African-American Archaeology

Newsletter of the African-American Archaeology Network

Number 22, Fall 1998

• The Van Winkle Mill and the Anderson Slave Cemetery: African-American Related Sites in Northwest Arkansas
• Notes From the Editor
• An African-American Historical Bibliography: Primary Sources
• The Oldest Cemetery in Dallas Rediscovered: The Lost Location of Dallas's Slave Burials
• Some Thoughts on African-American Foodways
• Announcing Progression: Advances in African American Archaeology
• Slaves as Entrepreneurs
• Investigating Indiana's 19th-Century Agricultural Heritage: African-American and Quaker Farmers in Randolph County
• Book Reviews
• News and Announcements

The Van Winkle Mill and the Anderson Slave Cemetery: African-American Related Sites in Northwest Arkansas

Jamie C. Brandon and Jerry E. Hilliard, Arkansas Archeological Survey

As additional data come to light regarding enslaved African-Americans pressed into service in the agricultural economy of the south, attention should be focused on enslavement in other contexts, such as industrial settings, lest we run the risk of stereotyping the system of enslavement (Otto 1980). Similarly, the African-American communities of the Ozark Mountains, both enslaved and free, remain little studied among both historians and archaeologists, with few exceptions (e.g., Catalfamo-Serio 1979; Doolin 1980; Otto 1980). Recent investigations by the UAF station of the Arkansas Archeological Survey (AAS) have the potential to add both to our knowledge of African-American communities in the Ozarks and the conditions of industrial enslavement.

Mapping and limited testing of the Van Winkle Site (3 BE 413), a large domestic/industrial complex located in Benton County, Arkansas, was undertaken in response to the initial development of the Beaver Lake State Park (Hilliard 1997). This site, situated in a steep, narrow hollow, housed one of the largest mill operations in northwest Arkansas from approximately 1858 to the 1940s (Hicks 1990). Additionally, it served as the home of Peter Van Winkle (the mill's owner/operator), his family and the large work force that operated the mill. Just prior to the Civil War, Peter Van Winkle was known to have owned at least 18 slaves, whose involvement in mill work is evidenced by their continued employment after emancipation (Hicks 1990:51).

Features located during the clearing/mapping stage of the project include the Van Winkle home, the associated spring house, the mill site itself and at least two smaller structures (indicated by chimney falls and depressions) interpreted as slave/worker housing. A possible third structure appears to have been modified, perhaps for industrial use. A sherd of flow blue earthenware recovered from subsurface testing around the chimney falls attests to the possibility of a relatively early occupation date.

These three small structures are situated along a narrow side-hollow diverging from the main branch of Van Hollow and appear to be serviced by a smaller spring. This spatial distribution seems to speak volumes about attitudes regarding separation and social distancing of slave quarters as well as privacy afforded African-Americans in this context (see Stewart-Abernathy 1992 for a discussion of this phenomenon among urban slaves in Arkansas).

Additionally, local folklore lead the authors to believe that a "slave cemetery" was present somewhere in Van Hollow. Two sets of upright, unmarked field stones were reported by a local informant. These stones, situated on a ridge near the small domestic structures, were identified by Park Ranger Mark Clippinger and AAS personnel as possible grave locations. Non-invasive testing is being considered to verify the existence of this cemetery.

Another African-American related site investigated by the AAS in Benton County is the "Anderson Slave Cemetery" (3 BE 625). After local informants (including the Benton County Cemetery Preservation Group) reported that a cemetery might be present on land newly acquired by the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Authority (NWARA), the NWARA requested that the AAS investigate the area (Hilliard 1998).

Following informant leads, various locations within the thirty-acre pasture were investigated via mechanical stripping. In spite of difficult soil conditions (large pockets of chert deposits), blade cuts were sufficient to discern soil anomalies.

Three features interpreted as infant or sub-adult grave pits were explored by a combination of mechanical stripping and hand-excavated units. These features were located on a small knoll at the back corner of the former Anderson family farm near an intermittent creek. The upland soils of the Ozarks are notoriously acidic, and no artifacts or human remains were recovered even though fill was collected and processed through a flotation system. Soil analysis conducted on fill from two of the features seems to support the grave-shaft interpretation through high phosphorus contents relative to the native matrix (Hilliard 1998:14). This higher phosphorous content may be the result of bone decomposition, but interpretations of grave-fill via chemical signatures remain somewhat inconclusive in archaeological literature (e.g., Bethell 1989; Solecki 1951). No further excavations were conducted, as the project goal of identifying the specific location of the cemetery for avoidance had been achieved.

Identification of various antebellum features, including the specific location of the slave cemetery, provides spatial data for the reconstruction of the landscape of the Anderson antebellum farm. The slave dwellings and burying ground were located south of a road and in a relatively lower topographic setting than the white family home and cemetery. The slave cemetery is located approximately 400 meters south of the Anderson family cemetery on a cornerof the property that is subject to flooding. Extensive historical accounts and archival data are currently being compiled by the authors in order to place this antebellum landscape in context and provide clues concerning the lives of the enslaved African-Americans associated with the Anderson family.

References Cited

Bethell, Philip
1989    Chemical analysis of shadow burials. In Burial Archaeology: Current Research, Methods and Developments, Charlotte A. Roberts, Frances Leeand John Bintliff, editors. BAR British Series 211.

Catalfamo-Serio, Chris
1979    Slavery in Northwest Arkansas. In The Effect of the Civil War on Ozark Culture. Joe Cavanaugh, editor. Arkansas Endowment for the Humanities, Little Rock.

Doolin, James
1980    Conditions of Slavery in Washington County. Flashback 30(1). Washington County Historical Society.

Hicks, Marilyn Larner
1990    The Van Winkle Family: Peter Marsells Van Winkle 1814-1882. Privately printed.

Hilliard, Jerry
1997    A brief look at one of Northwest Arkansas's largest sawmills: the Van Winkle site 3BE413. Field Notes 279 p. 10-12.

1998    Historical and Archaeological Account of the Anderson Slave Cemetery (3BE625), Benton County, Arkansas. Report submitted to the NWARA. Arkansas Archaeological Survey.

Otto, John Solomon
1980    Slavery in the Mountains: Yell County, Arkansas, 1840-1860. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 39(1).

