Description:
Archaeologies of African American Life in the Upper Mid-Atlantic brings together leading scholars to illuminate the lives, communities, and cultural traditions of free and enslaved African Americans through the lens of historical archaeology. Examining sites across Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, this award-winning collection reveals how African Americans forged identities, sustained communities, practiced religious traditions, and navigated the challenges of slavery, segregation, and social exclusion. Combining archaeological discoveries with archival research and innovative theoretical approaches, the volume offers fresh insights into the material realities of African American life and the enduring legacy of Black resilience in a critical borderland between North and South. A landmark contribution to African American studies, historical archaeology, and material culture scholarship, this collection expands our understanding of the American past.
Review Quotes:
"Editors Gall and Veit offer a fascinating historical spectrum of regionally specific sites within African American archaeology. The collected works go above and beyond the initial goal of simply 'call[ing] attention to the historical contexts in which enslaved and free blacks lived, the obstacles they faced in daily life, and the ongoing power struggles within white dominated or controlled communities.' . . . A terrific addition to the study of African American archaeology. Highly recommended." --CHOICE
"This is an important collection for at least two reasons. First, it expands the knowledge about African-American daily life. All books published on the subject in archaeology also make this contribution, and each is valuable for this reason alone. But in this particular case, readers are confronted with the reality that African captivity for the purposes of forced labour existed throughout the USA until the middle of the nineteenth century, and that African-Americans still faced significant challenges after emancipation. This book offers additional object lessons to shatter the silence that once surrounded the practice of human bondage in the American North." --American Antiquity
"This volume is an important regional contribution to the story of African Americans in a borderland that has been little studied. It uses the latest techniques of the growing field of historical archaeology to provide us with new insights on a critical part of American history."--American Archaeology