Join us Tuesday, November 29, from 4-5 p.m. ET for a virtual Fellow’s Forum with Luke J. Pecoraro, PhD, Director of Archaeology, Drayton Hall Preservation Trust.
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Presentation Overview
The role of music within enslaved communities in the Caribbean and North America is a rich subject that ethnomusicologists and historians have made significant contributions towards in the past three decades, but the traces of musical instruments remain a “missing artifact” in the archaeological record. African origin points for instruments like the banjo, a line of inquiry that Thomas Jefferson thought worthy of mention in his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1781, are in reality much more complex in the context of plantation slavery. Hybrid types with influences drawn from discreet regional points in Africa were created on Caribbean and southern plantations that would later become part of the United States, but were made from materials that typically do not survive archaeologically.
Using the rich Digital Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS) to run comparative searches for artifacts that would survive from instruments including tacks and rivets to affix skin or hide heads to gourds, metal spikes used to attach wooden necks to the instrument body, and objects of instrument adornment such as cowrie shells and beads, provide for a broad dataset drawn from several regions. By offering an alternative interpretation of these classes of artifacts, the role and presence of music amongst the enslaved population on plantations is brought to life.
Presentation Recording