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The Archaeology of Providence Island: Liberian Heritage beyond Settlement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2025

Matthew C. Reilly Open the ORCID record for Matthew C. Reilly [Opens in a new window] ,
Caree A. Banton ,
Craig Stevens  and
Chrislyn Laurie Laurore
Matthew C. Reilly*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Programs, City College of New York, New York, NY, USA
Caree A. Banton
Affiliation:
African and African American Studies, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA
Craig Stevens
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
Chrislyn Laurie Laurore
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
*
Corresponding author: Matthew C. Reilly; Email: mreilly@ccny.cuny.edu
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Abstract

The 2022 bicentennial of the arrival of Black Americans to West African shores was a moment of reflection for many Liberians. In the wake of civil war, many questioned the celebratory tone of the occasion and challenged settler heritage narratives. At the same time, Providence Island featured prominently in official programming. Since 2019, our Back-to-Africa Heritage and Archaeology project has worked on the island to investigate the site's function beyond the mythic 1822 encounter between those seeking freedom from racial injustice in the Americas and Indigenous West Africans, instead offering a more inclusive and complex account of the public heritage space. We specifically focus on deposits that date to the decades prior to, during, and after 1822, demonstrating the tensions surrounding freedom-making and Black Republicanism from past to present, concluding that the binary of pre- and post-settlement fails to capture the complexities of Liberian pasts that unfolded on the island.

Resumen

Resumen

En 2022 el bicentario de la llegada de afroamericanos a África occidental fue un momento de reflexión para muchos liberianos. Después de la guerra civil, muchos cuestionaron el tono festivo de la ocasión y las narrativas del patrimonio colonial. Al mismo tiempo, la Isla de Providencia ocupó un lugar destacado en la programación oficial. En el proyecto “Back-to-Africa Heritage and Archaeology” hemos trabajado en la isla desde 2019 para investigar la función del sitio más allá del mítico encuentro de 1822 entre los indígenas de África Occidental y los que buscaban liberarse de la injusticia racial en las Américas y para ofrecer una visión más inclusiva y compleja de este sitio patrimonial. Nos centramos específicamente en los depósitos que datan de 1822 y de las décadas inmediatamente anteriores y posteriores. Con este enfoque mostramos las tensiones que siempre han sido parte de la lucha para la libertad de Black Republicanism y pretendemos capturar las complejidades de los múltiples pasados liberianos que han desarrollado en la isla y que eluden una distinción binaria entre el período antes y después del asentamiento.

Keywords

African DiasporaLong EmancipationWest AfricacolonialismBlack AtlanticDiáspora AfricanaLarga EmancipaciónÁfrica OccidentalcolonialismoAtlántico Negro

Information

Type
Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 89 , Special Issue 4: Global Archaeologies of the Long Emancipation , October 2024 , pp. 647 - 663
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for American Archaeology

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