedom was appro

priated rather than granted and seized rather

than bestowed" (LaRoche 2004, p. 106). This

has powerful implications for archaeological

interpretation in shaping a more balanced

$j8 Leone LaRoche Babiarz



understanding of the range of responses to en

slavement. How did they govern themselves, and how did they define personhood and in

dividuality? UGRR studies fall within the broader con

text of African American communal studies, and indeed, diasporic community studies.

In the United States, the escapee's quest

for freedom foreshadowed the rise of the

UGRR and free black settlements in the

Northern United States. Maroon settle

ments reflect autonomous behavior, commu

nity formation also associated with UGRR

sanctuary.

Using archaeology as one field within a

multidisciplinary approach, LaRoche expands our understanding of the UGRR by introduc

ing free black communities and their associ

ated black churches, often African Methodist

Episcopal, as sites of resistance in the

American North (LaRoche 2004). Through collective analysis of five sites located along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, LaRoche

showed that free black communities were sit

uated in the landscape, often alongside and

overshadowed by more famous abolitionist

strongholds. She found the UGRR was as

much about paths between communities con

nected by the black church and sistered by abolitionist strongholds as it was about "sta

tions." Few studies directly relating to archae

ology and the UGRR have been undertaken

(Bankoff et al. 2001, Bordewich 2004, Delle

& Levine 2004; J. Geismar, personal commu

nication), and LaRoche's work alerts archae

ologists to hidden dimensions that situate free

black communal sites within one of the world's

greatest resistance movements. However, ar

chaeologists may find daunting the depth of

research necessary to document these sites.

This is particularly true given the time con

straints frequently associated with cultural re

source management.

Within North America, we highlight towns founded before and after the Civil

War that were home to free blacks and for mer slaves who obtained their freedom ei

ther through self-purchase, manumission, or

the Emancipation Proclamation. The work of

Mullins (1999), Weik (1997), and U.S. For

est Service archaeologists McCorvie (2004),

Krieger (n.d.), Cramer (LaRoche 2004), LaRoche (2004), Shackel & Fennell (2005), and F. Price (2003; personal communication) are concerned with the hundreds of towns in

the United States that were founded by and

for free people of African descent. Some of

these, such as Mound Bayou in the Mississippi Delta, were

exclusively African American. In

places such as New Philadelphia where blacks

and whites lived among one another, contem

porary emphasis by the local community is

on racial harmony and tolerance (Shackel &

Fennell 2005), although from some descen

dants' perspective this view of the past is not

a historic reality (Mackenzie 2005). Such enclaves survived through the 1930s

in the United States, and F. Price (personal communication) reports more than 72 towns

and settlements were founded from 1835 on

ward by and for free African Americans in

the United States. These havens, which were

95% black, were organized around agricul ture. Standing in the midst of racial hostility, these locales were subject to antiblack legis lation, were sidelined economically, and were

then all but forgotten as their inhabitants mi

grated to cities and larger towns in a quest

to maintain their economic viability. The ar

chaeology of these towns speaks to the re

cuperation of a forgotten past that reveals

the search for liberty and freedom to develop cultural, political, and religious autonomy.

At the New Philadelphia archaeological site in Illinois, for example, town founder Frank

McWorter expended more than $14,000 to

secure freedom for 16 members of his family. New Philadelphia was the first town platted and registered by a free African American be

fore the Civil War. The town, particularly the

McWorter family, probably functioned as a

conduit to Canada along the UGRR (Walker

1983).

Although remote, such villages and their

living descendent populations are impor tant examples of the role of and need for

www.annualreviews.org The Archaeology of Black Americans in Recent Times $79



archaeology. The remains beneath such vil

lages give vitality to archaeology and draw at

tention to a part of the diaspora that never

submitted long to slavery, and which escaped to found independent communities that in

some parts of the world are either alive to

day or

enjoy contemporary acclaim (Agorsah

1994, Funari 1999). Study of such vil

lages and towns may show the opposite of

assimilation or of double consciousness. Their

value to scholars comes from shining a light on dogged resistance in the midst of slavery's

intractability.

RACE, RACISM, AND ETHNICITY

Postmodernist theories have influenced ar

chaeological inquiry (Hodder 1986, 2001; Shanks & Tilley 1987; Johnson 1999; Delle

et al. 2000), and as a result, the field has ex

panded its analysis of identity. Multiple and concurrent themes define the archaeology of

the African diaspora: the study of race and

racism, ethnicity, and intersectionality?the

investigation of the power dynamics and inter

sections of race, class, and gender. These an

alytical categories are inevitably tied to mod

ern identities of and for diasporic peoples.

One finds usefulness in continued adherence

to race as an analytical tool; although cer

tainly not mutually exclusive, other paths have

evolved toward ethnicity. Race, on the one

hand, and ethnicity, on the other, offer differ

ent scholarly paths often loaded with different

political consequences.

Often, implicit racialized realities have

been the lens through which archaeologists have viewed African Americans without the

explicit use of race as an

analytical compo

nent (Orser 1998). W.E.B. Du Bois wrote

comprehensively on race

throughout his ca

reer, historically and theoretically positioning Africans and African Americans in the dias

pora. Du Bois also imagined the use of race

as a political tool for mobilization. In The

Negro (1915), he states that race is not in the

blood, but in a shared history of oppression.

By the time he writes Dusk of Dawn in 1940, he has fully articulated the situational com

plexities of racial identity. "I recognize it quite

easily and with full legal sanction; the black man is a person who must ride Jim Crow' in

Georgia" (Du Bois 1940, p. 153). Black iden

tity is formed, lived, and manipulated through

bodily performance in everyday life; it is a

cultural rather than a biological phenomena.

