Video
Slavery and Resistance in Maryland The Archeological Investigation of the L’Hermitage Slave Village
Transcript
Karen: Before I turn the phone line over to Joy Beasley to introduce Kate Birmingham, I wanted to say a few words about her involvement in the L'Hermitage Slave Village Project. Before moving to the regional headquarters where she's currently employed, Beasley served as the cultural resources program manager at Monocacy National Battlefields in Maryland. It's really to her that we owe our great debt for getting these projects off the ground. While she was there, she directed several very complex and high profile archeological projects, including the archeological discovery and investigation of the slave village.
She was very successful in leveraging Park Service funding, and a large volunteer program to carry out several fascinating projects at Monocacy, including work at the Middle Ford Ferry Tavern on the Monocacy River, the Best Farm and the L'Hermitage Slave Village.
If you have not had a chance to read any of the reports or discussions that have come out of this work, you really should. It's very - it's fascinating work. Thank you very much for being with us today, Joy. Someday you'll have to give a talk on some of your other research.
Joy: Thank you, Karen. I appreciate the opportunity. Good afternoon, everybody. As Karen mentioned,] I'm Joy Beasley. I'm the Chief of Cultural Resources for the National Capital Region of the National Park Service. It's my pleasure today to have the opportunity to introduce Kate Birmingham.
Kate came to work for me, back in 2009 as a newly minted - having just finished her graduate degree - and we were in the process of filling a term position for a person to be kind of the field director for this really important archeological investigation of a site that had been discovered way back in 2003, which was the site of the slave village associated – to find the right person to manage that whole project, really from field to finish.
Kate came in for an interview, and immediately struck me as a very smart, and very capable young lady. She really hadn't ever ... She'd done a lot of very good work, but hadn't really ever been given the opportunity to manage a large and complex project. I immediately got the impression that she could handle it, and that she would do a great job. She just needed somebody who was willing to give her that opportunity.
I can say with total confidence, that she completely exceeded my expectations. Her work was outstanding ... Her enthusiasm, her ability to work closely with the local community, with volunteers, with the many outstanding undergraduate and graduate student researchers, who were employed during the course of the project, her outstanding research skills, and just really, her great attitude.
My only regret at this time was that we didn't have a permanent position to offer Kate, but fortunately, everything worked the way the term appointments are supposed to, and she was able to use all of the good experience, and work that she did at Monocacy, and parlay that into a permanent position, where she is now, as the Cultural Resource Manager at National Capital Parks East.
She's done an outstanding job, and I really think that Kate's work associated with this project really, truly meets the definition of what the Cotter Award is intended to recognize; that's outstanding research in National Park Service archeology, that I think serves as a great example to the field, in general. I'm looking forward to seeing what Kate does next.
With that, I will let her go ahead and tell you about this really great project. Thank you.
Kate: Thanks for that great introduction, Joy. I really appreciate it. This was really, really a phenomenal project to begin my park service career with. It's just incredible, and I hope that you get an understanding of how lucky we were to be a part of this. I'm really honored to be the recipient of this year's Cotter Award, in the project category.
Before I get too far, I'm going to bring in a plug. We just published the final report for this project this year. Actually, Karen mentioned earlier you can find all of the Monocacy projects here at NPS.gov/rap, which is the Regional Archeology Program webpage. You can request a copy of a pdf, or a hard copy of the report that you can read. They're processed really quickly. I'm probably a biased author, but it's a pretty great report that we're really, really proud of.
The story is pretty complex. It's evolved over the last 16 or so years of research. It's a really complicated, interesting, and heartbreaking story that lends itself more to a historical soap opera, than a typical archeological assessment, so much so, that we're often asked to write popular books on the subject, rather than just the technical reports.
The still-evolving story of L'Hermitage has revealed a very complex story of Vincendiere family, and it's allowed us to learn more about the enslaved population, who were forced to serve the family, the resistance while on the plantation, and their lives afterwards.
I'll start by providing some information about Monocacy National Battlefield and the context for the initial overview and assessment, that led to the more recent research. Then I'll talk about the historical background on the Vincendiere family, and the establishment of the L'Hermitage Plantation, and the enslaved individuals that toiled there, then the archeological data uncovered from 2010 to 2012, and discussion of genealogical research about the descendants. I'll conclude with some final thoughts, and my recommendations for future investigation.
Monocacy National Battlefield is located just to the south of Frederick, Maryland, in Frederick County, Maryland. It's 30-miles northwest of Washington, DC. It's a part of the National Capital Region.
The park itself was established in 1934 to commemorate the Battle of Monocacy which was fought on July 9, 1864. The enabling legislation of the park is broad. It allows not just for the interpretation and preservation of the day of that battle, but also for the interpretation of the battle within the full context of the Civil War and American history. This is important, particularly for this research, because it lets us examine slavery as a cause of the Civil War.
The park is made up of a total of 1,647 acres, and has 6 co-tenant farmsteads, which you can see here. It's dissected by Route 270 and Route 355, and Route 355 is historically known as the Georgetown Road. The Best farm, which is highlighted here in red, is one of the co-tenant farmsteads, and is referred to as the Best Farm after the name of the Civil War era tenant.