Solecki, R. S.
1951    Notes on soil analysis and archaeology. American Antiquity 16:254-56.

Stewart-Abernathy, Leslie C.
1992    Separate kitchen and intimate archeology: constructing urban slavery on the antebellum cotton frontier in Washington, Arkansas. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Pittsburgh.

Notes From the Editor: Renewals Due Soon!

I have several items of business to bring to your attention. A-AA will become a quarterly with the new year, the supply of content permitting. Your subscription renewals for 1999 are due in January!

The editorial staff has been expanded. I want to welcome Dr. Paul Mullins as Assistant Editor. Paul will help round-up material and will assist with production scut work. To enhance the Book Review/Notes section, Dr. James Garmond has come on as Book Review Editor. Finally, Ms. Carol McDavid will serve as editor of a new semi-annual column: Progression: Advances in African American Archaeology. More information about Progression can be found on page 7.

A-AA now has a new organizational home. The Council for Maryland Archaeology has agreed to be the fiscal agent for A-AA, so I am now able to establish a local checking account. I have been holding a number of checks pending completion of such an arrangement, so be warned -- if one of these is yours, it will be deposited shortly!

An African-American Historical Bibliography: Primary Sources

Editor's Note: from a bibliography complied by the New York State Library, January 1992

Abajian, James, comp.

1977    Blacks in Selected Newspapers, Censuses and other Sources: an Index to Names and Subjects. 3 vols. Boston: G.K. Hall.

1839    African Captives: Trial of the Prisoners of the Amistad on the Writof Habeus Corpus, before the Circuit Court of the United States, for the District of Connecticut, at Hartford; Judges Thompson and Judson, September Term, 1839. n.p.

Aptheker, Herbert, ed.

1951    A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States. Preface by W.E.B. Du Bois. New York: Citadel Press.

Austin, Allan, ed.

1984    African Muslims in Antebellum America: a Sourcebook. New York: Garland Pub.

Barker, Lucius Jefferson

1988    Our Time Has Come: a Delegate's Diary of Jesse Jackson's 1984 Presidential Campaign. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Bell, Howard Holman

1969    Minutes of the Proceedings of National Negro Conventions, 1830-1864. New York: Arno Press.

Bennett, Lerone, Jr.

1979    Wade in the Water: Great Moments in Black History. Chicago: Johnson Pub. Co.

Bergman, Peter M. and Jean McCarroll, comps.

1969    Negro in the Congressional Record, 1789-1801. New York: Bergman.

Berlin, Ira, et al, eds.

1985    Freedom, a Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867, vol. 1. The Destruction of Slavery. New York: Cambridge University Press.

1982    Freedom, a Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867, vol. 2. The Black Military Experience. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Black Culture Collection, from the Holdings of Atlanta University Library. Wooster, OH: Bell & Howell, Micro Photo Division, 1971-1973. (Microform collection containing approximately 10,000 books, pamphlets, portraits, letters by and about African Americans, mostly items collected by Henry P. Slaughter between 1900 and 1940.)

The Black Panther Leaders Speak: Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver and Company Speak Out through the Black Panther Party's Official Newspaper. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1976.

Brotz, Howard

1966    Negro Social and Political Thought, 1850-1920; Representative Texts. New York: Basic Books.

Bureau of National Affairs

1964    Civil Rights Act of 1964: Text, Analysis, Legislative History; What It Means to Employers, Businessmen, Unions, Employees, Minority Groups. Washington, DC.

Carmichael, Stokely

1971    Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. New York: Random House.

Chester, Thomas Morris

1989    Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from the Virginia Front. Edited by R.J.M. Blackett. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Clark, Kenneth B.

1963    Negro Protest: James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King talk with Kenneth B. Clark. Boston: Beacon Press.

Cleaver, Eldridge

1969    Eldridge Cleaver: Post-Prison Writings and Speeches. New York: Random House.

Commager, Henry Steele

1967    Struggle for Racial Equality: a Documentary Record. New York: Harper & Row.

Davis, Angela

1974    Angela Davis Case Collection, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, Berkeley, California. Edited by Ann Fagan Ginger. 13 microfilm reels. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Trans-Media Publishing Company.

1971    If They Come in the Morning; Voices of Resistance. Foreword by Julian Bond. A Joseph Okpaku Book. New York: Third Press.

Douglass, Frederick

1979    The Frederick Douglass Papers. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Du Bois, W.E.B.

1988    Writings. Edited by Nathan Huggins. Library of America. New York: Literary Classics of America.

Eaklor, Vicki Lynn

1988    American Antislavery Songs: a Collection and Analysis. New York: Greenwood Press

Eicholz, Alice and James M. Rose, comps.

1981    Free Black Heads of Household in the New York State Federal Census, 1790-1830. Gale Genealogy and Local History Series, vol. 14. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Co.

Elliot, Jeffrey M

1986    Black Voices in American Politics. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Foner, Philip S

1972    Voice of Black America: the Major Speeches by Negroes in the United States, 1797-1971. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Foner, Philip S. , and George E. Walker, eds.

1979-80    Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840-1865. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

1986    Proceedings of the Black National and State Conventions, 1865-1900. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Forman, James

1972    Making of Black Revolutionaries; a Personal Account. New York: Macmillan.

Forten, Charlotte L.

1988    The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke. Edited by Brenda Stevenson. New York: Oxford University Press.

Franklin, John Hope

1967    Negro in Twentieth Century America: a Reader on the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Vintage Books.

Gunther, Lenworth, ed.

1978    Black Image: European Eyewitness Accounts of Afro-American Life. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press.

Jacques-Garvey, Amy, ed.

1969    Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. 2 vols. New Prefaceby Hollis R. Lynch. Studies in American Negro Life, NL 14. New York: Atheneum.

Kennebeck, Edwin

1973    Juror Number Four: the Trial of Thirteen Black Panthers As Seen from the Jury Box. New York: Norton.

Katz, William Loren, comp.

1974    Eyewitness: the Negro in American History. New York: Pitman Pub. Corp.

King, Martin Luther

1958    Stride Toward Freedom: the Montgomery Story. New York: Harper.

1986    A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

The Liberator

Boston: William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp. 35 vols.

