Copyright by Jannie Nicole Scott 2012 The Report Committee for Jannie Nicole Scott Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Reconciling Black Geographies: The Nature of African American Archaeology in Texas APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Maria Franklin Carol McDavid Reconciling Black Geographies: The Nature of African American Archaeology in Texas by Jannie Nicole Scott, B.A. Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Dedication For my family. Acknowledgements First and foremost, many thanks to Maria Franklin, Carol McDavid, and Rachel Feit for spending time and effort reviewing my drafts and offering valuable feedback and critiques. In writing this report, I relied on the support of other fellow graduate students to maintain my sanity. I doubt I would not have survived graduate school this far without the help and advice from my “academic sisters” Nedra Lee, Deanna Riddick, and Chelsi West. Thanks for your support and guidance. I would also like to thank Karissa Basse and Jermaine Thibodeaux for providing many distractions in the lab. Editing this report would have been much less of an entertaining endeavor without the two of you around. Finally, thanks to my family for seeing me through this time. I expect a big bowl of gumbo and crawfish upon my return home. v Abstract Reconciling Black Geographies: The Nature of African American Archaeology in Texas Jannie Nicole Scott, MA The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 Supervisor: Maria Franklin This report is an assessment of archaeological research conducted on sites related to African American history that have been examined within the state of Texas. The research conducted had four broad research goals. The first goal was to understand the nature of African American archaeology in Texas. The second goal was to compare African American archaeology as practiced in the state of Texas to that of the wider discipline of African American archaeology as practiced within academia. The third goal was to integrate data of historic sites that have an African American component to assess sites within the state that hold archaeological promise. Finally, the fourth goal was to compare and contrast between the common types of historic and archaeological sites related to the life and history of Black Texans in order to assess gaps in the archaeological understanding of African American life and history. vi Table of Contents List of Tables ......................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ..........................................................................................................x CHAPTER ONE ..........................................................................................................1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 A Word about Terminology ............................................................................2 CHAPTER TWO .........................................................................................................4 A Brief Summary of African American Archaeology: Beginnings, Themes, and Approaches .....................................................................................................4 Cultural Continuity, Cultural Change .............................................................6 Domination and Resistance...........................................................................10 Race, Gender and Archaeology ....................................................................11 Racial Politics and Public Archaeology ........................................................14 CHAPTER THREE ....................................................................................................17 Researching Black Texas .......................................................................................17 Research Questions: ......................................................................................18 Historic Versus Archaeological Site .............................................................20 Historical Marker, Cemetery Number, National Register Number, National Register District, State Archaeological Landmark, Site Trinomial, TAC Permit? .................................................................................................22 Database Organization ..................................................................................24 Searching the Online Databases....................................................................26 Site Categorization ........................................................................................28 CHAPTER FOUR ......................................................................................................31 Results and Discussion ..........................................................................................31 Historic Sites .................................................................................................31 Archaeological Sites .....................................................................................36 vii Chronology ...................................................................................................52 Analysis.........................................................................................................53 GIS Analysis .................................................................................................56 CHAPTER FIVE .......................................................................................................60 Conclusion .............................................................................................................60 APPENDICES-AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL CONTEXT DATABASE ................66 Appendix A-Archaeological Sites .........................................................................66 Appendix B-Historic Sites ...................................................................................103 References ............................................................................................................156 viii List of Tables Table 1: List of search terms ..................................................................................27 Table 2: Historic sites by category .........................................................................33 Table 3: Archaeological sites by category .............................................................37 Table 4: Number of sites per decade ......................................................................54 ix List of Figures Figure 1: Distribution of African American sites in the state. ...............................59 x CHAPTER ONE Introduction In May of 2010 I was invited to participate in an African American archaeological context project directed by Dr. Carol McDavid and Rachel Feit, under the auspices of a non-profit organization, the Community Archaeological Research Institute, Inc. (CARI). I was a contract employee, and my role was to assemble a list of sites relevant to Black history and culture in Texas; first collecting information on sites that have undergone some form of archaeological analysis before locating historic sites that have not been evaluated archaeologically. The data gathered served as just one component of a wider project to provide a comprehensive source of information about both the archaeology of African American sites and the history of African Americans in the state of Texas. This source is intended to aide cultural resource management (CRM) firms whom may be unfamiliar or have limited familiarity with historic African American sites by providing a guide that gives archaeologists, especially those untrained in African American history and archaeology, the necessary context needed to better survey and excavate such a site and compare it to other similar sites. The inclusion of historic sites allowed for a comparative analysis as well as an opportunity to examine historic sites that may hold promising archaeological potential. 1 A WORD ABOUT TERMINOLOGY In this paper the terms “African American archaeology” and “African diaspora archaeology” are used interchangeably to save this essay from sounding too repetitive. It could be argued, however, that these two terms denote distinct types of archaeological research. African diaspora archaeology is arguably scholarship that is rooted in African diaspora studies. The archaeology of the black past, from this vein of scholarship, can be best summarized as studies that are “…aimed at investigating anti-Black racism and at highlighting transnational as well as local, political, and communal responses to enslavement” and freedom (Leone et al. 2005:576). Researchers who largely rely on diaspora studies to supply a foundation for their research are interested in much of the same topics as scholars that do not consider their research rooted in diaspora thought— e.g. identity formation, cultural change and continuity, domination and resistance. It can be argued, however, that the divergence between African American archaeology and African diaspora archaeology is that diaspora archaeology examines how social constructions of race oppressed and structured the everyday life of enslaved and free African Americans. Additionally, African diaspora