The property was purchased by the National Park Service in 1993. Initial Section 110 studies of the farmstead were undertaken to assist with park planning measures. After the park was purchased, or this parcel was purchased, it wasn't open to the public. They wanted to open it for visitor access and construct a visitors center.
The historical research and documentation began in the late 1990s. A multi-year archeological overview and assessment began in 2001. The most research, the identification and evaluation survey, took place from 2010 to 2012, and I'll discuss that in greater detail later on.
I'll speak first about the history of the Vincendiere Family, to give you some broader concepts. From 1794 to 1827, the land that makes up the Best Farm was the southern 274 acres of a 748 acre plantation known as L'Hermitage. This plantation was purchased and run by the Vincendiere family, who were French planters from the Colony of Sant Domingue which is now known as Haiti.
The family patriarch, Etienne Bellumeau de la Vincendiere was born in 1735 in Saint-Domingue. I'll make an aside for a minute - please forgive my French pronunciation. I never took French in school. I greatly regret it now.
Etienne was a respected member of the military. He was a merchant and a planter, in Saint-Marc, and he served as an attorney. He also owned at least two coffee plantations. He can be seen down in the lower left hand corner of the slide.
He relied heavily on his politically and socially well-connected relative Jean Payen de Boisneuf, who I'll refer to as Payen, and who you can see at the top left corner of the slide. He really relied on him for increased influence in the colonies.
Payen owned three large sugar plantations and a house in Saint-Marc. He was also a member of the military, the Estate General of France in 1789, and the Colonial Assembly of Saint-Domingue. He had quite a lot of influence.
One of Payen's contemporaries, referred to him as a "gangrenous aristocrat." He was an interesting character. Etienne married a woman named Marguerite Elizabeth Pauline de Magnan, who I refer to as Magnan, in 1769. She was the daughter of very wealthy and influential indigo planters.
Etienne and Magnan had 10 children, 7 of whom survived to adulthood. Of note, who we'll be talking about a lot is the eldest, unmarried daughter, Victoire. On this slide, her image is on the right hand side of Pauline and Adelaide. All four of these images we identified within the last 4 or so years. We're still looking for one of Victoire. If you ever see one, let us know.
The entire economic viability of Saint-Domingue hinged entirely upon the practice of slavery. In 1789, the colony's population included 31,000 whites, 28,000 free blacks and 465,000 enslaved individuals, which is a number that's very, very likely much lower than it was because individuals under-reported the amount of enslaved labor they had, due to a tax on documented slaves.
So the Vincendieres and their close family likely had an incredibly large enslaved population in the colony to run their multiple coffee plantations. According to 6 newspaper advertisements printed between 1771 and 1789, 7 enslaved laborers escaped Etienne's plantation, and several escaped from Payen. Some of the advertisements indicate that they branded these enslaved laborers.
Some of the most brutal treatment of slaves in the world took place in this colony. Ten percent of plantation slaves died annually of overwork and poor treatment. The enslaved were viewed as tools, rather than humans, and were treated incredibly inhumanely. In part to that, due to that, and also just the general inhumanity of slavery, the slave insurrections began in the colony in 1791. They were very violent, and fast. In 1792, the revolts reached Etienne's plantation. He and his eldest daughter, Pauline, and her family fled to South Carolina.
Magnan, Payen and the rest of the family were residing in France at this time. The younger Vincendiere children were being educated in Paris, before the onset of the French Revolution. Some sources indicate that Magnan and the children barely escaped the Reign of Terror. There are reports that indicate that they were hiding from farmstead to farmstead, being pursued by the Royalist Army or - sorry - the other army, because they were assisting a Catholic priest who was slated to be beheaded.
They made it to the US sometime before 1793, although they very likely intended to return to Saint-Domingue before learning of the slave revolution.
The family sent for or brought with them a total of 12 enslaved laborers from the colony. Due to the revolution, American officials were concerned that the enslaved from Saint-Domingue had seen or been part of the uprising, and would instigate similar revolutions in the US. As a reaction, the State of Maryland limited the number of slaves that could be imported. They laid out other restrictions, such as the nature of their service to owners, so with a preference to people who were personal servants, and also when they could be sold after they were imported to the United States.
Etienne settled in Charleston, South Carolina, and the rest of the family, including Payen and a family friend, settled in Frederick, Maryland. It's not entirely clear why Etienne and Magnan established these separate households, although there is some evidence, due to the timing of the birth of the youngest daughter, Helene, that there was some bit of marital strife involved.
The family settled in Frederick, Maryland, in some part, likely due to the Catholic parish there, St. John. They had a very close relationship with the priest, and other historical documents show that they had interesting financial entanglements with the church.
The 748 acre plantation they purchased in Maryland was quite oddly placed under the name of Victoire, the eldest unmarried Vincendiere daughter. Some previous interpretations of this by other historians have inferred that it might've been because she was a really strong, powerful young woman. To me, it most likely seems that it was due to the incredible amount of debt that followed her elders from Saint-Domingue. The family assets in her name were extensive, and not confined to Maryland. It seems more likely that Payen and Magnan financed these.