In quoting St. Clair Drake, Paynter observes

that racism is embedded in "the conjunction of slavery and African labor" through the de

velopment of "systematic doctrines of racial

inferiority and superiority" (Drake 1987,

p. 7; Paynter 2001, p. 134). Many archae

ologists (Mullins 1999, Delle et al. 2000,

Epperson 2001, Orser 2001) find value in race

as the primary analytical component and find

it an effective method for elucidating the me

chanics of oppression relevant to archaeolog

ical sites. For Mrozowski et al. (2000), the

focus on the intersections of class and gen

der in addition to race informs their work

and, in their view, has been the most impor

tant development in structuring social prac

tices and ideologies in the social sciences as a

whole.

In its current iteration, race is usually con

ceptualized as a social construct used to define

an "other," often through physical character

istics but also through knowledge of lineage and kinship. Race may also be used to mark

social differences through economic status

rather than biology (Harrison 2002). Defin

ing race as a social construct is not meant

to say that the ramifications of racialization

do not exist. In the United States, racial de

scriptions continue as an identifier, racism

continues as a tool for oppression, and racial

identity continues as a rallying point for

transnational political actions of groups char

acterized as subordinate. The legacy of

slavery, the slave trade, and the systems of

oppression that operated throughout the di

aspora should leave archaeologists with little

leeway in confronting the topics of race,

racism, and racialized oppression. Many his

torical archaeologists who do not wish to

$8o Leone LaRoche Babiarz



avoid the topic of race are finding ways to

confront it as they begin to comprehend the

need to deal with antiblack racism through

archaeology (Franklin 1997; LaRoche &

Blakey 1997; Epperson 1999,2001; La Roche

2004).

Epperson (2001) uses critical race the

ory to analyze seventeenth-century Virginia,

specifically by illuminating specific times of

change in the definition of race. He specifi

cally addresses a period in the development of the notion of whiteness at multiple sites

in late seventeenth-century Virginia, using

mainly historic data but setting forth ideas

and research questions for future archaeo

logical work. By understanding how defini

tions of race were created, Epperson hopes

to take political action against racial oppres

sion. Differences between races have become

taken-for-granted facts, and this fact of dif

ference is used to both elide and excuse racist

practices by hegemonic forces in the present.

By tracing the emergence of whiteness as a

racial category as opposed to an inevitability,

Epperson works to problematize concepts of

race.

The focus on whiteness is purposeful and

is tied directly to modern uses of ideas about

how race is constructed. Epperson recognizes

that work on the social construction of race

can be, and has been, used to ignore or shroud

race behind the rhetoric of colorblindness.

Part of the reasoning behind studying white ness is that the study cannot then become a

tool used against minority descendent com

munities by silencing any talk of race as es

sentialist, and thus delegitimizing diasporic racial identities. Work developed in the field

of whiteness studies has caused many con

cerns, many of them warranted, about essen

tializing or oversimplifying concepts in ways not so different from previous theorists of

race and ethnicity. The importance of white

ness studies lies in its practitioners' interests

in thinking about race and ethnicity in new

ways that both agitate our

culturally normal

ized views of differences and link academics to the politics of the present.

IDENTITY, ETHNICITY, AND HUMAN GENETICS

Some recent scholarship centers less on race

and more on ethnicity as "a system of cat

egorizing groups of people, which are usu

ally perceived to be largely biologically self

perpetuating, and which share fundamental

cultural values, comprise a common field of

communication and interaction, and identify

themselves and are identified by others as

constituting a recognizable group" (Lovejoy

& Trotinan 2003a, p. 2). Such an approach avoids using the older terminology of race

while aiming to understand the affected

groups.

We recognize the importance of human

genetics to modern African American iden

tities, especially regarding ties to various re

gions of Africa for human origins and ties to

modern diasporic communities, as well as ties

to an understanding of genetic components of

disease inheritance.

Jackson is helping define a set of relevantly connected issues. She has begun the analy

sis of DNA samples from the skeletal ma

terial of the ABG. Her research intent is to

find the genetic spectrum that compares best

to living West African populations,

as for ex

ample those in Cameroon. This would show both home populations and levels of diver

gence, raising the question of factors behind

genetic diversity in the skeletal and descen

dent African populations. Furthermore, she is

interested in both the similarity and the diver

gence between the skeletal population's DNA

and that of the American descendent com

munity. This research embodies questions of

origin populations and the reasons for their

genetic diversity.

Jackson uses ethnogenetic layering

as an

alternative technique to phenotypic

assess

ments or racial categorization. Jackson at

tempts to define microethnic groups in three

sections of the United States using ranges of

data, both cultural and biological, to iden

tify heightened susceptibility and resistance to diseases such as specific cancers. After the




correlations are complete, she can identify

groups for frequency of specific diseases that

crosscut the standard macroethnic categories,

such as African American, European Ameri

can, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian/Alaskan Native, used in

the United States.

Jackson's analysis has two strong points.

