ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: “TO DWELL, I’M DETERMINED, ON THAT HAPPY GROUND”: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF A FREE AFRICAN- AMERICAN COMMUNITY IN EASTON, MARYLAND, 1787– PRESENT Tracy H. Jenkins, Doctor of Philosophy, 2020 Dissertation directed by: Professor Mark P. Leone Department of Anthropology As early as 1787, free African Americans began making homes in the Easton, Maryland, neighborhood known as The Hill. Over successive generations, The Hill became the cultural and residential center of Easton’s African-American community. The families, businesses, institutions, social fabric, and cultural values that the first generations of free African Americans in Easton created on and around The Hill greatly influenced the development of African- American culture through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in terms of family and household structure, childrearing, religious life, and the memory and meaning of military service. Tracing these developments, with a focus on how African Americans and some white supporters worked together to combat slavery, racism, and other oppressions, illustrates how the politics of the freedom struggle were coded into everyday life. This investigation has also supported local grassroots efforts to preserve the legacy of that struggle on The Hill through public scholarship and practice, historic preservation, and community revitalization. “TO DWELL, I’M DETERMINED, ON THAT HAPPY GROUND” AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF A FREE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY IN EASTON, MARYLAND, 1787–PRESENT by Tracy H. Jenkins Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2020 Advisory Committee: Professor Mark P. Leone, Chair Professor Psyche Williams-Forson Professor Elsa Barkley-Brown Professor Paul A. Shackel, Department of Anthropology Dr. Matthew Palus Professor George Hambrecht © Copyright by Tracy H. Jenkins 2020 Acknowledgements This dissertation and the research it includes were conducted as part of The Hill Community Project, an interdisciplinary research project to support grassroots preservation and community revitalization efforts undertaken by Historic Easton, Inc., Professor Dale Glenwood Green of Morgan State University’s School of Architecture and Planning, and the Town of Easton. It has been my privilege to work in Easton for and with its residents for the last several years. I arrived at the questions that frame this investigation through innumerable conversations with residents and community members with ties to The Hill. Chief among these in guiding my work have been Carlene Phoenix, president of Historic Easton, Priscilla Morris, treasurer of Historic Easton and a local scholar of Talbot County history, and Dale Green, who served as chief organizer and leader of the research team for The Hill Community Project. I am indebted to my colleagues in The Hill Community Project research team for their efforts in putting together various pieces of the free African-American story in Easton. Foremost among these has been Cynthia V. Schmidt, the project’s land records researcher. Cindy’s research in property records and other associated archival records has been essential in determining the occupational histories of the archaeological sites in this study, as well as other sites nearby, which enables me to connect material evidence to the actual people who lived on and around The Hill. Cindy’s dedication to accuracy has kept the project grounded in the local amidst national attention to the project and its potential. She discovered the stories of Grace Brooks, which I reproduce in part with reference to Cindy’s work, and of James and Henny Freeman, whose 1787 lot is the first we know of in Easton to be owned by African Americans. We made this site the focus of excavations for three years. Other members of the research team include Yvonne Freeman, whose lived experience in the neighborhood helped interpret ii children’s toys from archaeological excavations and who worked tirelessly to connect members of her community with the past through this project, and Angela Howell, whose oral history interviews in 2014 with community members I use throughout this dissertation to help interpret the archaeological discoveries we made. Lyndra Marshall assisted me with genealogical research on the residents of the Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier site and Catherine Wilson provided genealogical research on Joseph Chain, early trustee of Bethel Church. I also worked with Cassandra Vanhooser and Patrick Rogan on public interpretation of research findings. Although I served as the lead archaeologist on The Hill Community Project since my arrival in fall 2012, I conducted excavation and laboratory work as a member of the Archaeology in Annapolis Project, directed by Mark P. Leone. The degree of archaeological investigation we were able to conduct in Easton would not have been possible without the efforts of AiA staff, students, and the support of the University of Maryland. Mark Leone provided consistent guidance throughout the work in Easton and my fellow graduate students took time out of their own research to work on the project in Easton. Benjamin Skolnik, Kathryn Deeley, and Beth Pruitt directed the 2012 excavation at the Home of the Family of the Buffalo Soldier before my arrival on the project. During 2013 and 2014, I co-directed excavations at the Talbot County Women’s Club and Bethel A.M.E. Church with Stefan Woehlke, whose experience in directing field projects helped me to learn to manage fieldwork on my own. Other, junior graduate students assisted me in directing summer fieldwork, including Sarah Grady in 2016, Andrew Webster in 2017, and Samantha Lee and Madeline Laub in 2018. As most excavations were conducted under the auspices of our annual field school and most laboratory processing and cataloging took place as part of an independent study program at the College Park campus of the iii University of Maryland, many undergraduates also took part in excavations and laboratory work necessary for the analyses in this dissertation. Our work in Easton would not have been successful without the welcome we received from the people of Easton, particularly the residents living on The Hill. As my colleagues, my students, and I became familiar sights in the neighborhood, many older residents went out of their way to make sure that we were familiar with the history of the places and people we were studying. They offered their own recollections and family stories, some of which I have included here. In addition, Asbury United Methodist Church actively supported our archaeological work by offering us the use of their parsonage for equipment storage, dormitory, and field laboratory. We have endeavored to be good stewards of the property. Finally, in the writing of this dissertation, I am indebted to those friends, colleagues, and advisors who have commented on various drafts of various sections. In the development of Chapter 3, I must thank Psyche Williams-Forson, Camille Westmont, Patricia Markert, and the anonymous peer reviewers for the Historical Archaeology journal who have contributed to improving my understanding and treatment of reproductive rights and their history. For chapter 4, I must thank Reverend Gary Moore for clarifying several points of early Methodist history as it relates to African Americans. This dissertation is part of a historical, social, and political process in Easton. It is my sincere hope that it continues to contribute to the goals that the community of The Hill laid out for the preservation of their heritage, their neighborhood, and their community. iv Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..ii Contents…………………………………………………………………………………………...v List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………viii List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………….....ix Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 The Hill Community Project………………………………………………………………4 Public archaeology methods for The Hill Community Project……………………9 Historical Background…………………………………………………………………...15 Theoretical Framework…………………………………………………………………..22 Community………………………………………………………………………24 Intersectionality…………………………………………………………………..26 Habitus…………………………………………………………………………...29 Structure………………………………………………………………………………….32 A Note on Reproduction and Autonomy for African-American Individuals, Families, and Communities……………………………………………………………………………………..34 Chapter 1. Population and Place: Building Family and Social Networks……………………….46 Trajectory of the Community as a Whole………………………………………………..47 Family Structure………………………………………………………………………….64 Race and freedom in household structure………………………………………..67 Family size……………………………………………………………………….81 Numbers of children……………………………………………………………..89 Nuclear families………………………………………………………………….94 Female heads of household……………………………………………………..105 Parental mortality……………………………………………………………….110 v Child mortality………………………………………………………………….114 Absence of children: forced apprenticeship…………………………………….124 Family life in the twentieth century…………………………………………….129 Chapter 2. Growing Up in Easton’s Free African-American Community……………………..133 Using Historical African-American Newspapers to Interpret the Material Culture of Childhood in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Easton……………………….139 Marbles and the Making of Independent Men………………………………………….155 Marbles as a symbolic marker of childhood……………………………………157 Direct and exclusive association………………………………………………..160 A mixed