Theresa A. Singleton

Archaeologies of the African Diaspora: Brazil, Cuba, and the United States

African Diaspora refers to the worldwide dispersal of African peoples and their descendants as a consequence of slavery and other migrations out of Africa. The termdiaspora, the breaking up and scattering of a people, is often used to describe any dispersion of a people from their original homeland.Diasporas, however, can be distinguished from other types of migrations as they are usually characterized by some or all of the following criteria: (1) forced or induced migration; (2) an enduring presence of the group in new settings as a distinct cultural/ethnic, racial, or religious group; (3) collective consciousness or memory plays a role in the production of cultural heritage; (4) the group experiences some form of alienation in the receiving or host society; (5) the existence of some kind of exchange or relationship between or among spatially separated populations making up the diaspora, and/or with the homeland (Chaliand and Rageau, 1995; Safran, 1991). The conceptualization of African forced migration as a diaspora formally emerged during Pan-African and Black consciousness movements of the twentieth century. By the mid-1970s, scholars increasingly used the term diaspora to designate the worldwide dispersion of Africans (Bryce-Laporte, 1976; Drake, 1975). Since that time, the African Diaspora has become a well-established research interest pursued in numerous disciplines and subdisciplines of the humanities and social sciences. Archaeologists have been slow to adopt the concept of African Diaspora for archaeological examinations of people of African descent. The term has been usedwith greater frequency since the 1990s, (Franklin, 2001; Franklin and McKee, 2004; Havsier and MacDonald, 2006; Orser, 1998; Singleton and Bograd, 1995), but the archaeological study of a particular diaspora community is usually designated as African American, Afro-Caribbean, or Afro-Latin American. The adoption of the term ‘‘diaspora’’ in archaeology, however, has not yet produced studies in which the concept forms an analytical framework within which experiences of displacement, comparative linkages with other groups of the African Diaspora (e.g., Harrison, 1988), or diaspora theories and discourses (Clifford, 1997; Gilroy, 1993) are examined. Such shortcomings in the use of diaspora as a heuristic tool in archaeological studies, however, do not diminish the role archaeology plays in African Diaspora studies. Archaeology contributes to our understanding of the historical experiences of the people of the African Diaspora as these experiences were lived. In this chapter, we briefly review some of the archaeological evidence that provides insights into historical experiences of the African Diaspora, as seen from theAmericas. AfricanDiasporas were also established in Europe and Asia, but little archaeological work on this subject has been undertaken on these continents. Charles Orser (1998:64) has

AMERICAS, NORTH | Plantation Archaeology

Plantation archaeology seeks to understand the economic, political, and social order that emerged from the development of plantations–agricultural enterprises in which some form of bound labor produces a crop for someone else that is usually sold in an international market. In North America, where the vast majority of plantations have been investigated, archaeologists have studied a variety of plantations engaged in the production of staple crops such as cotton, tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar, and hemp. Most plantation archaeology focuses on the workers, either enslaved laborers or tenant–and-wage laborers of post-bellum plantations. Because of this focus on workers and the fact that most workers, particularly those enslaved, were of African-descent, one archaeological approach views the plantation as the birthplace of African Diaspora cultures. In many of these studies certain archaeological materials—clay-walled houses, handcrafted pottery and pipes, amulets, and other objects some presumed to be of religious significance are interpreted as exhibiting African influences. Whereas other archaeologists interested in the African diaspora focus on the understanding the everyday lives and lived experiences of enslaved workers on plantations. Their research often addresses how enslaved people shaped their material lives beyond the meager provisions allocated to them. Another approach seeks to untangle the complex social and political relations characteristic of plantation production. These studies analyze the ways in which plantation laborers, whether slave or free, were subjugated into subordinate social positions, and how laborers challenged the authority of owners and managers. In many of these studies the layout of the plantation and use of spaces illustrate how social inequalities and hierarchies were incorporated into plantation design. Although archaeologists began excavating plantations in the United States in the 1930s, the systematic study of plantations to obtain information on the lives of plantation residents began in the 1970s. Since that time plantation archaeology has grown beyond the confines of North America. Today, archaeologists are studying plantations throughout the world.

The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life

Contributors. Preface. Acknowledgements. T.A. Singleton,Introduction. Research Strategies: F.W. Lange and J.S. Handler , The Ethnohistorical Approach to Slavery. Settlement: K.E. Lewis , Plantation Layout and Function in the south Carolina Lowcountry. C.E. Orser, Jr., and A.M. Nekola , Plantation Settlement from Slavery to Tenancy: An Example from a Piedmont Plantation in South Carolina. Artifact Patterns: F.W. Lange and S.B. Carlson , Distributions of European Earthenwares on Plantations on Barbados, West Indies. L.G. Lewis , The Planter Class: the Archaeological Record at Drayton Hall. S.M. Moore , Social and Economical Status on the Coastal Plantation: An Archaeological Perspective. Foodways: E.J. Reitz, T. Gibbs, and T.A. Rathbun , Archaeological Evidence for Subsistence on Coastal Plantations. Afro-American Traditions: S.L. Jones , The African-American Tradition in Vernacular Architecture. A. Friedlander , Establishing Historical Probabilities for Archaeological Interpretations: Slave Demography of Two Plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1740-1820. T.R. Wheaton and P.H. Garrow , Acculturation and the Archaeological Record in the Carolina Lowcountry. D.V. Armstrong , An Afro-Jamaican Slave Settlement: Archaeological Investigation at Drax Hall. Transformation: T.A. Singleton , Archaeological Implications for Changing Labor Conditions. W.H. Adams and S.D. Smith , Historical Perspectives on Black Tenant Farmer Material Culture: The Henry C. Long General Store Ledger at Waverly Plantation, Mississippi. Index.