Brutality or Benevolence in Plantation Archaeology

Archaeologists working on plantation sites have typically ignored the role that violence played in the lives of enslaved African-Americans. By drawing together examples from archaeological publications in which violence has been mentioned, the commentary illustrates not only both the types and scale of violence endured by African-Americans, but also how archaeologists have effectively sanitized their publications on plantation life. In order to understand the African-American experience on the plantation, archaeologists must recognize that violence played a significant role in plantation society, and integrate it explicitly into all our models and interpretations of plantation life.