Tom, thank you so much for that article. I'm bookmarking it for use in my class this semester.

I just made my school to do list for the weekend. I really should cancel my plans for tomorrow, but I don't wanna.

Erin, you might try having the kids reinterpret their lines into modern language. for R&J and the other biggies, just have them do their major speeches.

Good link, Tom. I didn't realize that the abolitionist newspapers were running a play by play of escaped slaves.

"Henry Lee, previously of the Courtland Plantation in Mississippi has crossed the Mason-Dixon and will be closing in on Manhattan within the fortnight."

Two historical notes about American slavery in the South that were illuminating to me:

1) Many many slaves "lit out for the West" instead of heading North. Hence black cowboys and blacks being absorbed into so many Native American tribes. There were also interracial itinerant groups like the Ben Ishmaels.

2) An anthropologist analyzed the bones of slaves and said that house slaves didn't have it any better than field slaves. He pointed out the grooves that their tendons had worn in their elbow joints were very deep. That the only modern equivalent where you'd see that kind of stress on the joints was in Olympic level trained athletes. People that train at the furthest point of their physical ability 7 to 8 hours a day.

Do you have a cite for that second point, Hec? I'd be interested in reading more about it.

Do you have a cite for that second point, Hec? I'd be interested in reading more about it.

Dammit! I knew you were going to ask me for that one. I think I read that in the NY Times several years ago. (Might not have been the Times, but a similar established publication. Not a science journal. Not a blog.)

That particular point really struck me. It was specifically about comparing field slaves and house slaves. (The joint grooves were just as deep in the house slaves.)

There was something in particular about the graveyard. I think maybe it was in New York and housed ex-slaves where they had records on them? Or possibly it was a graveyard where the house and field slaves were buried separately. But I think it was the former.

There was also some emphasis in the story about this kind of anthropolgy - using the same techniques that we use on ancient civilizations - was relatively new in being applied to the study slavery.

So I don't have a cite handy, but I'll google around and see if I can turn it up.

Dang, my Google-fu is weak. I bet flea could find it what with her archeology background and superior searching skills.

The article was particularly interesting because there are so many myths about the distinction between house slaves and field slaves that are carried forth today, particularly in African American culture.

Thanks, Hec. I think the field hand/house slave dichotomy is way overplayed, but I considered house slavery the better of two evils. Not by a huge amount, but still.

I know I've read of few articles about Northern slaves (NY, I think) in "Archaeology" magazine. I don't know if they said anything about bones or wear usage. It may have been more about what types of artifacts were associated with them.

ETA: [link]

This might be it, but it's buried behind the Times Archives subscription.

Shelter Island / Sylvester Manor archeological dig

The Shelter Island dig is run by Umass.

I think this is the one I was thinking of. The oddness was that it was a slave-owning plantation in New York state, and the articles came from around 2003.

Here's some stuff on the excavations.

More on the dig from a different resource