African-American Archaeology at The University of Southern Mississippi

During spring break in March 1998, USM students Alicia Steiner, Alesha Sullivan, Steven Kidd, Jennifer Abraham, and Bracken Camp traveled with Dr. Amy Young to Mound Bayou, Mississippi. There they were joined by Ella Sullivan from Ocean Springs, Mississippi and by Dr. Philip Carr, an archaeologist with the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) in Jackson. The purpose was to lead local youth in a public dig on the lot behind the Bank of Mound Bayou, built in 1903. The lot was also the site of the first city hall.

Mound Bayou is an all-black town in the Mississippi Delta. It was founded in 1887 by two former slaves, Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green. Their dream was to establish a self-sufficient black community at a time when black Mississippians were being denied rights of citizenship and lynchings in the Delta were becoming increasingly common.

Through hard work cutting and selling timber to the railroad and hiring out on nearby white-owned cotton plantations while establishing their own farms and businesses, the dream was realized. Mound Bayou became a thriving community with nearly 200 residents by 1900, and more than 90 percent could read and write. In the words of one of the mayors, Benjamin A. Green (born in Mound Bayou in 1888), it was a town where a black man could run for sheriff instead of from the sheriff.

Materials from the early years of Mound Bayou (up until around 1920) were found in the lowest levels of the excavation units. The foundation for the first city hall and mayor's office was located. They were built around 1920. The archaeology revealed that it was plumbed when it was built, and heated with a coal-burning stove.

The archaeological project was titled "Digging for the Dream" and culminated in a public forum where Dr. Theresa A. Singleton unveiled a three-panel exhibit about this study. The exhibit will travel around Mississippi over the next year. Funding for this project came from the Mississippi Humanities Council and private cash donations. Support also came from the U.S. Forest Service. Plans are underway for a second field season at Mound Bayou.

In 1997 and 1998, USM students, as well as students from other universities, participated in a field school that conducted archaeological investigations at Saragossa Plantation outside of Natchez, Mississippi. This is one of the first comprehensive archaeological studies of slave quarters in Mississippi. Funding was generously provided by The University of Southern Mississippi and by a grant from the National Geographic Society.

Saragossa was established in 1823 by Stephen Duncan, one of the wealthiest cotton planters in the world. In 1860, he owned around 1,000 slaves and numerous plantations. Today, the old cotton plantation is abandoned. The overseer=s house (enlarged to a planter's house in 1855) and one of the original double-pen slave houses sit amid ancient live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

Archaeological testing revealed that not only were the enslaved African-Americans receiving rations (pork), but were fishing, hunting, and trapping to supplement their diet. Michael Tuma, a recent graduate of the USM Anthropology master's program, analyzed the faunal remains from the 1997 excavations and conducted ethnoarchaeology in the community that is descended from the slaves at Saragossa and neighboring plantations. Tuma studied hunting behavior and how meat is divided and shared throughout the community.

The 1998 excavations focused on one of the slave house sites, the fourth house on the east row of cabins. Additional animal bones were recovered, as well as a good deal of materials that reflects what the slaves had in their houses. Several units were also placed in the vicinity of the detached kitchen at Saragossa. Kelli Ostrom, a student in the field school, analyzed the materials from the kitchen excavations and presented the results of her analysis at the newly formed South Central Historical Archaeological Conference (SCHAC) meeting held this past September. Analysis of other materials is continuing at the historic lab at USM. Further field work, both archaeological and ethnographic, is planned for Saragossa Plantation.

Other African-American sites that are being investigated include three Piney Woods sites: Camp Dantzler, McCallum Farm, and Old Augusta, and one additional site in the Natchez District known as Mount Locust. Testing at Camp Dantzler was a joint project with the U.S. Forest Service. It is an abandoned black logging camp segregated from the white camp, which is now the town of Howison, Mississippi. At the McCallum Farm Site, slaves labored to raise cattle and lived in five slave houses. Excavations located the general location of those houses. Old Augusta is an abandoned town where slaves were auctioned on a block in front of the court house. One section of the town (there are no standing buildings today) was known locally as "The Quarters" and is where former slaves resided after freedom. Archaeological testing there revealed not only the location of the court house where slaves were auctioned, but one of the houses in "The Quarters". Research at Mount Locust, located on the Natchez Trace, is in the initial phases. Mount Locust was an inn on the trace, and later a cotton plantation. A survey of the slave quarter area and the black cemetery were conducted from June through August 1998 during the 1998 field school.

Close Window