The first is her use of biological and genetic variables, and the second is her use of evolu

tionary and environmental variables to explain

high or low disease rates occurring among

people of European, American Indian, and

African descent. Thus this technique avoids

the large difficulty of labeling a living pop ulation with a historical origin, centuries

removed biologically and environmentally. Rather, it uses the Darwinian idea of popu

lations who adapt to particular local variables,

which have an impact on a group regardless of

its geographic origin generations ago (Jackson

et al. 2000, Kittles et al. 2000, Jackson 2004). The issue here is how to identify the plu

rality of African groups that comprise the dias

pora. Because these individuals were not cul

turally homogenous but came from a wide

range of environments, the genetic variation

must have been diverse as well. In the New

World, there were varying degrees of mix

ing of African ethnic and biological groups. Some scholars have approached the study of

the African diaspora by attempting to identify what is preserved of these ethnic and biolog

ical groups. Researchers study language, reli

gion, dance, music, food, and mtDNA. These

studies often reveal traditions and beliefs that

can sometimes be tied to specific African

groups, as well as to clines of genes found in

varied frequencies across African communit

ies, revealing important connections for arc

haeologists working throughout the diaspora.

MATERIAL CULTURE IN THE DIASPORA

Crystals, blue beads, drilled coins, out-of

place marine shells, fist charms, pipes, spoons

with Xs on them, and artifact cache; are

among the materials archaeologists have come

to expect or hope

to encounter at sites once

occupied by enslaved and free African Amer

icans. The analysis of this material culture is

structured to distinguish dominance and re

sistance, acculturation, creolization, continu

ity, or discontinuity of an African heritage. The creation of an African American cul

ture has involved both creolization and recon

figuration in the material record (Singleton 1995). Archaeologists

now realize that ethnic

markers either linked to Africa or associated

with African Americans are ineffective for in

terpreting the majority of African American

sites because few yield robust distinctive in

formation (Singleton 1995). Elements of cul

ture, as part of adaptive systems, both per

severe and evolve or are totally reinvented

(Schuyler 1980, Deetz 1996). Perry & Paynter (1999) and Orser (1998) argue that these de

bates within historical archaeology must rec

ognize the intricacies of cultural construction

under conditions of economic and political domination.

Before the field had formally named

transnational archaeological studies as dias

poric, Handler & Lange's (1978) continued

work at Newton Plantation associated arti

facts to specific regions within Africa and to

specific spiritual practices within those re

gions. The work of Armstrong (1985) at Drax

Hall in Jamaica and Fremmer (1973) analyz

ing dishes from colonial graves pushed the

field further into comparative analysis with

Caribbean sites. McKee recovered from slave

dwelling sites on the Hermitage plantation small brass items in the shape of a closed hu

man fist. Two other similar charms were re

covered from Annapolis, another from a root

cellar of a slave dwelling near Memphis, and

yet another from a slave dwelling north of the

Hermitage. (McKee 1995). Funari and Orser studied Palmares and

found that a heterogeneous community had

left a homogeneous archaeological record. In

comparative studies of pipes excavated from

Palmares, Orser (1998) found morphological similarities among pipes recovered from

$82 Leone LaRoche Babiarz



Newton Plantation cemetery in Barbados,

from the maroon settlements in the Domini

can Republic as well as from Cuba. Incised

decorations on pipes from the Dominican Re

public and Cuba were in turn reminiscent of

pipes from both Africa and the Chesapeake

region of the United States.

Low-fired earthenwares continue to pro

vide archaeologists with productive material

culture analyses of diasporic identities. The

work of Ferguson (1978,1991,1992) on low

fired earthenware, referred to as colono ware

in the American South, forms an enduring

basis of comparison across multiple contexts

within the diaspora (H?user & Armstrong 1999, Haviser 1999). Archaeologists increas

ingly interpret these artifacts as expressions

of resistance to dominance, demonstrations of

cultural continuity, and exertions of identity.

DeCorse's (1999) continuing work in

Elmina, Ghana, for example, and that of

Agorsah's (1994), Weik's (1997), Orser's

(1996), and Funari's (1999), among many other archaeologists' work focusing

on ma

roon settlements, is moving the field further

into African diasporic global contexts to gain greater understanding of and appreciation for

the complexity of the African cultural mi

lieu, which is counter to and entwined with

the investigations into European expansion.

In stressing this point, Hicks urges British

postmedieval archaeologists to consider eth

nicity and examine the role of material culture

in the expression and negotiation of historical

identities as they critique Britain's overarch

ing role in the slave trade (Hicks 2000). There

exists in historical archaeology "a continuing

struggle to link global processes with practices at the local scale" (Delle et al. 2000, p. xii).

Paynter, Mullins, and Franklin, for ex

ample, use material culture and foodways

to

understand strategies that African Americans

may have used to negotiate identity to survive

in regional racialized and racist landscapes of

power. Attempts to understand how identity,

power, and survival intersected in the past di

rectly connect to present work by African di

aspora scholars.

Paynter is best known for his pioneer

ing archaeological analyses concerning the

reflexive relationship between material cul

ture and racial identity (McGuire & Paynter 1991, Paynter et al. 1996, Delle et al.

2000). In his work on the W.E.B. Du Bois

boyhood home site in Great Barrington,

Massachusetts, he found that the artifact as

semblage of the site was not that much dif

ferent from what one would expect to find at

a contemporaneous middle-class white home.

He says it would be a mistake, however, to

conflate artifact assembleges with lived expe

rience or to assume that comparable artifacts

indicate life for middle-class blacks and whites

would have been the same. Much evidence

implies that consumerism was different for

whites and blacks and that these differences

would have marked the meaning of objects for an individual in complex and sometimes

contradictory ways. Paynter also looks for his

work to have contemporary meaning, com

bating racism in the present by reconstructing

notions of the past.