One reason for this is that debtors followed the family elders from the colony in France. Even though the colony was very lucrative, the plantation business was very fiercely competitive. Even when they were in the face of great profit, normally they would still spend what they had and more, and credit and loans were sought constantly to expand these operations to make more and more and more, money.
They lost everything that they owned from the colony when they fled, except for their debts that followed them. Debtors, we can see, followed Payen into the States and he really did not want to pay anything. He wanted to keep living the lifestyle to which they were all accustomed. The letter pictured on the slide, was a great find that I had a couple years ago. It was really exciting, once we had it translated from French to English. In it, Victoire mentioned the expectation that her mother and Payen had had that they would get their land back, or at least get paid by France or Haiti for the lost assets.
In 1825, Haiti finally agreed to pay France an indemnity, that really ended up crippling the Haitian government, and is still echoing in their economy today. It still did not amount to the funds that Victoire felt that they should get. In this letter, she expresses to her sister, Pauline, that they'd only broken even, after all the indemnities were awarded, and that was really disappointing to her.
In this vein, and with the expansion of their plantation, the 1800 census showed that the family went from owning just 12 slaves when they got here in 1793, to owning 90 slaves in 1800. They became the second largest slave holder in Frederick County, second only to the man who operated an industrial operation.
This is a really unusual number, especially for Maryland. This family wasn't growing staple crops, like tobacco or sugar, they were growing small grains as far as we know. Similar plantations growing small grains of a similar size would have only been employing maybe 5 to 10 enslaved individuals. They must've had some kind of compelling reason other than agriculture, to invest in this very sizable enslaved population. I'll get back to this a little later when I discuss the archeology.
To fast forward a little bit in the Vincendiere timeline, Payen died in 1815, and as you can see from these advertisements, Victoire began trying to sell them immediately after in 1816. Her mother died in 1819, so she's still trying to sell the property, and then she starts selling large numbers of enslaved laborers to downsize the plantation. By 1820, the enslaved population here was down to 48 individuals.
These sales included enslaved laborers that they had brought from Saint-Domingue. One example is a woman, Filete or Filele, who was brought with the family from Saint-Domingue when she was only 8 years old, so that clearly did not resonate with them, that there was this person who had been with them for all those years.
In 1827, Victoire sold the plantation and moved to a townhouse very close to St. John's Church in Frederick with her sister, Adelaide. During the rest of her life and in her will, Victoire manumitted or freed the rest of the enslaved individuals.
The Vincendieres constructed several buildings, that are actually still standing on the property at the Best Farm. The main house can be seen to the left, the stone barn at the far back, and the stone and log secondary structure towards the front of the photos. They all date to the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Particularly, on the interiors show distinct signs of French-Caribbean influence.
I've taken you through a very quick history, and I'm going to jump now to the 2001 overview and assessment, mainly just because in the timeline this one point is really important in the amount of the archeological work.
Upon looking at the size of the enslaved population, you know it was clear that the archeologists recognized that a large number of individuals would leave a very significant mark on the landscape. They did shovel testing towards the back and sides of the main house to locate slave quarters, since that's the typical area in the Chesapeake to find slave quarters. They did not find anything from those tests.
A great breakthrough for this research was the discovery of a historic account, written by a man named Julian Niemcewicz. He was a Polish expatriate traveling on the Georgetown Road in 1798. The account reads:
"June 15, four miles from town we forded the river. On its banks one can see a row of wooden houses and one stone house with the upper storys painted white. This is the residence of a Frenchman called Payent who left San Domingo with a substantial sum and with it brought 2,000 or 3,000 acres of land and a few hundred Negros whom he treats with the greatest tyranny.
One can see on the home farm instruments of torture, stocks, wooden horses, whips, etc. Two or 3 Negroes crippled with torture have brought legal action against him, but the matter has not yet been settled. This man is 60 years old, without children or relatives. He keeps an old French woman with two daughters, she in sweetness of humor, even surpasses him.
This charming group has caused about 50 legal actions to be brought. They foam with rage, beat the Negroes, complain and fight with each other. In these ways does this man use his wealth, and comforts his life in its descent toward the grave."
That's a pretty heavy account to read. While there are exaggerations, like about the size of the landholdings, the number of enslaved individuals, we can immediately recognize, after historic research, there are facts here. The archeological group conducted research on the existence of court cases, charges of slave cruelty, which is research that we've continued throughout the length of this project. In 1797, alone, Payen was indicted in 7 cases for "unmercifully beating and whipping" several enslaved individuals, including Cedric, Harry, Jerry, Abraham, Steven, Paul and George.
Additionally, Victoire was cited with "excessively, cruelly, and unmercifully beating " her slave, Jenny. The court quashed all but one of these cases, but Payen and Victoire were held to reconiassances for several cases, meaning, not that they weren't guilty, but essentially saying that they would keep the peace and perhaps pay a fine.
Several other cases were brought against them, including one where Payen was brought to trial for "not providing sufficient meat and clothing for his slaves." For this, he was found guilty.
