W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects Summer 2018 Buried Beneath The River City: Investigating An Archaeological Landscape and its Community Value in Richmond, Virginia Ellen Luisa Chapman College of William and Mary - Arts & Sciences, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Chapman, Ellen Luisa, "Buried Beneath The River City: Investigating An Archaeological Landscape and its Community Value in Richmond, Virginia" (2018). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1530192695. http://dx.doi.org/10.21220/s2-hhvc-2574 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Buried Beneath the River City: Investigating an Archaeological Landscape and its Community Value in Richmond, Virginia Ellen L. Chapman Richmond, Virginia MSc, Durham University, 2010 BA, Washington Univ. in St. Louis, 2005 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of The College of William & Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology College of William & Mary May 2018 © Copyright by Ellen L. Chapman 2018 APPROVAL PAGE This Dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Ellen L. Chapman Approved by the Committee, May 2018 Committee Chair Associate Professor Neil Norman, Anthropology College of William & Mary Professor Martin Gallivan, Anthropology College of William & Mary Assistant Professor Michelle Lelièvre, Anthropology College of William & Mary Athletic Association Professor in the Humanities Professor Scott Nelson, History University of Georgia COMPLIANCE PAGE Research approved by Protection of Human Subjects Committee (PHSC) Protocol number(s): PHSC-2015-07-01-10370-nlnorman PHSC-2016-06-21-11280-elchapman01 Date(s) of approval: 2015-08-01 through 2016-08-01 2016-08-01 through 2017-08-01 ABSTRACT Richmond, Virginia, located along the fall line of the James River, was an important political boundary during prehistory; was established as an English colonial town in 1737; and was a center of the interstate slave trade and the capitol of the Confederacy during the nineteenth century. Although Richmond holds a prominent place in the narrative of American and Virginia history, the city’s archaeological resources have received incredibly little attention or preservation advocacy. However, in the wake of a 2013 proposal to construct a baseball stadium in the heart of the city’s slave trading district, archaeological sensitivity and vulnerability became a political force that shaped conversations around the economic development proposal and contributed to its defeat. This dissertation employs archival research and archaeological ethnography to study the variable development of Richmond’s archaeological value as the outcome of significant racial politics, historic and present inequities, trends in academic and commercial archaeology, and an imperfect system of archaeological stewardship. This work also employs spatial sensitivity analysis and studies of archaeological policy to examine how the city’s newly emerging awareness of archaeology might improve investigation and interpretation of this significant urban archaeological resource. This research builds upon several bodies of scholarship: the study of urban heritage management and municipal archaeology; the concept of archaeological ethnography; and anthropological studies into how value should be defined and identified. It concludes that Richmond’s archaeological remains attract attention and perceived importance in part through their proximity and relation to other political and moral debates within the city, but that in some cases political interests ensnare archaeological meaning or inhibit interest in certain archaeological subjects. This analysis illuminates how archaeological materiality and the history of Richmond’s preservation movements has created an interest in using archaeological investigations as a tool for restorative justice to create a more equitable historic record. Additionally, it studies the complexity of improving American urban archaeological stewardship within a municipal system closely connected with city power structures. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..............................................................................................iv Dedication ............................................................................................................vi List of Tables ....................................................................................................... vii List of Figures ..................................................................................................... viii 1 Investigating the Many Facets of Archaeological Value in American Cities .. 1 1.1 Introduction: The Genesis of this Research ............................................. 1 1.2 Theorizing Value and Defining Landscape in Richmond’s Archaeology .. 4 1.3 Cities and Archaeology: A Description of the Problem ............................ 9 1.4 Urban Heritage Management and Municipal Archaeology .................... 11 1.5 Urban Anthropology and Archaeological Ethnography .......................... 20 1.6 Introducing the Richmond Context ........................................................ 24 1.7 Format of Study and Dissertation .......................................................... 31 2 An Archaeological and Historical Context of Richmond, Virginia ................. 33 2.1 Pre-Clovis (Pre-15,000 B.P) .................................................................. 34 2.2 Paleoindian (15,000 – 10,000 BP) ......................................................... 35 2.3 Archaic (10,000 - 4200 BP) ................................................................... 37 2.4 Woodland (3200 – 400 BP) ................................................................... 42 2.5 Settlement to Society (1607-1750) ........................................................ 51 2.6 Colony to Nation (1751-1789) ............................................................... 55 2.7 Early National Period (1790-1829) ........................................................ 57 2.8 Antebellum Period (1830-1860) ............................................................. 64 2.9 Civil War (1861-1865)............................................................................ 68 2.10 Reconstruction and Growth (1866-1916) ........................................... 74 2.11 World War I, World War II, and the New Dominion (1917 to the present) .............................................................................................. 80 2.12 Struggles to Characterize Richmond’s History ................................... 87 i 3 Richmond’s Archaeology: A Partial History ................................................. 94 3.1 Archival Methods and Approaches ........................................................ 95 3.2 Early Archaeological Exploration in Richmond (circa 1876 to 1963) ..... 99 3.3 The Rise of Cultural Resource Management (1963-1977) .................. 105 3.4 Archaeology and Business in the New Richmond (1977-1989) ........... 116 3.5 The Lost Decade: 1990-1999 .............................................................. 130 3.6 A Broadening Conversation (2000-2017) ............................................ 162 3.7 Trends in Archaeological Investigation ................................................ 185 4 Investigating the Value of Richmond’s Archaeology .................................. 188 4.1 Archaeological Ethnography Positioning and Methods ....................... 191 4.2 The Use Value of Richmond’s Archaeology: Its Functional and Moral Value...................................................................................................... 204 4.3 Materiality, Neutrality, and the Historical Record: The Value of Archaeology as a Tool to Address Suppressed or Hidden Histories ...... 215 4.4 Economic Characterizations of Archaeological Material and Spaces .. 230 5 Archaeology’s Political Valence and Understandings of Archaeological ........ Value ......................................................................................................... 239 6 Searching for “The Archaeology of Us”: Exploring Richmond’s Landscape of Archaeological Potential ............................................................................ 306 6.1 Theoretical Review of Archaeological Predictive Modeling and Sensitivity Analysis ............................................................................................... 308 6.2 Spatial Analysis Methods .................................................................... 328 6.3 Archaeological Sensitivity Assessment of Richmond .......................... 343 6.4 Mapping Community Value onto Archaeological Resources and Assessing Sensitivity of Culturally-Significant Richmond Landscapes 352 6.5 Examining the Tension Between Archaeological Potential, Archaeological Results, and Perceptions of Archaeological Loss ....... 359 6.6 Potential for Future Expansion to Archaeological Sensitivity Assessment in Richmond .......................................................................................