Mullins' (1999) work in Annapolis focuses

both on consumerism, as an important por

tal through which racial identity was formed

and defined in the past, and on the com

plications of interpreting an object that may

have had shifting meanings for multiple peo

ple throughout space and time. One illustra

tion of the difficulties of interpretation was

in his discussion of the economy of African

American cosmetics, specifically, the seem

ingly contradictory readings of the use of

straightening products. It would be easy for

archaeologists to read these goods

as a reflec

tion of the assimilation by blacks to white stan

dards of beauty or an attempt to escape racism

by "whitening." This analysis, however, ig nores the fact that a

powerful economy of hair

and beauty products had been built by black

Americans in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, as exemplified by neigh borhood barbershops and entrepreneurs such

as Madame CJ. Walker. This was also a

time in dominant U.S. culture of dynamic

discussions about the role of women in




work and family and the rise of first-wave

feminism.

Franklin uses an analysis of foodways to ex

plore identity formations, cultural difference,

and social relations on Rich Neck Plantation in Williamsburg, Virginia (Franklin 2000). She describes the power that food has to de

fine identity and draw cultural boundaries us

ing both archeological and historical data. She

refers to an African American collective iden

tity with an understanding that individuals

would not solely have defined themselves by such a group construct.

The heterogeneous African and African American population communicated and con

nected through foodways. In the early part of the eighteenth century, both slave-holding

whites and enslaved blacks were eating what

now may be considered undesirable cuts of

meat, much of it from swine and cattle and

some of it wild. By the end of the eighteenth century, the enslaved population at Rich Neck

was eating a smaller variety of wild animals,

and whites were eating less fish and meat

that mirrored contemporary cuts. Franklin

hypothesizes that enslaved populations were

starting to be controlled more closely at that

time, so white slave-owners would have been

attempting to rein in the use of firearms by the

captives. Franklin asserts that this is a reflec

tion of increased control due to white fear of,

and reaction to, revolts and uprisings across

the diaspora, such as the 1791 Haitian Revo

lution. It was probably also an attempt to sep

arate white and black identity even further, by

having obviously different foodways. Some of

the complexities of identity formation can be seen when contextualizing smaller, regional

sites in the past.

RITUAL, SPIRITUALITY, AND MEMORY

The archaeological record contains numer

ous examples of ritualistic spiritual expres

sion among the diasporic population. At colo

nial graves in Jamaica, Fremmer (1973) found

dishes similar to those found in the graves at

the First African Baptist Church in Philadel

phia (McCarthy 1997). These sites exem

plify the richness of the morphological record.

Bioanthropological and skeletal data, artifact

analysis, culture change, and spiritual beliefs

are the types of analytical information encap

sulated within cemeteries and graveyards.

Brown & Cooper (1990) note that in a

number of artifact-cataloging schemes, these

artifacts would fall in the household or archi

tectural categories and their ritual significance

missed. The use of objects to negotiate and

mediate the spirit world is well documented in

historical and archaeological sources (Levine 1977, Raboteau 1978, Thompson 1987, Klin

gelhofer 1987, Stuckey 1987, LaRoche 1994,

Singleton 1995, Wilkie 1996, Leone & Fry 1999, Ruppel et al. 2003) and is a pervasive

concept in historic African American com

munities and throughout the diaspora. This

strategy reflects attempts by an enslaved and

oppressed population to take control over the

environment. These examples show the com

plex meanings carried by artifacts in diaspo ran contexts. The object may be a commod

ity with various levels of value, a marker of

social, spiritual, or economic status; use and

value may be mutable. Within mortuary con

texts, inherited meanings may prevail because

funeral and burial sites were spaces not gener

ally frequented by the enslaver. The mourner

was therefore allowed a fuller range of ma

terial and cultural expression where mortu

ary remains "form a ritual communication

in which fundamental social values are ex

pressed" (Jamieson 1995).

Although some scholars dispute the com

ponents of the totality, the existence of re

ligious practices alive from specific African

regions cannot be avoided. North Ameri

can archaeological data reflecting religious

practices tied to African localities and the

Caribbean came after historical scholars had

already established such strong connections

(Ferguson 1992, Fennell 2000, Leone et al.

2001, Leone & Fry 1999). Terms such as hoodoo, conjure, conjuration, doctoring,

rootwork, and fixing, along with the requisite




implements such as hands, tobys, and mo

jos, are now used less frequently because they

can be said to imply pagan, less-than-devout

Christian adherence among those using, or

even knowing about, the practices. To avoid

interpreting African Americans as adhering to

pagan practices, we have adopted the term

West African spirit practices.

Archaeologists have established the exis

tence, variety of forms, and chronology of

West African spirit practices from Texas and

the deep South, to the border states, the

Chesapeake region, and into Connecticut and

New York City. Evidence of burials of caches

of selected artifacts under and near hearths

and chimneys, in northeast corners of rooms,

and around doors, steps, and sills, and some

times in the middle of African work rooms, is now well established (Leone & Fry 1999,