It's incredible that in a slave state these cases were brought to court. That really generally didn't happen, especially in Maryland. The State of Maryland was very divided. The state served as the plaintiff and local citizens came forward as witnesses for the prosecution. It's unclear if these allegations were enhanced by the local community's disdain for the family. They were French, they were Catholic, which was not typical of the population of Frederick. The family had a habit for not paying their debts, because they were constantly waiting for a payment from Saint-Domingue, that they would never receive. They also just didn't fit in with the normal standard of slave holding in Maryland, as we can tell from this account. It's clear that the enslaved here were treated very cruelly and very publicly.
The style of slavery practiced by the Vincendieres was characterized by openly acknowledged physical, sexual and mental abuse. It's most commonly associated with Antebellum slavery in the Deep South and the Caribbean, than it is with Maryland. Given their origins in San Domingue, it's quite likely that Payen and the Vincendieres have a different concept of appropriate treatment of enslaved laborers, which probably differed very greatly from accepted visible practice in Frederick County.
Slavery in Maryland was not publicly flaunted in the same way as the Deep South, but instead it was practiced with great discretion. Frederick Douglas illustrates that point, pretty well.
"It is generally supposed that slavery, in the State of Maryland, exists in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of those harsh and terrible peculiarities which mark and characterize the slave system, but there are certain secluded and out-of-the way places, where it can be indecent without shame, cruel without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or fear of exposure."
Maryland was a very divided State. In Frederick County, the population was pretty equally divided between slave owners to non-slave owners. In order to get along with neighbors, who were people that you lived next to, that you saw everyday, the practice was to sort of ignore the practice of slavery. You know, what goes on on your farm, stays on your farm. It really wasn't spoken of.
I want to take a minute to underscore this point. During the work, we spoke to a lot of visitors, and it was very shocking to me and all of our crew, how many people used the fact that slavery is a spectrum, from those who were treated mildly, to those who were treated with great violence, to excuse the evil of slavery. It's used as an excuse to say it wasn't that bad.
I very nearly included screen shots of comments that were made on newspaper articles published about the site. If you end up looking up the site, and look at some of those news articles, I encourage you to look at the comments. Some of the public opinions on slavery are very frightening, and, honestly, some of them are not anonymous, either. It's a very common thing, unfortunately.
I want to indicate that while this is an extreme case from Maryland, it was very public. The account mentions instruments of torture visible from the main road. Instruments of torture were on numerous other plantations. They were physical and they were mental. No matter how nicely or poorly individuals are treated, they all lacked the basic human freedoms that we celebrate as Americans.
This freedom was obviously valued by the enslaved generally, and the enslaved at L'Hermitage resisted forced servitude in many ways. Another question I often hear is "Why didn't they just escape?" That question tends to simplify the human condition in general. Primary references indicate that at least four individuals escaped or attempted escape from L'Hermitage. All these individuals took on great risk. Threats included capture, and then return. What your consequences were for that capture: the threat of physical abuse to your friends, your family and your loved ones that remained behind; the mental anguish and separation from community; and lifelong guilt and uncertainty about what might have happened behind you. Jerry, Cayou, George and Pierre-Louis all attempted to escape to freedom, despite these risks.
I'm going to talk specifically about Pierre-Louis. We know what happened to Pierre-Louis after he escaped, from historic records. It's hard to trace for individuals. We don't know necessarily if they were captured or not. Pierre-Louis was a skilled wig maker, a musician and he was multi-lingual. After attempting escape, he was picked up as a vagrant in Philadelphia, and due to the Fugitive Slave Act was returned to L'Hermitage immediately. Pierre-Louis however, he was very resourceful and intelligent, and likely very well connected in the Frederick community. His attempts to gain freedom after his return didn't stop. Instead, he tried a different tactic. He tried the law. Although Maryland law declared that blacks were assumed to be slaves until proven otherwise, there was a loophole that was eventually made into a law in 1796 that allowed presumed slaves to petition for their freedom, and bear that burden of proof that they felt that they were being held illegally.
Pierre-Louis actually petitioned for his freedom on the grounds that he had been Payen's brother's manservant, having never served Payen himself. Which was actually true, Pierre-Louis had originally been Payen's brother's manservant. His brother died while Payen was in France, and Payen sent for Pierre-Louis to serve him. Therefore, the court decided in Pierre-Louis' favor. After delays caused by Payen's appeals and refusals to bring Pierre-Louis to court, and he had to pay fines for that, in 1799, the state court upheld the earlier decision, and that made Pierre-Louis a free man.
Although we haven't found much about his life after L'Hermitage, he did marry, it doesn't appear that he had any children, and he lived in Frederick City until 1820, at which time he disappears from the historic record.
The enslaved also used outside networks to their advantage for resistance. Enslaved laborers were often involved in small-scale economic activities, and engaged in general daily communication with the community, and passersby. This advertisement taken out by Victoire, only underscores that they were creating networks that she disapproved of. This ad could have been related to her earlier legal troubles, it could have been due to Pierre-Louis' petition for freedom, or other escape efforts. No matter what, it's clear that she viewed the activities as problematic, and that the enslaved were actively seeking ways to resist the oppression and tyranny of life on the plantation, and that she felt like this would help her take matters into her own hands.
