“It’s Not About Us”: Exploring White-Public Heritage Space, Community, and Commemoration on Jamestown Island, Virginia

Archaeology, Indigenous erasure, and the creation of white public space at the California missions

“…These observations resonate with the work of archaeologists who have examined how heritage sites and archaeological practices intertwine to uphold white supremacy in other settings (Lewis, 2015; Paynter, 2001; Reid, 2021; Shackel, 2001), studies which themselves are situated in broader conversations about the production of historical knowledge (Trouillot, 1995). Particularly useful here is the concept of white public space, defined by Page and Thomas (1994: 111) as “locations, sites, patterns, configurations, or devices that routinely, discursively, and sometimes coercively privilege Euro-Americans over nonwhites.” Using this framework, Lewis (2015) describes how historical organizations at Deerfield, Massachusetts, inscribed the landscape with narratives that bolstered white solidarity while simultaneously casting Native people as uncivilized and violent.…”

“…By the final years of the 19th century, little tangible evidence of Mission Santa Clara remained visible on the landscape, but its archaeological remnants soon became an important symbol of the rootedness of both the institution and the broader Euro-American community—similar to the ways that heritage was mobilized to reinforce white solidarity at Deerfield and Jamestown (Lewis, 2015; Reid, 2021). The link between these practices and the material traces of the past is most clearly articulated by the events surrounding the unearthing of the third mission foundations and cemetery in 1907 (Figure 3(d)).…”

“…Particularly useful here is the concept of white public space, defined by Page and Thomas (1994: 111) as “locations, sites, patterns, configurations, or devices that routinely, discursively, and sometimes coercively privilege Euro-Americans over nonwhites.” Using this framework, Lewis (2015) describes how historical organizations at Deerfield, Massachusetts, inscribed the landscape with narratives that bolstered white solidarity while simultaneously casting Native people as uncivilized and violent. At Historic Jamestowne, Reid (2021) builds on the concept to describe “white public heritage space,” specifying the role that heritage sites and associated discourses play in supporting white supremacy. This research shows how archaeology, monuments, didactic texts, and local historical writings all serve as the basis for a heritage landscape that celebrates Jamestown as the first English settlement in what is today the United States while leaving people of Indigenous and African descent out of public narratives about the site (Reid, 2021).…”

Introduction: Current Directions in Community Archaeology of the African Diaspora

“…Burnett's focus on incorporating stakeholder and descendent voices into the archaeological process is shared by Reid (2021) and White (2021). Rooted in archaeological ethics, multivocal archaeology can promote tolerance and an appreciation of diversity in society, both past and present (Little 2012).…”

“…At Jamestown, archaeologists are using oral histories from the local African American community to decolonize the site's "whitewashed" historical narrative. Reid (2021) identifies a long history of privileging whiteness in the historical interpretations at Jamestown, effectively rendering it a "white public heritage space" that normalizes whiteness while controlling access to resources. The Angela Site, which was first excavated by a group of African American Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers in the 1930s and is today recentering historical interpretations around the experiences of one of the first African women to arrive in the colony in 1619, provides an opportunity to reconstruct erased histories and critically challenge the power relations embedded in who creates history.…”