Winner of the Southern Anthropological Society's prestigious James Mooney Award, Uncommon Ground takes a unique archaeological approach to examining early African American life. Ferguson's provocative results show black pioneers working within the bars of bondage to shape their distinct identity and to lay a rich foundation for the multicultural adjustments that became colonial America. Through artifacts gathered from plantations and urban slave communities during the pre-Revolutionary period, Ferguson integrates folklore, history, and research to reveal how these enslaved people actually lived. Recovered potshards tell of economic interrelations between plantation slaves and Native Americans, and ritual objects open up a discussion of African slave religion. Impeccably researched and beautifully written. 41 b/w photographs, 37 b/w illustrations.
This is a used copy in good condition with some minor general wear throughout.
By Leland Ferguson. Paperback, 186 pages. Published by Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992.