I'm going to talk a bit about the archeology. Niemcewicz's account initially when it was found back in 2003 or 2004 provided really critical direction for the overview and assessment. The stone house and the upper stories painted white was an incredible clue, considering the main building complex was extant. The area between the structure and the road was not previously tested for a couple reasons. One, it wasn't a logical place to test for slave dwellings because in the Chesapeake, they're just not located to the front of the house, they're normally at the side or the rear. Also, the area was in a wheat cultivation area at the time of the survey, and the archeologists promised not to bother the farmer.
Systematic metal detector survey was employed in the field between the structures and the road. This survey led to the identification of a dense deposit of late 18th to early 19th century domestic and architectural materials, over about 2/3 of an acre. The site was located on the back side of a slight slope next to a natural drainage. It was removed from the agricultural lease upon identification.
Since all of this occurred at the end of the funding, for the overview and assessment, archeologists excavated two test units. Some of these revealed linear soil stains that were interpreted as a fenced enclosure feature. You can see them excavating that here, and see the aerial view of the feature.
In 2010, we began the identification and evaluation survey of the site. We had the help of seven graduate and undergraduate student interns from local universities. We hired them with NPS youth intern program fund. Over the course of the work, we had over 50 volunteers, including undergraduate students and professors from Howard University. We had a ton of groups come to visit us. We also had a lot of support from the National Capital Region, Regional Archeology Program, and their interns.
I want to note that I could go on for a very long time about how incredible this group was to work with, especially on this topic. Slavery is a very emotional and ever present topic, and very relevant. Some of these conversations that we were able to have were just so enlightening, and made me a better archeologist.
We excavated nearly 200 shovel tests on a 20 foot interval grid across the site. Of those, we identified 20 as high potential for cultural activity, including these two, in which we found stone and mortar. This is incredibly exciting. I'll always remember the days that we found these. As archeologists in the Chesapeake region, we don't assume that we will find a stone or brick foundation component at all, due to the prevalence of earthfast structures, which are generally just post in ground. To find these was really great.
To investigate these, we set out 5 foot by 5 foot, and 10 foot by 10 foot excavation units, in these high potential areas. Here is the area we refer to as Structure B, during early excavation. We identified that the stone and mortar was the base of an external "C" shaped chimney, which is located on the south end of the structure. Here's another view, the left of the drawing, the right is the aerial view of everything we excavated of Structure B.
Two stone piers mark corners next to the hearth, and then we found piers along the northern elevation, and a western elevation. There was a large reddened soil feature identified on the interior of the hearth. There is only one chimney, making it quite likely that this was a barracks-style, single ben structure.
Structure B exhibited pretty interesting characteristics. The enclosure feature that was identified during the earlier overview and assessment, as you can see here, lined up perfectly with the southern end of the structure. Additionally, the structure would have been fairly close to the original alignment of the Georgetown Road, meaning that the enslaved would have had a pretty interesting opportunity to converse with passersby.
As the first field season progressed, we excavated three additional hearth foundations in units. The similarities between all these features were quite striking. They were all oriented in the same direction, and had the same construction with the exact same dimensions, which was 19' X 34'. We identified stone pier features with several of these structures. Some we didn't excavate extensively due to time. These were likely ... The piers were likely in place to provide a level surface for wood or logs for framing.
The hearths were a measured distance apart, and that allowed us to hypothesize where more structures would be located. We're very proud to say that all of them ended up being located in test units that we had already laid out, for the most part.
We discovered this fact, that they were all in line, on a day when our regional archeologist, Dr. Steven Potter, was onsite. It was just really, really incredible day. Through the use of excavation, and surface and ground penetrating radars, we confirmed the presence of 6 total structures. These buildings were clearly surveyed. They're clearly surveyed as to location, and hearths were exactly 66 feet apart, which is the equivalent of a surveyor's chain. They're oriented on nearly the same axis, within less than one degree of the extant structures on the plantation. They quite literally would have been a row of wooden houses.
The construction illuminates several key factors about the visions the Vincendieres had of a plantation, and how that vision impacted the lives of the enslaved that lived here. The structures were built in a very precise and purposeful manner. What's really clear is that the Vincendieres wanted to create the image of a grand estate. What's more important, is that they chose this particular location for the purpose of surveillance. I'll add that to the side and rear of the house, there's perfectly flat topography where they could have placed a slave village, and chose not to.
It's topographically situated, so that the area in front of the house is in full view of the main and secondary houses, as you can see from the view from this window. The Vincendieres manipulated the landscape very, very specifically so that they could closely monitor the enslaved individuals, exert their dominance and further oppress the enslaved population through constant surveillance.
The landscape control could extend directly from practices typical in Saint-Domingue, or it could have been a direct result of the fear of the slave uprising, having had escaped one in Saint-Domingue. The positions of the hearth on the south elevation of the structure, is also puzzling. It would have ensured that the slave quarters did not have adequate protection from typical Maryland weather patterns.