Lincoln, Abraham

1863    Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. September 22, 1863.

1989    Speeches and Writings. 2 vols. Selected and annotated by Don E. Fehrenbacher. The Library of America, vols. 45 and 46. New York: Literary Classics of the United States.

Little, Malcolm. See X, Malcolm

Loyal Publication Society

1863    Opinions of the Early Presidents and of the Fathers of the Republic upon Slavery and upon Negroes as Men and Soldiers. Pamphlets, Loyal Publication Society, vol. 18. New York: C. Bryant & Co., Printers.

The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

McFarlin, Annjenette Sophie, comp.

1976    Black Congressional Reconstruction Orators and Their Orations, 1869-1879. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Mohonk Conference on the Negro Question. Proceedings. Boston: The Conference, 1890-91.

Moore, Richard B.

1988    Richard B. Moore, Caribbean Militant in Harlem: Collected Writings, 1920-1972. Edited by W. Burghardt Turner and Joyce Moore Turner, with a biography by Joyce Moore Turner. Introduction by Franklin W. Knight. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Motley, Mary Penwick, comp.

1975    The Invisible Soldier: the Experience of the Black Soldier, World War II. Foreword by Howard Donovan Queen. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Mullin, Michael, ed.

1976    American Negro Slavery: a Documentary History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

1981    Papers of the NAACP. Editorial Advisor, August Meier. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America.

Owens, Jesse

1970    Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Owens, Jesse and Paul Neimark.

1972    I Have Changed. New York: William Morrow & Company.

Paul, Nathaniel

1827    An Address, Delivered on the Celebration of the Abolition of Slavery, in the State of New York, July 5, 1827, by Nathaniel Paul, Pastor of the First African Baptist Society in the City of Albany. Albany,NY: Printed by John B. Van Steenbergh.

Ripley, C. Peter, ed., Jeffrey S. Rossbach, associate ed., et al.

1985    The Black Abolitionist Papers. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Robeson, Paul

1978    Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews, 1918-1974. Edited with an introduction and notes by Philip S. Foner. Larchmont, NY: Brunner-Mazel.

Rosengarten, Theodore

1986    Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter; with the Journal of Thomas B. Chaplin. Edited and annotated with the assistance of Susan W. Walker. New York: Morrow.

Rustin, Bayard

1971    Down the Line: the Collected Writings. Chicago: Quadrangle Books.

Slavery: Source Material Selected from a Bibliography of Anti-Slavery in America. Microfiche. Louisville, KY: Lost Cause Press, 1971.

Slavery: Source Material Selected from Items Entered under the Subject Group "Slavery" in the Catalog of the Library of Congress. Microfiche. Louisville, KY: Lost Cause Press, 1972.

Smith, Billy G. and Richard Wojtowicz, comps.

1989    Blacks Who Stole Themselves: Advertisements for Runaways in the Pennsylvania Gazette 1728-1790. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Sterling, Dorothy, ed.

1973    Speak Out in Thunder Tones: Letters and Other Writings by Black Northerners, 1787-1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

1976    The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell the Story of Reconstruction. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Stewart, Maria W.

1987    Maria W. Stewart, America's First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Sweet, Leonard I.

1976    Black Images of America, 1784-1870. New York: Norton.

Taylor, Clara, comp.

1974    British and American Abolitionists: an Episode in Translatlantic Understanding. Chicago: Aldine.

Taylor, Clyde, comp.

1973    Vietnam and Black America: an Anthology of Protest and Resistance. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.

Taylor, Susis King

1988    A Black Woman's Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Trops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers.Edited by Patricia W. Romero. New York: M. Wiener Pub.

Turner, Henry McNeal

1971    I. Compiled and edited by Edwin S. Redkey. New York: Arno Press.

United States Congress, House of Representatives. Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968; Voting Rights Act of 1965; Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1970.

United States. Supreme Court. The Case of Dred Scott in the United States Supreme Court: the Full Opinions of Chief Justice Taney and Justice Curtis, and Abstracts of the Opinions of the Other Judges; with an Analysis of the Points Ruled, and Some Concluding Observations. New York: Horace Greeley and Co., 1857.

Vincent, Theodore G., ed.

1973    Voices of a Black Nation; Political Journalism in the Harlem Renaissance. Foreword by Robert Chrisman. San Francisco: Ramparts Press.

Washington, Booker T.

1972-1989    The Booker T. Washington Papers. 14 vols. Edited by LouisR. Harlan. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Wilkins, Roy

1977    Talking It Over With Roy Wilkins: Selected Speeches and Writings. Compiled by Helen Solomon and Aminda Wilkins. Norwalk, CT: M & B Pub. Co.

Woodson, Carter Godwin, ed.

1924    Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, Together with Absentee Ownership of Slaves in the United States in 1830. Washington, DC: The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

1926    Mind of the Negro as Reflected in Letters Written during the Crisis. Washington, DC: The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

X, Malcolm

1965    Malcolm X Speaks; Selected Speeches and Statements. Edited by George Breitman. New York: Merit Publishers.

1968    The Speeches of Malcolm X at Harvard. Edited with an introductory essay by Archie Epps. New York: W. Morrow.

1970    By Any Means Necessary; Speeches, Interviews, and a Letter. Edited by George Breitman. New York: Pathfinder Press.

The Oldest Cemetery in Dallas Rediscovered: The Lost Location of Dallas's Slave Burials

James M. Davidson, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

The earliest cemetery established in Dallas, Texas, had lain buried, lost,and forgotten for nearly a hundred years. Now, from a clue found while researching the origin of Freedman's Cemetery (the historic African-American cemetery that was the focus of intensive archaeological investigations in recent years), this lost cemetery, the Old Dallas Burial Ground, has been rediscovered. The information recovered regarding this cemetery's origin and demography has provided significant insight into life in antebellum Dallas.

Dallas's oldest cemetery is located a mere four blocks north of two famous landmarks in Dallas history -- the Texas School Book Depository and Dealey Plaza -- and some two miles to the south of Freedman's Cemetery. While the village of Dallas itself was founded in 1841 by John Neely Bryan, the precise founding date of the old Dallas Burial Ground remains unknown. From our current understanding, however, it is likely that it was formed in the early 1840s in an impromptu manner, and only when the first death to visit the village of Dallas dictated its necessity. Importantly, and not atypical for the antebellum South, the Old Dallas Burial Ground marked the final resting place of both "anglo" settlers and enslaved African Americans, making it a true communal graveyard. From the archival record, it would seem that Dallas's first cemetery was closed to further interments sometime around 1869, the very year that Freedman's Cemetery was founded.