Fennell 2000). The meanings are varied still, but there can be little doubt about relation

ships between these artifact occurances and

religious belief systems. Are these cre?le or native and unmediated

African religious practices? Because scholars

have successfully warned archaeologists that

many different African captives representing many different cultural traditions were trans

ported throughout the diaspora, archaeolo

gists live today with the effort to distinguish between more-or-less-unified and thus nec

essarily cre?le religious practices or unmedi

ated African practices from different regions

kept intact and preserved from West Africa. Future scholarship will undoubtedly continue to grapple with these distinctions. Ample evi

dence now suggests that the West African di

aspora holds religions of African forms, prac

tices, and meanings that contain elements

comparable to the diasporic religions of Cuba,

Haiti, and Brazil. Regardless of how these come to be studied in detail, one of the next

steps is to understand the details of one or

more African-derived religions widely spread and used from the eighteenth century onward

among North American African captives and

African Americans. The issue is whether in

terpreting a culture as cre?le threatens the

integrity of its origins or attributes creativ

ity and integrity to it as a result of adaptation

and the strength coming from using new and

complementary meanings. Does use of the

idea of cre?le culture among African Ameri

can scholars de-Africanize African culture and

thus make it inauthentic, less tied to African

origins, or more dependent on the absorption

of European or other cultures (Aondofe Iyo 2005)? This important interpretative issue can

be solved by acquiring more knowledge. But

it can also be solved by understanding the po

litical role played by the citation of origins. There could be a larger position assumed for

the role of power in the use of new knowledge, and this could be advanced by understand

ing the roles of heritage and memory (Shackel 2000,2001; Ricoeur 2004). Seeing these diffi

culties in connecting creolization theories to

practice, some archaeologists have begun to

work through processes of African diaspora identity theory (Delle et al. 2000; Franklin

2000, 2001; Hicks 2000; Orser 2001). Distinct from spirit practices discussed

above, spiritual and healing practices among

the enslaved population were closely related.

The entwined areas of negotiation are often

difficult to separate. The roots of poor health,

sickness, and misfortune may lay more in the

spiritual domain than in the physical world.

Therefore, each location required careful

mediation. Through archaeological evidence

revealing knowledge of roots, herbs, and

curatives, the enslaved and free population

contributed much to our understanding

of well-being and illness (Edwards-Ingram 2001). Within U.S. contexts, complex social

interactions between blacks and whites were

defined by medicinal practices dictated under

slavery and held broad implications for the

enslaved population.

GENDER IN AFRICAN AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY

A significant aspect of the black feminist

project is the effort to locate and reinstate the

works of black women throughout history and




to use the emerging tradition of black femi

nist theory and thought as a

platform for fur

ther political action. Franklin observed that

archaeologists are in a unique position to re

cover evidence of the lives of black women

who left no written legacy (Franklin 2001).

"[S]lavery as a social system of oppression af

fected enslaved women and men differently,

forcing aspects of women's opposition to their

enslavement to assume gender-specific forms"

(Shepherd 2003, p. 196). What was true for women in other areas of the diaspora, such as

the Caribbean, was true in the United States

regarding the "contradictory productive, re

productive, and sexual roles they were called

upon to play" (p. 196). We begin this discussion in an unlikely

place, with Lucy Foster of "Black Lucy's Gar

den" (Bullen & Bullen 1945). In 1943, theBul

lens excavated a vegetable cellar hole, possi

bly the first of many root cellars that would

later become a hallmark on African American

sites. Located at the foot of a knoll containing an Indian site, the cellar contained a rich ce

ramics deposit that the Bullens hoped would

aid in dating pottery presumed to be Colonial

(Bullen & Bullen 1945, p. 17). The initial ex

cavation centered on analysis of the abundant

ceramics. From a theoretical standpoint, R.P.

Bullen's research was one of the "first attempts

to devise cultural chronology and hypothe ses about the late eighteenth and early nine

teenth century American social system from

the study of pottery" (Baker 1978). Baker's

subsequent analysis of the site tested Otto's

ceramic theories. At the time of the original excavation in 1945 and Vernon's reanalysis in

1978, a gendered analysis was not highlighted among historical archaeologists. It is a little

surprising, however, that Black Lucy's Gar

den has not been reanalyzed from a feminist

perspective.

We draw attention to Lucy Foster be

cause of a paragraph that originally appeared in the Bullen & Bullen (1945) article, which

was subsequently reduced to two sentences in

the two works by Baker (1978, 1980). The

Bullens state, straightforwardly, that "Lucy

in 1771 had a daughter, Sarah, by Job Fos ter as is duly recorded by the Rev. Samuel

Phillips.... 'July 14, 1771 Sarah a child given to Job Foster and Lucy[.] a Negro Child was

baptized.'"

Lucy apparently lived and worked as an

enslaved laborer in the house with Hannah

and Job Foster when she conceived and deliv

ered his child, the daughter Sarah (slavery was

not abolished in Massachusetts until 1783).

Although neither the Bullens nor Baker cen

sored the passage, they failed to engage with

the information.

Although Lucy Foster's life receives some

analysis, perhaps what was available at the

time, the focus of all three articles pertain

ing to the site is the ceramic assemblage

rather than gender dynamics. Bush (1990), White (1985), Hine (1989), Gaspar & Hi?e

(1996), Roberts (1997), and Collins (2000,

2004), among others, have written exten

sively of the sexual plight of the black woman

under slavery. Franklin (2001) argues for

the use of these feminist critiques to cre

ate a gendered archaeological interpretation

as well.

Using historical, ethnographic, and ar

chaeological evidence to build a long-term

socio-historical context, Willrie (2000) effec

tively interprets the life of African Ameri can women

living, both enslaved and free, for

multiple generations on Louisiana's Oakley

plantation. With evidence derived from food

ways, toys, and personal adornment, Wilkie

shows how everyday items such as medicine,

dolls, and combs can be used to construct

and reinforce identities at a household level.

