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seeks slaveExcavation site in Brazoria Countyf *was onesugar-producing centers in regionries like this one, you couldMICHAEL CIAGLO/HOUSTON CHRONICLE|APUniversity of Houston student Allison Holmes removes dirt to uncover part of the sugar mill on June 28 at the Levi Jordan Plantation in Brazoria.cal mystery. A contractor hired by the state toshouldn’t be there,” BrownTHE ASSOCIATED PRESSBRAZORIA Cynthia Eric-son dangles a cone-shaped piece of stainless steel over a section of dirt where a couple of worn bricks poke through the surface.Erieson, a graduate student working for University of Houston anthropology professor Kenneth Brown, uses what’s knownas a plumb bob to mark a straight line, and more importantly, let her colleagues know where to dig.“This is like using a fine-toothed comb,” she said, as she sectioned off the earthen plot. “If there’s something here, well findThe Houston Chronicle reports that for the past few weeks, Brown and his students have been excavating parts of the former sugar mill connected to the historic Levi Jordan Plantation in Brazoria County. Among other things, they are searching for a largecache of metal, just like theone found outside the plantation house years ago.Brown thinks the metal was part of the slaves’ spiritual defense against life’s many cruelties dealt to them on the plantation. Finding the deposit at the mill site would buffer his belief that Jordan’s slaves somehow managed to retain their West African culture, once thought to be an impossible feat at most Southern plantations.They worked from sun up to sun down. In factowork 24 hours in a day,” Brown said. “So in theory,the enslaved here wouldn’t have had much time to practice their customs. But what we found in the slavequarters when they were excavated would suggest otherwise.”Indeed, the excavation of the slave quarters and the restoration of the plantation house — a Herculean effort that began in 1986 and wrapped up in 2002 — provided a cornucopia of artifacts that are changing the way historians view life on a Southernplantation.Brown said artifactsfrom four plantations — the Jordan plantation and plantations in Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina - make a strong ease that slaves at large plantations were able to maintain many of their spiritual practices much like the famed Gullah and Geechee people of Georgia and theCarolina.s.His work at each of those sites has captured the attention of the Smithsonian Institution, which is set to open its National Museum of African Ameri can History Culture in Washington D.C. in September.The Smithsonian is planning to display arti facts from the Magnolia Plantation in Louisiana and has expressed interest in the Levi Jordan site as well“Historians say what we are finding at these sitessaid.The Brazoria County plantation, one of the most significant Antebellum sugar-producing centers of Southeast Texas, was founded by Levi Jordan, who arrived at the site with a dozen slaves in 1848.By 1860, Brown said, Jordan’s sugar and cotton plantation was worked by up to 140 slaves. Censusdata from 1850 indicatethat at least some had been bom in Africa. Afteremancipation, the cabinscontinued to be used by African-American share croppers. The houses were inhabited until 1887 when, amid economic and social conflict, the black farmers were forced to move.Over time, the slave quarters and plantation house fell into ruin. In fact, when Jordan’s descendants ultimately sold the land to a foundation that wouldlater give it to the TexasHistorical Commission, Brown said, “The house was pretty much being held together by termitespit.Renovation of the house ensued as did the excavation in and around the former slave quarters, which yielded the treasure trove of artifacts. Many of them clearly demonstrated Jordan’s slaves maintained their beliefs and customs, though likely practiced in secret.Among the items found were chain bound-pots — amnia — that served to ward off evil spirits; kettle bottoms similar to plates used in African healing ceremonies; items carved with six-pointed stars found in African textiles; a church, and an apparent curer’s cabin. Just as important as the artifacts themselves was the location of the artifacts. Many were depositedat the north, south, east andwestern ends of the cabins, which in Brown’s mind, was strong evidence of the crossroads, the symbolic connection of lines connecting the different directions to form an “X.”In West African spiritual practices, he said, east represented birth; north,the height of your adult powers; west, the transition to the spirit world; and south, the entrance to the world of spirits.For them it was the control mechanism,” Brown said of the crossroads. “And they didn’t have much control. The sugar mill was a very dangerous place. Put the cane a little too close to the crusher and you’re lucky if it’s only your arm that’s ripped off.”Brow n and his UH team first began digging around the sugar mill last summer, drawn in part by a histori-the plantation house found a buried cast-iron bucket — Brown thinks it was a cooking pot — filled with pieces of metal. Several West African cultures valued metal for its perceived ability to help ward off evilHistorians, however, think the pot may have been placed there by one of Jordan’s descendants who lived in the house in the late J940’s. Brown, however, isn’t so sure.He said records indicate the boy was 4 years old at the time and has a hard time believing a child could be strong enough to bury such a heavy pot, especially through a thick deposit of mud deposited byriver flooding in 1913.“One of the things 1 thought was, OK if it wasn’t Mikey, and it wasn’t the mason, it was probablysomeone in the enslaved community,” Brown said. “And they probably did the same thing here at thesugar milL”If he’s right, it wouldn’t mark the first time Jordan’s slaves had buried an object of spiritual significance.When the Brazoria plantation’s slave quarters were excavated, several coins were found. Likewise, a coin was found insidethe pier of the plantation house. Based on the age of the coins. Brown thinksthe slaves put it inside thehouse, not the mason thatsome historians have suspected.Using that same logic,it seems likely those enslaved at the Jordan plantation would have depositeda metal cache at the sugar mill where they worked.
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Odessa American
Odessa, Texas, US
Mon, Aug 01, 2016
Page 7
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TX, USA 14 Sep 2019
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