Prior to the discovery of the Old Dallas Burial Ground, it had been widely believed that Freedman's Cemetery actually contained the remains of both freedmen and slaves, and that Freedman's Cemetery could ultimately trace its origin to a slave cemetery. The discovery of this earlier burial ground will thus alter many basic assumptions regarding the origin and history of the early community of Freedman's Town, of which Freedman's Cemetery was but one part.

Ironically, like Freedman's Cemetery, an acre of which was paved over by highway construction in the 1940s, the Old Dallas Burial Ground suffered a similar fate. It was first impacted by the physical plant of the Dallas Brewery during its expansion at the turn-of-the-century, and was finally paved over by the creation of Woodall Rogers Freeway in the 1970s.

There is indirect archival evidence suggesting that most, if not all, of the graves of whites were moved from the Old Dallas Burial Ground in the early 1870s to the newly formed City Cemetery. No archival evidence, however, has been found regarding the fate of the remains of the enslaved African Americans. Freedman's Cemetery was formed in 1869 specifically to supersede the Old Dallas Burial Ground's role, and so it would have been the logical (and indeed the only) place available for such re-interments. Although the earliest portion of the Freedman's Cemetery was completely cleared of graves during the highway department's archaeological investigation, no cases of graves containing the disturbed remains of secondary burials were recovered. With the complete lack of secondary burials at Freedman's Cemetery, and nothing in the archival record to suggest their removal, it seems highly likely that the remains of Dallas's slaves and early freedmen still lie within the Old Dallas Burial Ground.

The presence or extent of subsurface impacts that may have occurred to the graves, due either to the turn-of-the-century brewery expansion or the construction of Woodall Rogers Freeway, is unknown. In the vicinity of the Old Burial Ground, Woodall Rogers Freeway consists of an elevated roadway, and so the cemetery is not capped off with roadbed materials in any conventional sense. Accordingly, archaeological investigation could potentially reveal any surviving graves, which could then be removed to a nearby cemetery.

Note: A full length article on the Old Dallas Burial Ground will be published in the October 1998 issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly.

Some Thoughts on African-American Foodways

Elizabeth M. Scott, Zooarch Research, St. Mary, Missouri

A few years ago I had the opportunity to analyze the animal remains from Nina Plantation (16PC62), a c. 1820s-1890s sugar plantation in central Louisiana on the banks of the Mississippi River. Excavated in 1993 and 1994 by R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates on behalf of the US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, the project included investigation of the Main House and two structures in an Outbuilding Complex associated with African Americans, although the slave quarters proper were not excavated (since that area was not in danger of destruction by the Mississippi River). The site has the advantage of an 1851 alluvial flood deposit that serves to distinguish antebellum and postbellum occupations in both areas of the site. This coincides as well with a change in ownership of the plantation in 1857, from a French Creole family to an Anglo-American family from Philadelphia (Markell 1996). Thus, it was possible to analyze differences in French, Anglo-American, and African American diets; differences in pre-Emancipation and post-Emancipation African American diets; and whether the differences could be attributed to ethnicity, economic position, or both. This analysis brought several things to mind that seem to have relevance for understanding the variability of African American foodways in a plantation setting, and which I would like to discuss here.

The Outbuilding Complex at Nina Plantation appears, from the material culture, to have been where African Americans resided, first as slaves and later as tenants (Markell 1996). One of the Outbuildings, Structure 1, probably served as a residence for enslaved African American and tenants as well as a kitchen for the Main House residents. The function of the second Outbuilding, Structure 2, is somewhat less clear, although butchering and food preparation occurred there as well. Deer, raccoons, rabbits, turkey, doves and pigeons, alligator, and suckers were consumed only in the Outbuildings. The residents ate some species that also were consumed at the Main House, including cow, pig, chicken, squirrel, ducks and geese, and turtles. Some species, such as opossum, occur in small amounts at the Main House, but in larger amounts in the Outbuilding area. This is especially true of fish; although catfishes, gar, bowfin, drum, and sunfishes occur at the Main House, they played a much greater role in the diet at the Outbuilding area. Comparison of earlier French period (c. 1820-1851) with later Anglo period (1851-1890s) diets at the Outbuilding area indicates an increase in domestic species and a marked decrease in the use of wild mammals, birds, and fish in the later period. A similar pattern is seen at the later Anglo Main House.

The evidence from Nina Plantation brings to mind discussions about differences in the ways enslaved African American and tenants obtained their subsistence. Because assemblages associated with the later tenant period Outbuildings at Nina seem much more like those associated with the Anglo Main House in their increased use of beef and sharp reduction in wild animals, one might be tempted to assume that the plantation owners, the Allens, were controlling what meat provisions were even available to African-American tenants. In other words, the shift in the African American diet at Nina in the same direction as the new owners' shift might be taken to suggest greater owner control of meat sources during the Anglo period.

However, what the faunal data might be revealing is an effect on men's and women's time. If the plantation owner no longer provided food rations (as he/she might have done in the antebellum period), then a tenant family would have to spend more time (outside of work on the sugar plantation) growing its own crops and otherwise getting food for subsistence. Less time would be available for both hunting and agriculture, such that a choice might have been made for investing time in gardens near the house rather than in procuring wild animals further a field. It might have made more sense for the tenants to have purchased were available from the plantation owner or from nearby stores, even if this meant a change in diet.

It is also possible that African-American tenants wanted to change their diets, i.e., preferred the same foods as the Anglo owners, or wanted to demonstrate their ability to purchase a similar array of foods. This could be read both as "buying into" the ideology of the dominant classas well as "in your face" resistance to the dominant class by co-opting one of the signs of that class its food choices. At Nina Plantation, with the shift from slave to tenant status, the African-American diet changed from one dominated by pork and wild species to one dominated by beef and virtually devoid of wild species.