The location of the chimney is critical for adequate heating of the structures during winter months, when winds in the region blow from the northwest to the southeast. These quarters when the Vincendiere got here, likely would have been constructed first, since they would want to make the plantation productive through slave labor. Historic structures reports that were done on the main and secondary houses noted that there were inadequacies in the structures that were corrected. There were ceilings that were too high, there were windows that were built too large, and fireplaces that weren't deep enough or adequately located. In these houses, the deficiencies were corrected.
In the main house, you can see the additions that the Vincendieres made. They had smaller windows, they had lower ceilings. The secondary house, they added a second chimney. They made the windows smaller. We have no archeological evidence that they were corrected within the slave quarters.
If this is the case, this detail provides more evidence that the Vincendieres were not very concerned with the welfare of their enslaved laborers.
We excavated a total of 49 units. Other archeological features were found. We found this midden, which was pretty fascinating. A lot of it showed evidence of demolition activity on the top. We also excavated an outdoor activity area, or kitchen area. We also investigated a anomalous stony knoll, that was located directly north of the slave village. Due to the presence of large boulders and copperheads, we utilized mechanical excavation to investigate this. What we found was a lime kiln, and it's of the type commonly employed on Maryland farms during the time period of the Vincendieres. In fact, several advertisements for the sale of the property, like the one shown here, indicate that it could've have been improved with lime.
It's quite possible that the enslaved laborers here were employed, not only with growing small grains, and making the house functional, but also through the time consuming and very difficult process of gathering raw materials, processing materials, creating lime, and distributing the lime to local farms or factories.
We recovered nearly 17,000 artifacts from these excavations, for these two years. The majority of these objects were architectural in nature, but we did find some really interesting patterns, or artifacts. One object was a carved oyster shell pendant, and that was likely made by one of the enslaved individuals. You can see that here, on the left. We also found 151 buttons. Mainly one piece, flat buttons, but some other interesting ones. We thought maybe this could reflect clothes- or quilt-making activities, potential laundering, however we haven't found any associated artifacts with those activities.
The enslaved were largely consuming second cuts of meat. Cow and pig skeletons, likely reflecting on-site butchering. Marrow extraction and use of bones in stews. The enslaved also supplemented their diet with wild game and fauna. We found oyster shells, river mussel shells, and fish scales. The diet of the enslaved to me, is particularly interesting, considering that we know that Payen was found guilty at one point of not providing them with adequate food. We do still need a full faunal and dietary analysis for this collection.
In my opinion, the most interesting fact about this assemblage is that it doesn't clearly indicate social status of the site's inhabitants. With the complexity of the story we definitely weren't sure what to expect of the material culture. What we found, which was high quantities of refined earthenware, a complete lack of locally made pipes and colono-ware. A majority presence of domesticated animals in the faunal assemblage, and a handful of coins and artifacts related to luxury goods.
All these things made it really difficult to separate the material culture of this site from other plantation homes of middling planters in Maryland. It lacked some typical, what we call Africanisms that are often associated with enslaved populations.
What I take out of this, and what I would emphasize is that, in addition to excavation, as archeologists we really have to develop a comprehensive history of our Antebellum sites to adequately identify these occupations of enslaved individuals within this region, given the diversity of the practice of slavery in the Chesapeake. The signature of enslaved life is pretty impossible to infer from material culture alone.
I also sort of underscored this when I was doing my background research for the report, in that there was really a great lack of slave quarters identified in the archeological record of Maryland. Those that were, had a great amount of historic document research that often is not present on other sites.
Just as we can't rely on material culture for all information about a site, we can't rely on traditional use of historical research to find all relevant data. One of the most interesting components of this research has been the genealogical component. This part came to us in a really untraditional way. As we'd been receiving a lot of national media coverage. During 2010, we were contacted by a writer for ESSENCE magazine. She wanted to know if we had identified a descendant community. Obviously, we were very interested and excited in doing that, but we personally lacked the expertise to conduct that.
After several months, the magazine contacted us again, and dropped the bombshell that they had found a descendant, and they wanted to fly her out to the site. That was incredibly exciting. ESSENCE magazine used Afrogenus, specifically the work of certified genealogist, Michael Hait, to trace the family tree of John Murdock, a man who was manumitted in Victoire's will. From this research, ESSENCE learned that John and his wife were prosperous after and during the hardships at L'Hermitage. John could read the Bible and he was able to send his eldest daughter to private school.
Cicely Schatzman, the descendant, was very moved by her visit, and stated that she wants to take any children that she may have to the site to keep the story alive. This was really incredible, and a connection that in many ways, a lot of archeologists don't get to make.
We hired Michael Hait with some of our project funds, so that he could assist us in really doing more research regarding the enslaved individuals. His work is helping to reveal that the enslaved at L'Hermitage had incredibly different experiences. We get to see a little bit about what the remainder of their lives were like, how they and their children lived on through slavery, or through freedom. His work has shown us that some individuals and their descendants went on to own land, attend universities and have successful lives.
Descendant Cornelius Ridgley served in the US Navy, then he re-enlisted to fight during the Civil War on the USS Minnesota. One of his grandchildren got a degree in landscape architecture from the University of Illinois, and a Masters in land design from Berkeley. He then worked for the NPS in South Dakota, and then he moved to DC to supervise the restoration of the Frederick Douglass Home in Anacostia. This fact really hits me now, that the Frederick Douglass Home is one of the sites that I had to work with.
