"The Public Meaning of Archeological Heritage"

A Seminar in Archaeology and Interpretation

 

Heritage, Archaeology, and African-American History

Cheryl Janifer LaRoche - Adjunct Professor of History and African American Studies, University of Maryland University College

 

  

           Locked beneath the sunken ships, tenuous structures, abandoned cemeteries, and forgotten former towns and plantations that comprise the archaeological record lay the material remains of an African American history of place.  Archaeological investigations into a variety of sites raise new questions that release scholarship from the boundaries and limitations of written histories.  Alternative knowledge that emerges from archaeological practices has the potential to generate controversy, public engagement and scholarly activism.  Passionate public responses combined with scholarly commitment indicate the level of importance and depth of meaning associated with several African American archaeological sites. 

            Contestation frequently results at the interdisciplinary cross roads of new knowledge, archaeological findings, and the status quo of traditional narrative histories. The impact and implications of archaeological knowledge can be seen among the intersections of local activist communities, academe, regional economic interests, and national and global issues that bring new thematic combinations in African American history.   The archaeological record moves beyond written history often defining the historical agenda. 

            For sites such as the African Burial Ground in New York City, the Henrietta Marie, a slave ship that sunk off the coast of Florida in 1700, or Underground Railroad sites, non-verbal communications, the language of material culture, and cultural landscape analyses must be interpreted in conjunction with maps, deeds, probate and census records to piece together an African-American history of place.  For these sites, the public, stakeholders, descendant community members, or committed professionals took action to ensure survival of historical and cultural heritage. 

            At the African Burial Ground in New York City, the public was involved in rescuing historical and cultural property at Broadway, Duane, Elk, and Reade Streets on a site that historic period maps indicated had been the location of an African Burying Ground. The rugged topography of early Manhattan helped preserve a portion of the cemetery, which was buried 23 feet below street level (Castanga and Tyler 2004). The original cemetery was approximately 6 acres; its use spanned the greater portion of the 18^th century.

           Although the concept of a “site of conscience” is currently limited to museums, throughout the conflict and contentiousness of the past 14 years, the African Burial Ground has been a site consistently marked by public stewardship.  Through both public reaction and scholarly activism, the African Burial Ground meets the definition of a site of conscience.  The cemetery site possesses the “unique power to inspire social consciousness and action and is a vehicle through which “new conversations about contemporary issues in historical perspective” are introduced and realized (International Coalition n.d.).  In addition to meeting the primary definition of a site of conscience, the Burial Ground, through the Office of Public Education and Interpretation meets the remaining criteria: 1. interpreting history through historic sites; 2. engaging in programs that stimulate dialogue on pressing social issues and promote humanitarian and democratic values as a primary function, and 3. sharing opportunities for public involvement in issues raised at the site.

 

Stakeholders

            For African-American heritage sites such as the African Burial Ground or the Henrietta Marie, scholarly or public activism was required to insure scientific and archaeological investigation.  Stakeholders vary from site to site; they are idiosyncratic, and particular to the individual circumstances of discovery.  As a result, it is imperative that we understand who the various stakeholders really are.  How well do we understand the people we serve, our ethical clients (Mack and Blakey 2004)?  Among the New York public not associated with governmental agencies, educational institutions, or archaeological firms, an older population consisting primarily of black women was at the forefront of the movement to save the site.  This mature population recognized the importance of heritage in ways that often elude younger generations.  These elder community members saw or see themselves as placeholders, with a responsibility to protect heritage sites until the next generation is in position to offer support or take up the fight (Figure 1). 

            As part of the 106 process and other state and local mandates, required oversight meetings are generally held during business hours. Frequently retired members of the descendant community have the time to attend mid-day meetings and emergency sessions.   Stakeholders often self identify or self-select, and have no official designation or affiliation.  Within the process of reclaiming an archaeological site, contentiousness initially may be viewed by stakeholders as more productive than partnership and from this ethos comes the certain knowledge that reclamation of a site may depend upon effective power sharing.  At the New York African Burial Ground stakeholders recognized interpretation as a political act and that intense provocation could be an effective force for change. 

            For the Henrietta Marie, the National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS) worked tirelessly to ensure that the wrecked ship was scientifically excavated and nationally publicized.  The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie by Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cottman (1999) chronicles rescue efforts and is a powerful example of public response to archaeology.  The book and a national exhibition make the history of the ship accessible to the public. The Henrietta Marie sailed from London in 1697 and again in 1699 and eventually sank off New Ground Reef in the Florida Keys in 1700 where it settled in 12 to 32 feet of water.

            The ship was discovered off the coast of Florida in 1988 by Mel Fisher, a treasure salvor considered a pariah among underwater archaeologists.  The history of the ship was deemed less valid by academicians, and due to the circumstances of discovery, and was not scientifically investigated for several years.  NABS was largely responsible for commemoration efforts and insisted that the historical legacy was too important to be lost. 

