On a Mission…

I’m back from a brief working vacation–helping my friend James Davidson and the University of Florida’s archaeological field school on Fort George Island near Jacksonville, Florida.

For the past two years James (and his very competent minions) have been excavating at Kinglsey Plantation–the birthplace of African Diaspora archeology. Last year I blogged about Kinglesy’s place in archeological history and the big shoes that James had to fill…I also hinted at the fact that James had made some interesting discoveries…but not wanting to steal his thunder, I did not say what those discoveries were. As several papers have been given on last year’s excavations, I can now finish my report.

As I mentioned in my post last summer, one of the things that Charles Fairbanks was looking for in the 1960s Kingsley excavations was evidence of “Africanisms” or cultural traits retained from the myriad of African cultures from which the slaves came. Fairbanks did not find evidence of Africanisms, and now we consider the entire concept an over simplified one that reifies Africa and underestimates the complicated ways that culture changes and adapts to new surroundings and interactions…nevertheless, in a way, Davidson has seceded where the great Dr. Fairbanks had failed. On the last week of last year’s field school Davidson and the UF students uncovered what appears to be an intentional chicken burial inside the threshold of one of the tabby slave cabins. I’ll let Davidson draw the parallels between various West African rituals (including house blessing rituals) that involve sacrifice (and sometimes burial) of animals (often chickens)…but I’m here to talk a bit about one of the “other” projects going on at the UF field school.

This year I spent two weeks helping out not at the Kinglsey Plantation, but at a Spanish mission site which is also situated on the island–San Juan del Puerto. I was serving as “aide-de-camp” to Rebecca Gorman, one of James’ graduate students who has also been trained by Kathleen Deagan and Jerald Milanich…She was great to work with and it was a great group of students that cycled through the San Juan dig as well (Rebecca and students are shown screening at San Juan above).

San Juan del Puerto was a Roman Catholic mission founded around 1587 on Fort George Island, near the mouth of the St. Johns River (thus, Rebecca informed me, the name). The mission was one of the oldest and longest-standing missions in Spanish Florida (1587-1703). It was established by Jesuits & Franciscans to proselytize to the Timucua Indians who lived along the coast, but was quickly also a haven for the Guale Indian refugees fleeing attacks in their home territory along the Georgia coast.

The mission core area is now overgrown, but we had a good time finding majolica, gun flints, beads and the two dramatically different pottery types used by the Timucua and Guale…Like last year, I do not want to steal any of the UF thunder, so I’ll let them tell you about this year’s finds at the next round of conferences before I spill my guts….

More of my pictures from the UF field school can be found posted to my Flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcbrandon/sets/72157594171810221/

Kingsley Plantation

Kingsley holds a special place in history for archaeologists interested in the African Diaspora as it is one of the earliest sites to be dug specifically to understand the enslaved Africans and African-Americans that labored on the plantations of the South. In 1968, Dr. Charles Fairbanks, inspired by the Civil Rights movement, began excavations at Kingsley in order to understand the nature of cultural transformations that enslaved Africans went through after they arrived in the Americas. Fairbanks was looking for “Africanisms“–cultural traits retained from the myriad of African cultures from which the slaves came.

Why did Fairbanks choose Kingsley to look for these Africanisms? Well, here’s a bit of information on Kingsley Plantation… The Kingsley Plantation, now administered by the National Park Service, is located on Fort George Island (near Jacksonville, Florida) and includes the plantation house, a kitchen house, a barn, and the ruins of 25 of the original slave cabins. The Kingsley Plantation was named for one of several plantation owners, Zephaniah Kingsley, who operated the property from 1813-1839. Kingsley operated under a “task” system, which allowed slaves to work at a craft or tend their own gardens once the specified task for the day was completed. Proceeds from the sale of produce or craft items were usually kept by the slaves. Also, Zephaniah–born as a Quaker–didn’t seem too sympathetic to Christianity…he ran off missionaries and encouraged the enslaved folks to practice whatever religion they claimed as their own. Moreover, Kingsley’s wife, Anna Madgigine Jai, was purchased as a slave, but freed in 1811. She was active in plantation management and became a successful businesswoman owning her own property. As an American territory, Florida passed laws that discriminated against free blacks and placed harsh restrictions on African slaves. This prompted Kingsley to move his family, impacted by these laws, to Haiti, now the Dominican Republic, where descendants of Anna and Zephaniah live today.

Fairbanks thought that these unusually circumstances of enslavement might help Africanisms flourish…After his excavations, however, he confessed that deciding what is and what is not an Africanism is a tricky business. In retrospect we can see Fairbanks’ approach to as fairly simplistic in the way that it reifies and essentializes African (and African-American) culture. Nevertheless, he was a pioneer and his moral mission to understand the lives of the enslaved can still be admired.

Now my old friend and colleague James Davidson attempts to fill the rather large shoes that Dr. Fairbanks left behind–both at the University of Florida and at the Kingsley Plantation. Davidson ran his first University of Florida archaeological field school this summer at Kingsley and, from what I saw during my visit, it was a success. Davidson has uncovered the floors of two of the tabby slave cabins and lots of interesting facts and artifacts are coming to light.

I’m fighting the temptation to write about all of the interesting things Davidson is uncovering, but I don’t want to either “jump the gun” with preliminary interpretations nor “steal his glory” so I’ll leave the specifics to another day. Suffice it to say, that I had a good time excavating with the UF field school…a great group of students and a very competent group of graduate students.

In the Field for a While…

I’ll be off excavating with James Davidson and the University of Florida archaeological fieldschool at Kingsley Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida for the next few weeks…so don’t expect new posts anytime soon.

This is a return to the site of the very first scientific excavation of a slave cabin (1968) dug to explicitly address issues of slavery and African-American life. This fieldwork will establish the base line for a multi-year research driven investigation of Kingsley Plantation, in addition to other plantations and African Diasporic sites within the region.

More about the site & Flickr pics upon my return…