The park and the National Capital Region are currently working with Michael Hait, on a project to conduct Phase 2 genealogical investigation of the enslaved Vincendiere descendants. A significant component of this will be community outreach. I'm really excited for the results of that. We've also met with a descendant of the Vincendiere family, who is a civil rights lawyer.
Just as the story of slavery didn't end at Appomattox Courthouse, the story of L'Hermitage does not end with the sale or manumission of the enslaved laborers. We want to look at L'Hermitage as just a part of their lives, and also learn how they and their families survived and overcame the difficulty of oppression.
This story has a lot of facets, and it continues to build. Although myself and the other archeologists are no longer working at Monocacy, the park is dedicated to telling the story. They've installed a wayside about the slave village, which you can see here. They also plan on developing an interpretive trail and an exhibit. We had very, very successfully attended presentations, Joy and I, this summer at the Sesquicentennial Celebration.
In terms of the archeological work, there's so much more to be investigated. I come up with new questions, all the time. It's like a form of torture, I think, since I can't do it anymore. The locations and nature of other outbuildings and structures on the site is of great interest to me. There's a great need to complete faunal and floral analysis and soil analysis, which could provide more data on what individuals were eating, what activities they were engaging in. We need more historical analysis of the lime kiln. An interesting avenue would be to look at the local iron and glass industrial complexes, to see if their archives provide information regarding where they purchased their lime.
Here, I'll go back to my bookends, here. There's so much information within the technical report, I really hope that you are interested enough to get a copy, or the copies of the other reports from Monocacy. There's more detail in here, everything about the history, the excavations, artifact assemblage and the genealogy, which I don't have time for, but thank you to all the people listed here. Thank you everyone for listening. I guess if you have questions?
Karen: Thank you, Kate. Are there questions or comments for Kate? Not yet? Well, I'll start with a couple of questions. Kate, is it your feeling, and the feeling of other people that are working on the project, that all of the slave population at Monocacy was housed in those cabins that you located?
Kate: No, I don't believe so. Normally the enslaved individuals that would have been working in the house, would have been living in attic spaces, and basement spaces, above the out-kitchen. I don't believe the whole population would have been housed in the slave quarters.
Karen: Is there any sense that these are family units?
Kate: That's a great question. That's one avenue that without actual historical documentation, we can't really make a good distinction about. Some plantations that have barracks-style structures of this size and type would divide them by gender, rather than family units. It's really unclear, without any kind of further historical documentation about the plantation. It's very unlikely we could make that determination.
Karen: Thanks for that. How many buildings do you think there were originally, or the Vincendiere plantation, altogether? Do you have any sense? You don't have records of other buildings besides the ones that are extant, and the ones that you've identified.
Kate: There's actually a really good ad that we found, an advertisement, while we were writing this report, that has a pretty long list of the buildings on the property. This advertisement was from 1820 when Victoire was trying to sell the land. She states that it was beautifully situated on the Monocacy River. She lists the improvements, as a good two story stone house with six rooms, and a cellar, a stone barn, a stone stable, and that's a structure - the stable, burned at some point and portions of the foundation were excavated back during the overview and assessment. Actually finding this advertisement really helped illuminate that archeological find from earlier. They mentioned the secondary house, they say there was a granary, a pigeon house, a meat house, an ice house, a large well. They do note other structures. They note an orchard. Interestingly, in the advertisement, they do not mention the slave village. They seem to mention everything else.
We know there was a lot there, but over the course of time, things have likely happened to those foundations.
Karen: Do you think that the story of the Vincendiere plantation is kind of unique to Maryland? It sounds to me like within the context of Frederick and Frederick County, it was an anomalous social situation, in terms of the way that they had organized their physical space and the relationships that they had with their neighbors and the slave population. How does it fit into the social context of the Chesapeake Region as a whole?
Kate: They were a complete and total outlier, I'm sure. We amongst the archeological team, and myself, we had tons of conversations about how odd they must have looked to everyone around them, and all their neighbors. I mean, that's why we sort of factor into our interpretation of the lawsuits. People brought suit against them because, you know, people probably just had no idea how to perceive these very strange characters that came from France, you know, devoutly Catholic, a broken family at that time period with scandal. Apparently, they always had other refugees coming to stay with them, so there was constantly a population of other French people coming and staying with them.
The enslaved population, and how that looked to everyone, from how they were treated publicly. It's very different, in terms of having that kind of formal landscape on a plantation in Maryland at that time. Also very different from, like I said before, the size of the operation they had. The only individual that owned more enslaved persons than them, was somebody who operated a manufactory. They probably made everyone very, very nervous.
Karen: It wasn't that they were part of a larger social network, elsewhere. They were truly outliers.
Kate: I think that they were part of a larger social network of people they knew, certainly of Saint-Domingue refugees who ... It's definitely clear that they were communicating with them, because so many people were coming to stay with them. We do have evidence that they had a variety of individuals stay with them throughout the time when they sold the plantation. One woman who came to stay with them who was also a refugee, she went to New Orleans as a nun. There's actually a statue, her and another social aide worker, in New Orleans, that's pretty interesting.
