Interpretations of Burial and Commemoration in Moravian and African Diasporas on St. John, Virgin Islands

Blouet, Helen

doi:10.1007/s10761-013-0241-2

Cited by 27 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This finding clearly reflects the violence enacted in the separation of families during the lived process of enslavement, as previously documented (Berlin, 2009; Pargas, 2009). However, it does not obviate other nonbiological connections and evidence of community appearing in the archeological record (Blouet, 2013; McCarthy, 2006). Grave organization and the presence of coffin hardware argue for the intentionally of the interments for these individuals, with care taken to bury them by a defined community.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Ancestry, health, and lived experiences of enslaved Africans in 18th century Charleston: An osteobiographical analysis

Fleskes

Ofunniyin

Gilmore

et al. 2020

American J Phys Anthropol

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Objectives In 2013, the burials of 36 individuals of putative African ancestry were discovered during renovation of the Gaillard Center in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The Charleston community facilitated a bioarchaeological and mitogenomic study to gain insights into the lives of these unknown persons, referred to as the Anson Street Ancestors, including their ancestry, health, and lived experiences in the 18th century. Methods Metric and morphological assessments of skeletal and dental characteristics were recorded, and enamel and cortical bone strontium stable isotope values generated. Whole mitochondrial genomes were sequenced and analyzed. Results Osteological analysis identified adults, both females and males, and subadults at the site, and estimated African ancestry for most individuals. Skeletal trauma and pathology were infrequent, but many individuals exhibited dental decay and abscesses. Strontium isotope data suggested these individuals mostly originated in Charleston or sub‐Saharan Africa, with many being long‐term residents of Charleston. Nearly all had mitochondrial lineages belonging to African haplogroups (L0‐L3, H1cb1a), with two individuals sharing the same L3e2a haplotype, while one had a Native American A2 mtDNA. Discussion This study generated detailed osteobiographies of the Anson Street Ancestors, who were likely of enslaved status. Our results indicate that the Ancestors have diverse maternal African ancestries and are largely unrelated, with most being born locally. These details reveal the demographic impact of the trans‐Atlantic slave trade. Our analysis further illuminates the lived experiences of individuals buried at Anson Street, and expands our understanding of 18th century African history in Charleston.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Ancestry, health, and lived experiences of enslaved Africans in 18th century Charleston: An osteobiographical analysis

Fleskes

Ofunniyin

Gilmore

et al. 2020

American J Phys Anthropol

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“…More recently, historical archaeologists, following Vincent Brown's lead, have been investigating the continuing relationships between the living and dead. On St. John in the Virgin Islands, Helen C. Blouet (, p. 738) finds that mortuary sites and objects “played roles that spiritually, socially, and politically transformed the living.” Likewise, Paula Saunders (, p. 145) argues that slave burial grounds in Jamaica reflect “the converging relationship between the dead and the living through the use of available resources used to symbolize those relationships” (see also Armstrong & Fleischman, ). These arguments highlight the politics of death practices: The living were active agents in shaping their world through the deployment of mortuary rituals.…”

Section: African Americansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Death in early America

Seeman

2019

History Compass

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Interdisciplinary death studies was born in the 1970s amid critiques of the “high cost of dying” in the United States. In the field of history, this led to pioneering works that contrasted earlier, allegedly simple deathways with elaborate and expensive 20th‐century practices. But because the broader societal critiques were imagined to apply principally to the White middle class, this narrowed the scope of historical inquiry to Euro‐Americans. With the rise of Atlantic and Continental approaches to early American history in the 1990s, the history of death broadened to include American Indians and African Americans. Still, work remains to be done to bring those groups into the history of death in the 19th‐century United States.

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“…2012; Rojas 2016). Generally, the colonial-period mortuary practices of enslaved Africans (mainly simple pits and grave shafts) have received greater archaeological attention (France 1846; Handler 1997; Brown 2010; Blouet 2013; Ogundiran & Saunders 2014; Rogers 2015) than those of white populations, studies of which are limited mostly to oral histories (Crane 1971, 1989).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%