She also emphasizes the fluidity of iden

tity. In the late nineteenth century, black women

living as tenants at

Oakley plantation

worked as servants in the white planter's house

and also lived somewhat physically separated from the local black community. Their every

day journeys through time and space would

have required constant repositioning and de

cision making, in terms of gender, class, sex

uality, race, and age identities. Wilkie also

examines childhood toys through multiple




generations to understand how gendered and

racialized identities were learned and man

aged. It is not just that certain norms of behav

ior were taught and reinforced using toys; "we

should listen carefully to the ways that chil

dren spoke to adults and one another through

the attainment, maintenance, use of, and dis

card of toys" (Wilkie 2000, p. 153).

By focusing on the construction of gender

in Southern African American contexts such

as colonial Virginia and middle Tennessee, Galle & Young (2004) have produced the first

multi-authored collection focusing on gen

der and archaeology within African American contexts.

Archaeologists, however, have yet to

develop and publish a body of intellectually

satisfying interpretations of the lives and expe riences of black women. With the exception of

Galle & Young (2004), publications address

ing this woefully neglected topic are lacking. We urge a

change.

Women are present in the archaeologi

cal record. One of the most obvious areas

for the recovery of black women's experiences

is in mortuary contexts, where identification

and analysis of sex is standard research proto

col. Although much more work remains, New

York City's ABG as well as the First African

Baptist Church site in Philadelphia contained numerous female burials containing ethnic,

cultural, and gendered analytical components

(Blakey & Rankin-Hill 2004, Rankin-Hill

1997). More recently, the experiences of black

women have been included in the analysis of

some archaeological sites. In works such as

Archaeology of Inequality (McGuire & Paynter 1991), Race and Affluence (Mullins 1999), Lines

That Divide (Delle et al. 2000), and Race and

the Archaeology of Identity (Orser 2001), the

voices of black women are being recovered.

Edwards-Ingram's (2001) work on enslaved

black women and medicinal practices relating to pregnancy, childbirth, child care, and the

death of children is particularly compelling. Future studies will also materially add to our

understanding of the lives and experiences of

black women.

CONTEMPORARY USES OF ARCHAEOLOGY

The whole U.S. archaeological community

has been educated through the advent of Na

tive American Graves Protection and Repa

triation Act (NAGPRA); some feel it has been a helpful experience, whereas others feel it

has not. There is little ambiguity among his

torical archaeologists that descendent com

munities and their members should be

involved in the archaeology of African Amer

icans and that the results are positive. The is

sues related to dealing with various stakehold

ers are particular neither to the United States

nor to archaeologists. In 1997, when the Bris

tol City Council sought to commemorate the

quincentenary of Cabot's voyage from Bristol to mainland America, Bristol's black commu

nity contested the "uncritical and celebratory tone of the Cabot 500 festival, bringing to a

head feelings of 'official' silence about Bris

tol's historic role in the slave trade" (Hicks

2000). As a result, the Bristol Slave Trade Ac

tion Group, an informal coalition of city coun

cillors, members of the black community, mu

seum workers, teachers, and academics, was

established in an effort to bring about a more

balanced retelling of history.

Similarly, in the more than 14 years since the General Services Administration con

tracted for the erection of a federal office

building on what is now known as the ABG site in New York City, the burial ground has

had a profound impact not only

on the inter

ested public but on the archaeological com

munity as well. Historical archaeologists have

been engaged with the lessons derived from

community and stakeholder reactions to dis

turbance and excavation of culturally, spiritu

ally, and politically sensitive sites.

Sites such as the burial ground mirror the

lessons of the NAGPRA in ways that have fun

damentally changed how archaeologists think

about the role and power of public reactions

to our work, as well as how the public engages

with sites or projects they identify as critically important. The burial ground is just one of

NAGPRA: Native

American Graves

Protection and

Repatriation Act




several sites at which the public, deeply in

vested in the outcome, forced the sharing of

power and access to information. The main

interests of the many African diasporic com

munities involved with the project centered on the identity, ethnicity, and material and

physical conditions of the enslaved Africans

represented in the New York City graves. One of the other critical requirements voiced

by the New York communities who assumed

stewardship for the site was the desire to

identify the geographical areas in Africa from

which these enslaved peoples had originated. The desired goal was to connect diasporic

peoples to a specific physical place, a necessity for any diasporic project. Showing "the expe

riences of enslaved and free Africans, their var

ied interactions with other populations, and

their place in the creation of the global econ

omy and 'Western' society" (Mack & Blakey 2004, p. 15) gives relevance to present descen

dent political groups. The complexities of working with these

communities and the dearth of African Amer

ican and other archaeologists of color en

sure that outreach to stakeholders remains a

difficult research strategy. Outside the work

at ABG and other sites such as Levi Jordan

(for other work with descendant communi

ties, see Potter 1991, McKee 1994, Brown

1997, Leone & Logan 1997, McDavid &

Babson 1997, McDavid 1999), the extent to

which descendant communities are using the

new knowledge remains unclear. Archaeolo

gists are, however, seeking to work with other

representatives and constituencies, although

they often lack the support networks or ef

fective consultation skills for overcoming "the

negative legacy established by the practices of

previous generations of archaeologists such as

ignoring the human factor in the past, as well

as in the present (Agbe-Davies 1998, pp. 1-2). Unlike NAGPRA or the mandates contained

in Section 106, the archaeological community has no

legal source of authority when work

ing with African American communities and

is under no obligation to engage descendant

communities, stakeholders, or self-identified

guardians.

