Eleven students and a University of Southern Mississippi historical archaeologist will spend much of the summer digging for African-American history at three south Mississippi sites. Dr. Amy Young, assistant professor of anthropology and sociology at USM, is heading an effort to do on-site archaeological excavations and research at a Forrest County farm, a site in Perry County and on the grounds of the Saragossa Plantation near Natchez. Young will supervise nine students in the field and two in the laboratory in an effort to uncover the undocumented history of the daily life of African-American slaves in the old South. The surviving historical documents of the period, which sometimes describe slavery and slaves, were for the most part written by literate white people, rarely by the slaves themselves. So the viewpoint is somewhat biased.
Archaeology is more democratic.
The field school research this summer represents the first archaeological investigation of slavery in Mississippi, Young said. Young said her own interest in slavery stems from both a personal and a professional interest. It gave me perspective. Young and the students involved in this summer's field school have been working since June 2 at the McCallum Farm in Forrest County. The farm was established in the early 1800s and was one of the few relatively large slaveholdings in this area, Young said.