I think it is difficult to determine whether the meat diet we see revealed in the slave and tenant households on plantations truly reflects African or African-American food preferences or whether it reflects slave and tenant choices from a limited range of available options. Certainly some culinary practices, such as reliance on stews and "one-dish" meals, and the use of certain plant foods, such as okra and cow peas, can be traced to Africa (Ferguson 1992; Wagner 1981; Hall 1991). However, pigs' feet, stereotypically an African-American food preference, occurred in higher proportions in the French and Anglo Main Houses at Nina than in the slave and tenant Outbuildings; in the case of the earlier French period, the percentage was much higher at the Main House. During the later tenant period, there was a marked decrease in consumption of pork in the Outbuildings and a corresponding increase in consumption of beef. High and medium food value cuts of beef increased and the less meaty cuts decreased, suggesting that African-American tenants at Nina were better off economically, and perhaps physically, than their enslaved predecessors had been.

In addition to the change in work and "free" time that is part and parcel of the shift from slavery to tenancy, there are the very real differences between French and Anglo-American systems of slavery to consider. One article of the French Code Noir (Black Code) forbade owners to workslaves on Sundays and holidays, leaving this time available for enslaved men and women to engage in their own pursuits which might include, among many other things, hunting and fishing as well as bartering and selling goods and services (Ekberg 1985:215). We know relatively little about North American French plantations archaeologically, to know how this might be revealed materially; however, the subject has been examined by historians for the middle Mississippi valley (Ekberg 1985) and the Louisiana colony in general (Usner 1987). The much greater consumption of wild mammals and fish by enslaved African Americans at Nina during the period French Creoles owned the plantation suggests access to and time for acquisition of those resources in a way that is consistent with the Code Noir.

Another factor to consider is the economic base of the plantation under study, which is related to its environmental setting. One would expect quite a lot of variation in food consumption between those who lived on coastal rice, indigo, and sea cotton plantations, upland tobacco, cotton, hemp, and wheat plantations, and sugar plantations; between those who lived onthe banks of large rivers and oceans and those who had only creeks or ponds nearby; between those who lived near heavily forested areas and those nea open grassland or prairie. When we combine the different kinds of labor that were required of enslaved men and women for different plantation economies with the variation in nearby plant and animal resources, it is clear that comparisons and generalizations about African American subsistence on plantations can be neither easy nor facile. Temporal and technological changes alsomust be brought into the picture. For example, late nineteenth-century changes in meat processing and in shipping meant more people had greater access to domesticated meats than before, especially if they lived along majorwaterways.

All of these factors (the ethnicity of owners, overseers, slaves, and tenants); economic position; economic base of plantation; environmental setting; temporal/technological context) need to be taken into consideration when looking at similarities and differences in African-American foodways on plantations. (Even more variability would be expected, of course, when African-American contexts in non-plantation settings [enslaved and free] are examined.) The foods people ate reflect access to, choices about, and preferences for, particular resources and can tell us much about the role of subsistence in planter-slave and planter-tenant relations on plantations. To even begin to understand this, we need faunal and botanical data from many more kinds of plantations in various environmental settings dating to several different periods. Hopefully, research in the not-too-distant future will include increased attention to topics such as these.

References Cited

Ekberg, Carl J.
1985    Colonial Ste. Genevieve: An Adventure on the Mississippi Frontier. The Patrice Press, Gerald, Missouri.

Ferguson, Leland G.
1992    Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

Hall, Robert L.
1991    Savoring Africa in the New World. In Seeds of Change: Five Hundred Years Since Columbus, edited by Herman Viola and Carolyn Margolis, pp. 160-185. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

Markell, Ann
1996    Patterns of Change in Plantation Life in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana: The Americanization of Nina Plantation, 1820-1890. Draft report submitted to the US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District. R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., New Orleans.

Usner, Daniel H., Jr.
1987    The Frontier Exchange Economy of the Lower Mississippi Valley in the Eighteenth Century. William and Mary Quarterly XLIV:2:165-192.

Wagner, Mark
1981    The Introduction and Early Use of African Plants in the New World. Tennessee Anthropologist 6(2):112-123.

Announcing Progression: Advances in African-American Archaeology

Carol McDavid, Cambridge University

A-AA has been in existence for some years now, and those of you who have been long-term subscribers have seen it through a number of changes in editor, content, style, and appearance. In many way these changes have been in response to changes in the content and social context of our field as it has matured. Another change is in the works, which we hope will help the newsletter to be even better tool for researchers. Starting with the Spring 1999 issue we will begin a regular column, under my editorship, entitled Progression: Advances in African American Archaeology.

This semi-annual column will attempt to map the changing theoretical, methodological, social, and political terrain that researchers in this field must navigate. As column editor, I hope to receive contributions drawn from ongoing research-particularly research that is attempting to establish new directions in this area of inquiry. These new directions can be "purely" archaeological, or have to do with issues more social and political than technical. Reportson significant community work will be as welcome in this forum as reports which detail theoretical and methodological challenges. I will also occasionally solicit pieces, so suggestions about work that would be of interest to subscribers will also be appreciated. The content of the column will include both information and commentary, and will, I hope, include as much of both from our subscribers as from me.

My address can be found below, please drop me a note with your ideas or proposals!

Slaves as Entrepreneurs

On Tuesday, October 13, 1998, The Washington Post (Page B03) carried an article reporting the work of College of William and Mary archaeologist Tom Higgins at the slave quarters of Wilton plantation. The excavations indicated that "enslaved Africans partially supported their families with their own gardens and livestock and that they hunted for game and fished the river. They became part of entrepreneurial America, bartering or buying dishes, beads and children's toys."

We hope to have more information about this project in a future A-AA.

Investigating Indiana's 19th-Century Agricultural Heritage: African-American and Quaker Farmers in Randolph County

Deborah L. Rotman, Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University

Editor's Note: This paper discusses the results of research first briefly reported in A-AA No. 20.

Introduction

African-Americans have played an important role in east central Indiana's long agricultural heritage. As a free state, Indiana was a frequent destination for African-Americans and Quakers migrating from the south, particularly from North Carolina and Virginia (Lyda 1953:18). Many of these individuals came to Randolph County and formed three distinct agricultural communities -- Greenville, Cabin Creek, and Snow Hill (Tucker 1882:133-134).