 

Underground Railroad

            Scholarly inattention to the topic of the Underground Railroad led Congress to mandate implementation of a study by the National Park Service (NPS) in 1993 and to establish the Network to Freedom in 1998 when Congressman Rob Portman (R-Ohio) co-sponsored the National Underground Network to Freedom Act with Congressman Louis Stokes (D-Cleveland). The Network to Freedom Act links Underground Railroad sites across the country into a network maintained by NPS which, in conjunction with The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, has become the institutional custodian of Underground Railroad history.  Throughout the years of neglect, however, local and family historians understood the relevance of preserving their stories.

            Archaeologists from the National Forest Service are excavating Underground Railroad sites in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Through a combination of archaeological, family and historical records, archaeologists are realizing that free people of color involved with the Underground Railroad adopted a radical stance in helping one another, often risking their own freedom to ensure the escape of family, friends, or loved ones, as well as strangers. 

            In the absence of strong documentation in the form of written records supporting Underground Railroad activities, historians and other researchers find little to no basis for historical analysis or claims by local historians.  Archaeological investigations combined with census data, family and church histories have the potential to contribute to solving research problems associated with Underground Railroad studies.  One must literally create history by first identifying and confirming sites and then looking at census data, deed books, slave schedules, old maps and the like, in order to formulate historical perspectives and create a thematic presence.  Heritage resources cannot be effectively established until after historical analyses have been completed.

           

History

            Combining a critical mass of archaeological sites such as the Underground Railroad sites identified by the National Forest Service in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, opens new historical perspectives.  Multidisciplinarity, informed by landscape studies and combined with the material record generated through archaeology, adds dimension and alternative paths to historical inquiry.  However, archaeological contributions to American history in general and to African-American history in particular continue to be both overlooked and undervalued.  From the plantation economy, to an understanding of foodways, medicinal and spiritual practices, to bioanthropological data, archaeology has made significant and long lasting contributions to understanding African American history. 

            Archaeological inquiry answers questions unavailable to historians where the supporting documentary record is simply unavailable. Archaeology, therefore, is one of the most powerful tools leading to African American cultural heritage.  Analysis of material culture retrieved from archaeological sites has contributed to understandings of African American religious, social, biological, and cultural structures.  Archaeology is a tool that contributes compensatory information that complicates history.  Questions derived from archaeological investigations are separate and distinct from those arising from historical sources.  Furthermore, the language of the landscape informs an understudied and overlooked African American history of place within efforts to reclaim an African American past. 

 

Heritage and History  

            Generational transmission of cultural legacies and traditions, communal histories, artistic expression, identity, and sustained cultural values combine to form heritage.  A historical component is necessarily included in any definition of heritage. History precedes heritage.  If the historical record is not preserved, neither heritage resources, nor historical legacy can emerge.

            Sites once dense with African-American cultural expression lay forgotten beneath the earth.  Were it not for archaeological investigation of a site, resurrecting and reclaiming the past, history would have been completely lost.  But for many of these sites, African Americans in conjunction with other concerned citizens recognized the importance of the story that lay behind the silences, the lack of preservation, the collective forgetting associated with archaeological rediscovery.  Archaeology is not an end in itself; it is, rather, a conduit, an avenue leading to renewal of black history. 

            One of the greatest archaeological finds of this century exists, in part, because of the relentlessness of the New York descendant community in a space and time when there should have been no discussion, no less contentiousness associated with investigation of the site. These examples reveal the struggles that surround preservation of African American history and heritage as African Americans look for ways to negotiate their cultural capital.

 

Conclusion

            Archaeological inquiry is a powerful tool that often introduces new questions for historical research and analysis.  Expanded approaches to African American history can benefit from multidisciplinary perspectives that combine cultural studies, material cultural, religious and historical analysis, and political and legal research with archaeology.  The combination yields information that contextualizes documentation and provides tangible and lasting historical legacies that enrich society and engage the public, while expanding research questions and approaches of scholars.   In some instances, were it not for public stewardship combined with archaeological investigation of a site, resurrecting, reclaiming, and reconfiguring the past, the history might have been lost to us.

 

 

References Cited

 

Castanga, JoAnne and Lattissua Tyler

2004    U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Districts Partner on African Burial Ground

Research.   The SAA Archaeological Record, 4(4): 29-32.

 

Cottman, Michael

1999  The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie:  an African-American's Spiritual Journey to Uncover a Sunken Slave Ship's Past.  Harmony Books, New York.

 

International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience

  n.d.    http://www.sitesofconscience.org/eng/index.htm

 

Mack, Mark E. and Michael L. Blakey

2004  The New York African Burial Ground Project:  Past Biases, Current Dilemmas, and Future Research Opportunities.  Historical Archaeology, 38(1): 10-17.

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