The legacy of the ABG has had an im

pact on not only the public but also the ar

chaeological community. Internally, McDavid & Babson's (1997) seminal Historical Archaeol

ogy thematic issue "In the Realm of Politics" set an

agenda with which the archaeologi

cal community continues to engage, partic

ularly as a

teaching tool. "Seizing Intellectual

Power" (LaRoche & Blakey 1997), an arti

cle within that issue, continues to be widely

taught and cited, particularly for discussions

of ethics in archaeology and working with

descendant communities. Similarly, Mack &

Blakey (2004) view, "Until the discipline views

descendant communities as integral partici

pants in the comprehensive research effort,

there will always be the real risk of lost re

search opportunities and scientifically and hu

manistically problematic and ineffective in

vestigations of the African Diaspora" (p. 16).

Yet, after 14 years of engaging with texts

about community involvement, archaeolo

gists may not be fully aware of the complex

set of challenges associated with excavating

culturally sensitive sites. Answers are often

difficult; consensus among stakeholders and

self-identified guardians is often elusive. Con

versely, archaeologists seeking to attract pub

lic support and local interest may meet with

results that range from disinterest to misun

derstanding. The uniqueness of each site en

sures that this will continue to be the case,

which indicates that approaches must be tai

lored to suit particular circumstances.

Archaeology continues to linger power

fully in the public imagination. What stake

holders often know implicitly is that interpre tations of the past affect identity formation

in the present and are thoroughly contempo

rary acts. Hall (1996) connects identity to the

reconstruction of the past in the present. Iden

tity is not always

so much about what specifi

cally went on in the past as it is about the mul

tiple ways in which the reconstructed past is

used in the present as a political tool to oppress

$88 Leone LaRoche Bahiarz



or coerce or to glorify and empower. Over the

past 10 years since Singleton & Bograd (1995) wrote their defining article, archaeologists have increasingly concerned themselves with

contributory aspects and public components,

particularly with receptivity of their work

(Agbe-Davies 1998, Brown 1997, Franklin &

McKee 2004). The role of power in the scholarship of

the African diaspora is now becoming more

clearly articulated in the archaeology of black

Americans. The scientists of the ABG project have done a great deal to demonstrate the abil

ity of scholars to work with, follow the leads

provided by, and enrich descendent commu

nity members. The very idea of a descendent

community and its members comes from the

successful effort to study and teach from the

four hundred and nineteen human remains

from this once-forgotten, now-famous ceme

tery. We recommend that none of the polit

ical activity that has consistently surrounded

the site be taken as accidental or incidental by historical archaeologists. Instead, we

hypoth

esize both a trend and even an inevitability in

the involvement of the lay community in what were once

thought to be arcane or irrelevant

archaeological discoveries.

The contemporary history of the ABG site

continues to be as compelling as its historical

legacy. On September 11, 2001, the World

Trade Center, which was the home for the ar

chaeological laboratory of the Five Points site as well as the African burial site, was destroyed

by an act of terrorism. Although virtually all

the artifacts from the Five Points site were

lost, the artifacts from the burial ground were

not on site and were spared.

On October 4, 2003, the remains were

reinterred in wooden coffins draped in Kente

cloth and hand carved in Ghana, West Africa

(Figure 1, see color insert). The coffins were

reburied in lower Manhattan in seven large crypts placed along the western edge of the

original burial site. The magnitude of the im

pact of the burial ground on the American

public can be seen by the four-state, multi-city

Rites of Ancestral Return tribute that origi

nated at Howard University in Washington, DC, and moved through Baltimore, Philadel

phia, Wilmington, and Newark before a

flotilla arrival at Wall Street at the site of

New York's colonial slave market (Calendar of Events 2003). "At each of the memorials, the emotion and pain of centuries was on view,

as the descendants of once-enslaved Africans,

as one person commented, 'finally piad] the

chance to be in the presence of and to cry for

those who lived through slavery, those who

made it possible for us to be here today'" (Car rillo 2003). With the reburial of the human

remains and the associated artifacts, another

layer of memory has been added to the ABG

site, which now exists as a site of memory as

well as a site of conscience.

After lengthy consultations with the public

throughout the selection process for a memo

rial design to be placed at the burial ground site, Rodney Leon's design has now been cho sen (Katz 2005). The final major component of the project, the Final Report, should bring

heightened scholarly interest in the site and

provide current and future archaeologists and

anthropologists with ample data for years of

dynamic comparative analysis and compelling

scholarship (see Blakey & Rankin-Hill 2004).

ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, AND IDENTITY

"Actual identities are about questions of using

the resources of history, language and culture

in the process of becoming rather than being: not 'who we are' or 'where we came from,' so

much as what we may become, how we have

been represented and how that bears on how

we might represent ourselves" (Hall 1996,

p. 4). The myth of racial democracy in Brazil is

one example of how identity formation oc

curs. Under the guise of racial democracy,

dominant white groups in Brazil perpetuate state and local levels of racism by identify

ing differences and justifying inequality as

cultural and economic rather than as racial

(Hanchard 1999, p. 8). Racial democracy




constructs a type of racism unacknowledged

and unrecognized by many Brazilians that is

difficult to fight against, as it attempts to erase

color as a signifier. By U.S. standards, the real

ity of racial identity in Brazil does not match

this myth, however, because it can easily be

identified through historic contextualization.

"[P]henotypic self-identification does not op erate as a

free-floating signifier for Brazilians,

but within long-standing parameters of white

and black..." (Hanchard 1999, pp. 9-10). Ar

chaeologists must continually recognize that

dominant groups have used the resources of

history and language to control a certain re

construction of the past to control people in

the present, and this includes the categories

used for domination and subordination.

Although archaeology is a vehicle through which the origin and evolution of black com

munal and cultural formations can be under

stood, specific training in African American

history or history of the African diaspora is

not a requirement for working in this subfield.