These settlements were recently the focus of archaeological and historical investigations. The project included extensive documentary research and interviews with descendants of early pioneers. A reconnaissance level survey of nearly 1,000 acres was also conducted 72 percent of which was owned by African-Americans and 28 percent by Quakers and other white farmers. Fourteen historic sites associated with African Americans were identified, each with a mean ceramic date (MCD) before 1850. The goals for this research included: understanding early agricultural practices in the region, examining economic stratification within and between cultural groups, and determining if an archaeological correlate for ethnicity existed. This paper briefly outlines the project results.

Historical Background

Early African-American and Quaker pioneers had familial, cultural, and economic ties to one another, both in their home states and after resettling in Indiana (Cord 1993:107-108). Members of both groups assisted fugitive slaves on their way north as well as provided support to those who chose to remain in Randolph County. The Underground Railroad brought new members into the communities and offered opportunities for individuals and families to relocate to northern Indiana, Michigan, and Canada (Funk 1964:9). The number of African-American residents in Randolph County increased from five in 1820 to 825 in 1850 (Thornbrough 1993:45). Greenville appeared to have been the largest and most dynamic of these settlements. At its peak, ithad 800-900 members (Tucker 1882:133). This community was also the home to the Union Literary Institute (ULI), founded in 1845 by a board comprised of both African-Americans and white Quakers. This manual boarding school became the first integrated, coeducational institution in the area (Dye 1981).

Despite being a free state, four-fifths of Indiana's population was in sympathy with slavery prior to mid-century (Cockrum 1969:12). By 1831, African Americans were required by law to give bond as guarantee of good behavior and against their becoming public charges (Thornbrough 1993:31). As the Civil War drew nearer, African Americans were increasingly unwelcome in Indiana. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 mandated the capture and return of fugitives who had fled to free states (Thornbrough 1993:32). In 1854, the Indiana Constitutional Convention adopted a provision which prohibited African Americans from becoming residents of the state (Litweck 1961:70).

In addition to these social and political changes, agricultural production in Indiana and elsewhere was undergoing a transformation. Prior to circa 1855, and depending on location, many farm households were virtually self-sufficient family units. However, after mid-century, the size of land holdings increased and farmers began to focus on one or two primary crops rather than tending to a broad spectrum of livestock and agricultural pursuits (McMurry 1988:54). Poor farmers were often unable to meet the increased capital requirements of this new system and were, therefore, at a greater competitive disadvantage. Many abandoned farming and sought employment in urbanized areas (Tucker 1882:133).

Randolph County communities grew and expanded from the first wave of migration after statehood (1816) until the Civil War, but by the turn of the 20th century, the African-American and Quaker settlements in Randolph County had virtually disappeared (Thornbrough 1993:177). The transformation of the agricultural system in east central Indiana coincided with deteriorating race relations as the Civil War approached. The migration of black farmers out of the settlements in Randolph County may have been motivated by decreased economic opportunities in farming or marginalized social position as a result of the changing political climate . . . or perhaps both (Leavell 1997; Robbins 1997).

Settlement and Agriculture

Although merchants, shoemakers, and blacksmiths were operating within these communities, agriculture was the primary focus. Few specific references to material possessions and farming practices in Randolph County were found. However, a study of a rural African-American community in St. Joseph County, whose inhabitants also originated from North Carolina and Virginia, indicated that "life was apparently typical for the pioneer period in Indiana"(Karst 1978:261). Threshing, butchering, and other farm tasks were shared with neighbors, many of whom were white. Farming included the cultivation of general crops and the raising of livestock. There is no evidence to suggest that life in the Randolph County settlements deviated from this pattern.

All but three of the sites investigated contained agricultural-related artifacts (i.e., tools, plow parts, etc.), although the relative percentage of these items was low. The absence of large numbers of agricultural artifacts substantiated that farm tools were highly valued, curated, and re-used (Smith and Driver 1914:786). According to the 1850 census, there were three blacksmiths residing in the Cabin Creek settlement. These individuals would have been instrumental in refurbishing and repairing important metal components of agricultural implements. As a result, these items would have entered the archaeological record in limited quantities. Additionally, the wooden pieces of hoes, axes, harrows, and plows would not have been preserved archaeologically.

Economic Stratification

These early agricultural communities were stratified economically. However, stratification appears to cross ethnic, social, and religious boundaries.A wide range of farm values and sizes were noted in the 1850 agricultural census (Reel 3895) for African Americans and for Quakers and other white settlers (Table 1). The archaeological evidence also illustrated economic variation. Some assemblages contained only a few undecorated earthenwares and utilitarian stonewares, while others were dominated by transfer-printed and other decorated whitewares. Consequently, all points on the economic spectrum appeared to have been occupied by individuals from multiple social categories.

Overall, however, the Quakers and other white farmers fared better than their African-American neighbors, particularly during the shift to commercial agriculture after mid-century. White farmers generally occupied their farms longer and retained possession of them later into the 19th century. Only half (N=7) of the properties owned by African Americans were occupied longer than 20 years, compared to 80 percent (N=4) of farms owned by whites. Additionally,in the decade following the transformation of the agricultural system (ca. 1855-1865), only 33 percent (N=1) of white farmers had sold their property, while 55 percent (N=5) of land held by African Americans was sold during the same time period.

Archaeological Correlates of Ethnicity

The sites surveyed were associated with landowners from a range of ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds, yet the artifacts recovered were quite similar. Another study, which compared African American and Euroamerican farmsteads from the early 20th century, also did not indicate any significant differences in material culture attributed to ethnicity (Stine 1990:48). Within Indiana, rural African-American settlements in St. Joseph County during the 19th century were much like white rural communities of the same time period (Karst 1978:267).

The only discernible differences in the archaeological assemblages appeared to be along economic, not racial lines. Material culture may not have played a primary role in asserting social boundaries on the frontier in Indiana during the first half of the 19th century. As was suggested by Stine (1990:49) character attributes, such as being "crooked," slovenly or lazy, may have been more important than class, occupation or race. Consequently, no clear archaeological correlate of ethnicity was discerned for sites within the project area.

