The limits of tyranny : archaeological perspectives on the struggle against new world slavery / edited by James A. Delle.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Delle, James A., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Enslaved persons--Emancipation--America--History.

Enslaved persons.

Slave rebellions--America--History.

Slave rebellions.

Antislavery movements--America--History.

Antislavery movements.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (295 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Knoxville : The University of Tennessee Press, [2015]

Summary:

The long history of slavery in the Americas has left a wealth of archaeological evidence from excavations of southern and Caribbean plantations. These excavations have largely informed our ideas of African slavery, but, more recently, scholars have also focused on northern slave sites and the various degrees of slavery pertaining not only to Africans but to Native Americans and even European immigrants as well. The Limits of Tyranny brings together nine essays that illuminate the struggles of slaves against the structure of inequality found throughout the Americas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These essays use the concept of struggle to explore the archaeological dimensions of various sites in the Caribbean and the American South and Northeast. The actions of the enslaved, both collectively and as individuals, altered or eliminated the social forces that oppressed them. The contributors discuss the physical struggle through slave uprisings and organized rebellions and the moral struggle through historic laws and ethical behavior common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They also define the limits of oppression and use the material evidence associated with each site to determine the lengths to which slaves would go to fight their enslavement. The Limits of Tyranny advances the study of the African diaspora and reconsiders the African American experience in terms of dominance and resistance. This volume will appeal to any archaeologist looking to move beyond the common discourse on slavery and assess more closely the African struggle against tyranny.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Introduction: Archaeology and the Struggle against Slavery / James A. Delle

Part I: The Physical Struggle

1. "Freedom Began Here": A Social Archaeology of Armed Struggle at Christiana, Pennsylvania / James A. Delle

2. Consequences of Rebellion: The 1763 St. Jan Rebellion and the Establishment of a Danish St. Croix / Holly Kathryn Norton

3. Resistance and Reform: Landscapes at Green Castle Estate, Antigua / Samantha Rebovich Bardoe

Part II: The Moral Struggle

4. "Strike for Freedom or Die Slaves!" David Ruggles and the Free Black Struggle to End Slavery / Linda M. Ziegenbein

5. "Equality of Man Before His Creator": Thaddeus Stevens and the Struggle against Slavery / James A. Delle and Mary Ann Levine

6. Harriet Tubman's Farmsteads in Central New York: Archaeological Explorations Relating to an American Icon / Douglas V. Armstrong

Part III: Beyond the Limits of Tyrants

7. Scission Communities and Social Defiance: Marronage in the Diasporic Great Dismal Swamp, 1660-1860 / Daniel O. Sayers

8. Including Maroon History on the Florida Gulf Coast: Archaeology and the Struggle for Freedom on the Early 19th-Century Manatee River / Uzi Baram

9. Taking a Closer Look at Retention, Rebellion, and Resistance: The Three R's of African-Diaspora Studies / Cheryl White

Contributors

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781621901174

1621901173

OCLC:

933504235