We advocate that historical archaeologists

develop, and that the profession requires,

a strong historical knowledge in African American and diaspora studies. Exploitation

of African American historical sources and

history in general has been much less evident

in the practices of archaeologists excavating

African American sites, although exceptions

exist (Adams & Smith 1985, Brown & Cooper 1990, Ferguson 1991, Singleton 1995,

Paynteretal. 1996). Historical archaeology has the capacity to

create analytic links among written, oral, and

material forms of expression as it continues

intertwining history and anthropology. Re

search areas such as Northern plantations,

the UGRR, or the discovery of the ABG in

New York have led to new thematic issues

within archaeology that are setting the his

torical agenda as well.

CONCLUSION

In this review, we locate the resistance to slav

ery and the quest for freedom among the

defining diasporic experiences. We advocate

that Africans, African Americans, and other

indigenous peoples within the diaspora in

combination with specialists in African Amer

ican studies are necessary to bring expanded

and alternative interpretations to the archae

ological record.

Historical archaeologists working within

the African diaspora approach the field with a

variety of political agendas. Many researchers

use capitalism, colonialism, and European

ex

pansion as their scholarly foundation, whereas

others explicitly state the desire to expose

and deconstruct institutionalized racism in the

present. Some place greater focus on the us

ages of material culture by both hegemonic and oppressed groups to

negotiate power, and

therefore identity, whereas others focus on the

use of archaeology for modern political pur

poses and contemporary empowerment.

By virtue of the sites they choose to ex

cavate, archaeologists researching the African

diaspora have been instrumental in shifting focus away from enslavement and oppression

toward resistance and freedom. This is not to

deny the realities of captivity and enslavement but to communicate that the narrow focus

on slavery overemphasized

a singular compo

nent of African American life. The emphasis on

slavery, as well as the shifting away from

it, clearly reflects contemporary influences on

interpretations of the past.

Diaspora studies offer an opportunity to

observe scholarly transformation in action.

Some struggles that have contemporary rel

evance and parallels are the struggle for

preservation; the use of history and memory

to reclaim lost communities; the efforts to

locate and define cemeteries; the determi

nation to involve and introduce interested

communities to archaeology, and the recog

nition of the long historical involvement and

presence of diasporic communities in the

landscape.

The role of the descendant communities in

creating and using new knowledge is emerg

ing as a

by-product of archaeology. Archaeol

ogists investigating UGRR sites, for example,

5po Leone LaRoche Babiarz



engaged with the larger community of UGRR

scholars to use the movement as a metaphor

for racial awareness and for the fostering of

racial harmony.

Most of the scholars we cite here aim to

improve the modern condition of exploited

peoples within the Western hemisphere. Be

cause European colonialism depended

on

slavery for survival and profit, diasporic peo

ples can be seen as living with, but also stand

ing against, that process.

The vast majority of historical archae

ologists working in the United States are

intellectually conservative and politically lib

eral. U.S. scholars working within the dias

pora, however, are far more focused on chang

ing the present and are more politically active.

They are more willing to problematize the

relationship between democracy, capitalism,

and colonialism than are more traditional

scholars within the field and may exhibit

greater willingness to investigate the econom

ically self-sufficient and self-governing black

comminutes within these parameters, and to

investigate the ramifications of the racialized

societies throughout the diaspora.

African diaspora scholars are working to

complicate how race, ethnicity, and gender are

defined in the past and the present. Race, class,

gender, and other aspects of self-identity are

inseparable, and our scholarly interpretations

of the past should grapple with these compli cations. By analytically oversimplifying char

acterizations of identity, we deny complexity,

agency, and personhood. Maroon studies are,

in part, a political reaction to this oversimpli

fication of not only identity but also of com

plex cultural and political processes and in

teractions with the landscape. It is not the

data with which we are working that must

change or has changed; it is our interpreta

tions, as well as our awareness of the con

sequences of these interpretations, that must

change.

Historical archaeologists would do well to

follow the example set by Morgan. In his

American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), he wrote of an extensive system of exploita

tion, including slavery, that was required to

build and sustain the intellectual and insti

tutional bases of democratic government in

the United States. This hypothesis has never

interested American historical archaeologists.

Yet the archaeologists of African America have

explored those most exploited by the Amer

ican economic system to broaden the level

of democratic participation in our modern

democracy. This is what is meant by notions

of hidden voices, voiceless peoples, and muted

groups. First, we must ask whether this has

made any difference in the modern world and

record the result precisely. Second, we must

see that African and African American ma

roon communities were, or were not, using

another form of governance from which we

can learn. We not only are concerned with di

asporic survivals and adaptations, but also are

rightly concerned with the vehicles for free dom and independence. Escape is one

thing. But how did maroon and free communities ra

tionalize or conceptualize freedom, including

for or against individuals, and institutionalize

self-government? From the answers to these

questions we can begin to see whether capital

ism and its classes must inevitably be tied to

democracy, or whether others, familiar with

the worst conditions of the tie to capitalism,

built a better society.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Mark Leone is indebted to Jay B. Haviser and Kevin C. MacDonald for allowing access to their volume African Re-Genesis: Confronting Social Issues in the Diaspora, to be published by University

College of London Press as part of the One World Archaeological Series. Leone's knowledge of maroon settlements and the issues they raise comes from this volume. Jennifer Babiarz is

indebted to Lisa Kraus for her constant advice and collaboration.

www.annualreviews.org The Archaeology of Black Americans in Recent Times $pi



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