Summary

The documentary research, oral interviews, and reconnaissance level survey conducted during this project are only the first step to understanding dynamic African-American and Quaker communities in Randolph County. However, the data collected provides an important foundation upon which to base future historical and archaeological research of pioneer settlement, farming practices, and social interaction within African-American communities in Indiana and the Midwest.

Note: If interested in ordering a copy of the research report for this project, please contact the author at dlrotman@aol.com

Acknowledgments

My sincerest thanks to my research team: Rachel Mancini, Aaron Smith, and Elizabeth Campbell. This project was funded by Ball State University and through a Department of Interior grant administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology.

References Cited

Cockrum, William M.
1969    The History of the Underground Railroad. Negro Universities Press, New York.

Cord, Xenia
1993    Black Rural Settlements in Indiana Before 1860. In Indiana's African-American Heritage: Essays from Black History News & Notes, edited by W. L. Gibbs,pp. 99-110. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.

Dye, Kitty
1981    Story of the Old School. The Muncie Star, Section B:1, August 30.

Funk, Arville L.
1964    Railroad to Freedom. Outdoor Indiana 8 (5):5-10.

Karst, Frederick a.
1978    A Rural Black Settlement in St. Joseph County, Indiana before 1900. Indiana Magazine of History 74:252-267.

Leavell, Harry
1997    Telephone conversation with Elizabeth Campbell, 9 November.

Litweck, Leon F.
1961    North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Lyda, John W.
1953    The Negro in the History of Indiana. Hathoway Printery, Coatesville, Indiana.

McMurry, Sally
1988    Families and Farmhouses in Nineteenth-Century America: Vernacular Design and Social Change. Oxford University Press, New York.

Robbins, Coy
1997    Telephone conversation with Elizabeth Campbell, 13 October.

Smith, John L., and Lee L. Driver
1914    Past and Present in Randolph County, Indiana. A. W. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis.

Stafford, James and Barbara Stafford
1997    Interview with Elizabeth Campbell, New Paris, Ohio, 18 July.

Stine, Linda
1990    Social Identity and Turn-of-the-Century Farmsteads: Issues of Class, Status, Ethnicity, and Race. Historical Archaeology 24(4):37-49.

Book Reviews

Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation

Velma Maia Thomas, Crown Publishers Inc., New York, 1997.

Ed Hood, Old Sturbridge Village

In Lest We Forget: The Passage from Africa to Slavery and Emancipation, Velma Maia Thomas, creator and curator of the Black Holocaust Museum, providesan accessible overview and perspective on the enslavement of Africans inAmerica. The book includes "interactive" features, primarily facsimiles of period documents, pertaining to the slave trade and to the experiences of those who were enslaved. From a paper reproduction of a tobacco can one can produce the treasured manumission papers of Robert Green, who had been enslaved in Missouri until set free by his owner in 1838. The facsimile copy captures the folded and worn character of the original paper, and even includes an additional note on its back from the former owner stating that "Should the bearer Robert Green be so unfortunate as to be placed inany situation that may require aid or friends and cannot procure, if any gentleman that will write me and of his situation will greatly oblige". The effect is similar to handling the actual artifact, making Robert Green's experience that much more real for the reader. Photographs and first-hand accounts of life under slavery help make the terrible pain and enormous scope of African enslavement in America tangible and personal.

The book is divided into self-contained sections composed of the two facing pages in front of the reader -- providing a succinct but effective exposure to a variety of issues associated with slavery: the Middle Passage, The Auction, "seasoning", childhood under slavery, emancipation, and so forth. The color format of this book includes half-toned images behind the text, photographs of individuals, cut-out details of artifacts such as a whip, reproduced period documents such as fugitive slave advertisements, and other historic engravings and images. Transcriptions are provided at the end of the book for the period documents reproduced in facsimile form (though I did not realized this until I had read the entire book and was flipping through its last pages). The text includes enough detailed factual information to support itself without overloading a non-academic reader, and the clear and well organized writing style further contributes to the book's effectiveness. It is in many ways a traveling-exhibit of sorts, whose well-captioned images will provide a significant amount of interesting information to those who choose not to stop and read the more detailed text.

Thomas keeps the experience of individuals in the fore and helps put the reader in the place of the person on the auction block about to be separated from their family forever. The experience of fear and powerlessness created through the Middle Passage, seasoning, arbitrary punishment and humiliation, the constant threat of loss of family and community through sale, and the desire to resist slavery by any means possible are brought into focus. Thomas emphasizes, that though enslaved, Africans and African Americans always maintained their own identity and constantly resisted slavery and racism in a variety of ways, from open revolt to working slow. By consistently referring to enslaved Africans and African Americans as "my ancestors", she brings their experience closer to home and provides a sense of identity to the enslaved that a reader may not feel in a more academic account. As she states in her afterword, "Lest We Forget is a tribute to those whose lives are told through the documents you've seen and read.". Indeed it is, and it is a very effective, non-academic, presentation of a very central element of American history -- Slavery.

Spirits of the Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Seventeenth Century

Madeline Burnside and Rosemarie Robotham. Foreword by Cornel West. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1997. 192 pp., plates, index. $35.00.

Paul Mullins, George Mason University

Madeline Burnside and Rosemarie Robotham weave a sweeping, eloquent, and complex account of the transatlantic slave trade in this volume. Burnside and Robotham's telling probes the international dimensions of enslavement and colonialism by examining the material culture recovered from the Henrietta Marie. A French-built English merchant slaver, the Henrietta Marie carried over 400 enslaved Africans and a range of slave trade cargo between 1697 and 1700, when it sank off the Florida coast. The ship lay there until its excavation by the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society in the 1980s. Spirits of the Passage is a model of lucid and thorough writing on perhaps the most tangled of historical stories, synthesizing a wide range of historiographical resources and contemplating the myriad facets of the 17th-century world. Rather than an account of an isolated shipwreck, Spirits of the Passage is primarily a narrative which traces slave trade connections across space and time between sub-Saharan African trade, western European maritime commerce,the Middle Passage, and African resistance in the Americas.

