History hidden under the soil of Annapolis

Washington Times ^ | Mar 27, 2008 | Gabriella Boston

[Pharmboy]

The American fight for liberty was not only the domain of John Adams and his fellow Boston patriots — although HBO's miniseries might lead us to believe that. The fight also took place much closer to home in places like Annapolis, where a recently opened archaeological exhibit at the Banneker-Douglass Museum shows how an 18th-century printmaker protested the British Stamp Act tax and how mid-19th-century freed slaves fought discrimination by purchasing brand-name canned goods and bottled libations.

"They preferred national brands because of the predictability of price and guarantee of quality," says Mark Leone, founder and director of Archaeology in Annapolis, the group behind the digs and discoveries displayed. He also is a professor of archaeology at the University of Maryland. Adds Amelia Chisholm, an archaeology student at the university: "It's fascinating how you can tell someone's race and class from broken pieces of glass and rusted cans." And from fish and meat bones.

The bottles and cans were found at the Maynard-Burgess House in downtown Annapolis along with animal bones that indicate the black residents fished in streams and hunted in nearby woods, probably because they would have been shortchanged by butchers and fishmongers.

"Just the cuts of meat can tell you a huge amount about a whole group of people," Ms. Chisholm says. Yet this black household wanted to fit in and belong in mainstream America while still keeping its African and African-American traditions. "It's the two souls of black folk. The facade toward the street: the Victorian parlor [with upscale china and furniture] while the back was devoted to African traditions," Mr. Leone says.

Their African traditions included making African foods and engaging in West African religious practices. According to the exhibit, blacks, who themselves had been commodities

[Albion Wilde]

They preferred national brands ... probably because they would have been shortchanged ..

This could be true; but it also may just be a statement. A look into the grocery carts of people who use food stamps bears out that this tendency to buy "the high-priced spread" may continue today. It is a way to say, "I'm just as good."

[Albion Wilde]

"...part of West African religious rituals that include caches of bones, glassware and feathers hidden under doorsills, hearths and the northeast corner of rooms. This was a very common custom in England and the colonies, and might not have anything to do with African customs.

I renovated a house that had been owned by Italian immigrants to the U.S. in the late 1800s. It had coins, baby shoes and booties, bottles, bus tickets and subway tokens in the floors and in a closed chimney. I thought it was just accidental, but a neighbor told me this was a commonplace ritual to "mark the territory."

[Albion Wilde]

...centuries spent in slavery doesn't exactly foster a gun culture.

They would have been more likely to use traps and bow and arrow.

....perhaps unscrupulous vendors just ripped them off, knowing that recently-freed slaves had practically no recourse to fight this kind of injustice.

I received this treatment when traveling in Southern Italy and in France. It's a regrettable human commonplace. It's also an incentive for those who are able to open their own businesses serving their community, as many ethnicities have done in this country. Discrimination against women at work was my incentive to go into my own business in the 70s. Part of being in the land of opportunity.