I definitely think that they kept their ties with people. I think they actively also sought to sever ties, particularly with the people to whom they owed money.
Karen: Ah. How did they end up in Frederick?
Kate: There's been a lot of questions about that. We don't really have a lot of evidence for why they ended up there, specifically. I tend to think it has to do with the earlier establishment of St. John's Church. The fact that they had a Catholic community there that was well established, that they clearly immediately were very involved with.
Karen: Surely there were Catholic organizations in ... I don't know, in Baltimore, or Washington, DC?
Kate: It wasn't as common back then, especially in Maryland to be sure. My personal thought is that they might have had a relationship with that particular priest already. Although I haven't done the research to establish that.
Karen: I've sort of been monopolizing the conversation. Are there other comments or questions for Kate?
Steven Potter: Karen, this is Stephen Potter from National Capital Region.
Karen: Hi, Stephen!
Stephen Potter: Just a couple of observations, to throw in. During this same period that these French expatriates wind up on the landscape, in the 1790s in Frederick, that's when the famous XYZ Affair under President John Adams occurred, where we almost went to world with Republican France. You've got to look at the international situation that went on at that time. This really put John Adams and Thomas Jefferson at odds with one another, because of course, Jefferson was very much a Francophile. You had Adams and his administration, you had Thomas Jefferson and his supporters, at each other's throats. Then you had this undeclared quasi-war between the United States and Republican France. That, on top of everything else that Kate has mentioned, is definitely coloring what's going on here, with the Vincendieres and L'Hermitage.
Karen: Ah.
Steven Potter: For what it's worth.
Kate: There's also Payen himself. We have letters ... I mean, he wrote letters to every president that he could write to. He wrote to George Washington. He wrote to John Adams. He wrote to Thomas Jefferson, for all kinds of reasons. Mainly, to beg them to get involved with the slave revolution down in Haiti, so that he could get what he felt was his returned to him.
Also, due to these larger issues that Steven mentioned. It was an incredibly complex time, particularly, too, with the Alien Sedition Acts, there was just so much that was going on. There was a lot of fear and hatred of the French at this time.
Steven Potter: It's worth looking up, the XYZ Affair, and how that colored American politics at the time, particularly between the Federalists and John Adams, and the Jeffersonian Republicans, who were pro-French. It really ignited quite a fire storm here in the United States.
Karen: I'll have to do some reading. Did you have another comment that you wanted to make, Stephen? No, OK.
I have another comment, another question. Kate, you were talking about the fact that you didn't see a lot of social differentiation in the archeological materials from the slave village. Have I lost you?
Kate: No, I'm here.
Karen: I was wondering if it would be because if all of the enslaved people were coming from another cultural context, that they wouldn't have local connections. Do you know where the other 78 enslaved people came from? Were they American born or were they also coming from the Caribbean?
Kate: We don't know. The slave census records for Frederick County are very sparse. They do not have a lot of information. Unfortunately, that's one of the problems with doing research on a slave community. Oftentimes, you find a dearth of research. That's one of the reasons, Michael Hait, the genealogist that we're working with, he is really not just looking at the genealogy. In order to really do his job, he also has to go back. He's been helping us to illuminate what we can about the enslaved individuals, and their origins, as well. It's just that it's a very difficult record to follow.
That's one of the reasons a lot of people ask me about religious activities, and if we found religious artifacts of any kind. I'm very hesitant to make those associations, with any kinds of artifacts. We don't really know the specific origins of the individuals.
Normally, the best religious interpretation of enslaved individuals, and artifacts, is made when you have a really defined context for where those individuals originated. We just don't have that. Even the individuals that came from Saint-Domingue ... The runaway advertisement for Pierre-Louis indicates that he was multi-lingual, and that his French wasn't even that great. He clearly was not a native French speaker. That lends the question of "where was he from?" Even the individuals that they brought with them from Saint-Domingue could have been from numerous other places. We have no evidence as to where that might be.
Karen: I think one of the best examples of the examination of religious preference is actually from the African burial ground study that was done in New York City.
Kate: Right, we unfortunately, lack a lot of that, further contextual information about the population, to make those kinds of determinations. I also say that, saying that we didn't find any subsurface features with caches or anything of the kind, no clear archeological features that would show that kind of activity, either.
Karen: How interesting.
Joy: Karen, this is Joy. I think that, just sort of a comment or sort of tiering off of some of what ya'll are talking about, I think that one of the things that would be really exciting going forward, is to see if we continue with the next phase of the descendant community research, what kind of new context or dimension that gives us about who these folks were. If there are folks out there that have information in their family histories, or in their oral traditions or so forth, that may help us be able to get at some of these ... The kind of information or context which is absent from either the archeological or the historical record.
Karen: Absolutely, that should be very exciting, if you're able to dig up any of that information.
Joy: Yeah, I mean if nothing else, we're excited to have the opportunity to share the results of our research with this descendant community that's out there. There's just no telling what opportunity that's going to present for us.
Description
Katherine Birmingham, 10/16/2014, ArcheoThursday
Duration
1 hour, 6 minutes, 56 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
10/16/2014
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