The volume's foreword by Cornel West adds the sort of concise and penetrating commentary readers expect from West. West's sharply thought-out introduction raises familiar but powerfully articulated paradoxes about the fundamental social contradictions of slavery and racism and their reach across five centuries. Robotham pens a brief introduction to the volume which focuses on the human experiences of the slave trade. Burnside, executive director of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, adds an afterword on the archaeological discovery and excavation of the Henrietta Marie. The book's exquisite aesthetics and production will be the envy of every archaeologist resigned to readand write contract reports or small press volumes which do not have the benefit of costly technical production.

As a social history drawing on a vast range of period narratives, graphics, and secondary accounts examining the worldwide breadth of the traffic inhumans, Spirits of the Passage is an incisive and compelling study of the complex state, material, and social forces shaping slavery. Spirits of the Passage aspires to paint a picture of the world's players in the slave trade, and it does so quite well. Yet, as an archaeological account, Spirits of the Passage does not devote sufficient attention to the Henrietta Marie's material culture. The evocative power of the Henrietta Marie's material culture -- from ankle shackles to Venetian trade beads -- certainly is well-suited to emphasizing the tragic, gripping, and ignoble human dimensions of the transatlantic slave trade and the Middle Passage. Robotham's introduction recognizes that items like nearly 100 pairs of shackles can conjure powerful human stories, but Spirits of the Passage is generally a measured march through slave trade history that is periodically punctuated by illustrations of excavated objects. While it synthesizes a rich range of resources and literature, Spirits of the Passage devotes relatively little close and detailed attention to specific objects from the Henrietta Marie, their aesthetics or function, or the ship itself with the rigor expected of underwater and African-American archaeologies. Spirits of the Passage is constructed like a conventional, albeit eloquent historical narrative with an episodic storyline, a textual style unlike most historical archaeology's use of fine-grained material analyses to illuminate concealed and otherwise-lost minutia of everyday life. The illustrations of Henrietta Marie artifacts are striking and the sidebars articulate, but Spirits of the Passage's text tells the story of worldwide social and material changes which created slavery and were in turn impacted by the slave trade, not the history of this one ill-fated ship or the men, women, and children who were captors and captives aboard it. In this sense, Spirits of the Passage charts a distinctive textual style which synthesizes archaeological and historiographical conventions. The book eschews the rigorous material analysis associated with most archaeological literature and instead uses stunning graphics to evoke the human stories concealed by the book's otherwise standard slave trade historiography. Some archaeologists may prefer to see systematic material analysis at the heart of such a book, concerned that this sort of graphic-intensive text simply reduces objects to superfluous ornamentation. Indeed, Spirits of the Passage might well have been written without the Henrietta Marie material culture. Yet the incorporation of even a modest quantity of material culture -- even though these figure primarily as illustrations -- clearly advances the book's effort to contemplate the human experiences of slavery, so it charts a provocative path for the writing of African-American archaeologies.

Archaeological readers inevitably will wonder about the politics of this excavation and its well-known excavators. The Henrietta Marie was identified by Mel Fisher in 1972 as he surveyed for the Spanish galleon the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. Fisher's team returned to the Henrietta Marie after the highly publicized Atocha excavation, a dig which likely illuminated the conflict between treasure hunters and archaeologists more than any other underwater archaeological project. In 1972, Fisher passed over the Henrietta Marie when it yielded artifacts which revealed it to be English and too late to be the Atocha, but Spirits of the Passage does not illuminate why Fisher returned to the Henrietta Marie a decade later. Madeline Burnside's afterword to the volume discusses the wreck's excavation, but it is a quite brief and circumspect account of the wreck's identification which will not address archaeologists' detailed research questions about the excavation, the ship's material culture, or the politics of underwater salvage. Burnside includes a poignant account of dives on the Henrietta Marie by the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, but the afterword, and, by extension, the political context of the ship's excavation and interpretation, is not clearly linked to the book's historical narrative.

Spirits of the Passage is a thorough, critical, and lucidly written analysis of the birth of the slave trade, and it is a visually stunning production. Perhaps the powerful material evidence of the Henrietta Marie could be more clearly linked to Spirits of the Passage's broader focus, serving less as an accent for the historical narrative than the framework for the story. Nevertheless, the book provides a solid introduction to the slave trade and suggests how African-American archaeologists can begin to integrate thorough historical narrative, object analysis, and inchoate material symbolism in an imaginative, accessible, and empirically rigorous text style.

News and Announcements

On Wednesday, October 14, 1998, the 11th Annual James Monroe Lecture, "Slavery and James Monroe's America" was presented by Robert P. Forbes, executive coordinator, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition, Yale University and author of Slavery and the Meaning of America: The Missouri Crisis and its Aftermath. For additional information contact John Pearce, Director, James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library, (540) 654-1311.

Getting the Word: Monticello has initiated an African-American oral history project which is seeking to locate and interview descendants of the site's African-American community. The project's staff includes Lucia Stanton, Dianne Swann-Wright, and Beverly Gray. To learn more contact The Getting the Word Project , Monticello, P. O. Box 316, Charlottesville, VA 22902. (804) 984-9864.

Look for news from the January meetings of the Society for Historical Archaeology and the World Archaeological Congress in A-AA No. 23, this winter.

Editorial Staff

Editor/Publisher: John P. McCarthy, Greenhorne & O'Mara, Inc., 9001 Edmonston Road, Greenbelt, MD 20770 (301)-220-1876

Assistant Editor: Paul Mullins, Anthropology Program, George Mason University, MSN-3GS, Fairfax, VA 22030

Progression: Carol McDavid, 1406 Sul Ross, Houston, TX 77007

Northeast/Book Reviews: James Garmon, Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc., 210 Lonsdale Avenue, Pawtucket, RI 02860 (401)-728-8780

Mid-Atlantic: Barbara Heath, The Corporation for Jefferson's Popular Forest, P. O. Box 419, Forest, VA 24551

Southeast: Joe W. Joseph, New South Associates, Inc. 4889 Lewis Road, Stone Mountain, GA 30083 (770)-498-4155

Caribbean: Paul Farnsworth, Dept. of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803

Midwest: Matthew Emerson, Anthropology Department, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL 62026 (618)-692-5689

Mid-South/So. Plains: Leslie "Skip" Stewart-Abernathy, Arkansas Archaeological Survey, P. O. Box 8706 AKU, Russellville, AK 72801 (501)-968-0381

West: Laurie Wilkie, Anthropology Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

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