Program

Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Reference Resources

Period of Performance

10/1/2018 - 10/31/2022

Funding Totals

$315,000.00 (approved)
$315,000.00 (awarded)


The Origins of a Slave Society: Digitizing Flowerdew Hundred

FAIN: PW-259091-18

Monticello (Charlottesville, VA 22902-0316)
Jillian E. Galle (Project Director: July 2017 to present)

Cataloging and digitization of archaeological collections from the Flowerdew Hundred site, a major 17th-century plantation in the Virginia Tidewater region.  Artifacts, site records, maps, and photographs would be integrated into the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery, where they would be made publicly accessible along with materials from approximately 80 other slavery sites in the Atlantic and Caribbean region.   

The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery, in collaboration with the University of Virginia Library, will identify, catalog, digitize, and make accessible to diverse stakeholders collections from four of the earliest and most significant 17th-century archaeological sites at Flowerdew Hundred, a thousand acre plantation near Jamestown, Virginia. The occupations of these four sites span a dynamic period of settlement and agricultural expansion in the region. Fifteen of the first 25 enslaved Africans imported into British North America lived at Flowerdew Hundred by 1619. They joined indentured Europeans, neighboring Weanock Indians, and European landowners in shaping mid-17th century plantation settlements. By making accessible a vital part of the limited material record of the social and economic struggles that comprised the 17th-century Chesapeake, this project will provide data to address complex questions about a critical period of America’s development and survival.





Associated Products

Creating Context: Analyzing Legacy Documentary Data to Understand the Emergence of Enslaved Societies at Flowerdew Hundred Plantation (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Creating Context: Analyzing Legacy Documentary Data to Understand the Emergence of Enslaved Societies at Flowerdew Hundred Plantation
Author: Elizabeth Bollwerk
Author: Jillian E. Galle
Author: Lynsey Bates
Author: Leslie Cooper
Author: Fraser Neiman
Abstract: By late 1619, 15 of the first 25 enslaved Africans imported into British North America were laboring at Flowerdew Hundred, a thousand acre plantation on the James River in Virginia. They joined indentured Europeans, neighboring Weanock Indians, and elite European landowners in shaping the mid-17th century expansion of plantation settlements across the Chesapeake, an expansion which led to the emergence of a tobacco plantation labor force comprised almost entirely of enslaved Africans and their descendants by 1700. Since the 1970s, archaeological research at Flowerdew has produced hundreds of thousands of artifacts and dozens of linear feet of unbound field records and maps. A new project led by the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (www.daacs.org) is re-analyzing collections from four of the earliest and most significant 17th-century archaeological sites at Flowerdew. We describe the protocols used to parse these documents into a relational PostgreSQL database that allows us to directly link legacy field data to related artifacts, images, and maps. We also illustrate how the standardized digital data produced by DAACS will enable students, scholars, and the public to advance our understanding of the multicultural dynamics behind the emergence of a slave society in British North America.
Date: 04/13/2019
Conference Name: 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology

An Introduction to the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery's Latest Project – The Origins of A Slave Society: Digitizing Flowerdew Hundred (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: An Introduction to the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery's Latest Project – The Origins of A Slave Society: Digitizing Flowerdew Hundred
Author: Elizabeth Bollwerk
Abstract: By late 1619, 15 of the first 25 enslaved Africans imported into British North America were laboring at Flowerdew Hundred, a thousand acre plantation on the James River in Virginia. They joined indentured Europeans, neighboring Weanock Indians, and elite European landowners in shaping the mid-17th century expansion of plantation settlements across the Chesapeake, an expansion which led to the emergence of a tobacco plantation labor force comprised almost entirely of enslaved Africans and their descendants by 1700. Since the 1970s, archaeological research at Flowerdew has produced hundreds of thousands of artifacts and dozens of linear feet of unbound field records and maps. A new project led by the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (www.daacs.org) is re-analyzing collections from four of the earliest and most significant 17th-century archaeological sites at Flowerdew. We describe the protocols used to parse these documents into a relational PostgreSQL database that allows us to directly link legacy field data to related artifacts, images, and maps. We also illustrate how the standardized digital data produced by DAACS will enable students, scholars, and the public to advance our understanding of the multicultural dynamics behind the emergence of a slave society in British North America.
Date: 09/28/2019
Conference Name: University of Virginia's Department of Anthropology Brown Bag Seminar

Building the Flowerdew Hundred Archaeological Archive in DAACS: Analyzing Legacy Documentary Data to Understand the Emergence of Enslaved Societies at Flowerdew Hundred Plantation (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Building the Flowerdew Hundred Archaeological Archive in DAACS: Analyzing Legacy Documentary Data to Understand the Emergence of Enslaved Societies at Flowerdew Hundred Plantation
Author: Elizabeth Bollwerk
Author: Jillian Galle
Author: Fraser Neiman
Abstract: This lightening round presentation discussed the progress of the NEH-funded project, Origins of a Slave Society: Digitizing Flowerdew Hundred.
Date: 06/19/2021
Primary URL: https://oieahc.wm.edu/events/past-conferences2/oi-2021-annual-conference/

Investigating the Role of an Early Fortified Site in the Origins of a Slave Society: The (44PG65) Enclosed Compound at Flowerdew Hundred. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Investigating the Role of an Early Fortified Site in the Origins of a Slave Society: The (44PG65) Enclosed Compound at Flowerdew Hundred.
Author: Fraser Neiman
Author: Elizabeth Bollwerk
Abstract: Paper presented in a session titled Colonial Forts in Comparative, Global, and Contemporary Perspective, organized by Michael S Nassaney and Sergio Escribano-Ruiz. Conference of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Lisbon. January.
Date: 01/06/2023