The following report was prepared by the Anthropological Studies Center in 1992. The 136 page printed report has been split into six PDF files to make downloading easier.
Thomas Cook and his wife escaped slavery by taking the Underground Railroad to Canada prior to the Civil War. In the early 1870s, the family pursued visions of a better life to California, eventually settling in Sacramento. In 1901 the Cook family lived on the alley at 1418-1/2 J Street; Thomas Cook and one son worked as barbers; a daughter worked as a dressmaker. Ninety years later, prior to the construction of an addition to the City's Community/Convention Center, personnel of the Anthropological Studies Center, Sonoma State University, excavated a privy filled with artifacts associated with the Cooks. This monograph presents all of the historical, archaeological, artifactual, and contextual information connected with this site, which is one of the first urban African-American sites excavated in California, if not in the western states generally. The goal of this report is to present the data as a comparative collection. The authors plan to publish further analyses of the Cook site in the future and welcome comments and suggestions on the avenues for this research.
Archaeologists have added a great deal to our understanding of the grim history
of enslaved African Americans in the antebellum South. However, the story of
blacks who traveled to the cities of the Far West - both free and as escaped
slaves - has yet to be told. Although the advancement of African Americans in
the urban West was limited by a racist structure, they nonetheless created a
sophisticated and urbane culture.
The archaeological remains left by Thomas Cook and his family reflect the household members' daily lives. Archaeological evidence suggests that family members carried on their high status occupations at home during off hours, thereby circumventing the public ban on serving both black and white clientele. A comparison of the Cook assemblage with that of a nearby white household shows similarities that mask the gulf that must have existed between these peoples' lives in early 20th-century Sacramento. The effects of racism, as well as the family's responses to it, can be seen in the archaeological remains left by the Thomas Cook family.
More on this subject...
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FROM
SLAVERY TO FREEDOM: Archaeology of an African-American Family in Sacramento,
California From Slavery to Freedom.pdf (60KB) (Paper presented at 1994 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology) |
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Click the name of the file (e.g. "Part1.pdf") to open it. If the file does not open when you click its title, try right-clicking and selecting "Save Target As" (Windows). Save the file to your desktop and open it from there. You will need the free Adobe Reader® to open the PDF files. For a specific section of the report, find its page number in the Table of Contents below. |
| Part1.pdf | Part2.pdf |
Part3.pdf |
Part4.pdf |
Part5.pdf |
Part6.pdf |
pgs. i-10 |
pgs. 11-38 |
pgs. 39-68 |
pgs. 69-94 |
pgs. 95-118 |
pgs. 119-136 |
Table of Contents |
|
Text |
Page # |
| ABSTRACT |
iii |
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
v |
| CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND Previous Archaeological Research Project History Historical Background |
1 |
| CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS History Archaeology Artifacts Mammalian Faunal Remains Fish Remains |
11 |
| CHAPTER 3: DISCUSSION African-American Barbers and Dressmakers Material culture of an African-American Family in Sacramento The Question of Meaning |
109 |
REFERENCES |
125 |
LIST OF MAPS |
|
| Map 1: Study Area Location | 8 |
| Map 2: Test Locations | 9 |
| Map 3: Archaeological Features on 1895 Map | 34 |
| Map 4: 1915 Sanborn Map | 35 |
| Map 5: Study Area | 36 |
| Map 6: Feature 3, Plan View | 37 |
| LIST OF TABLES | |
| Table 1: Summary of Documentary Data for 1418 and 1418-1/2 J Street | 38 |
| Table 2: Layer 31 Artifact Description | 40 |
| Table 3: Layer 32-36 Artifact Description | 44 |
| Table 4: Layer 37 Artifact Description | 87 |
| Table 5: Layer 38 Artifact Description | 88 |
| Table 6: Layer 39 Artifact Description | 91 |
| Table 7: Date and Origin of Marked Items | 93 |
| Table 8: Feature 3 Tableware | 94 |
| Table 9: Gender-specific Fasteners | 95 |
| Table 10: Bone Counts and Weights for Each Taxa | 96 |
| Table 11: Relative Frequencies of Three Types of Butchering Marks | 96 |
| Table 12: Comparison of Percent Contributions of Beef, Pork, and Mutton | 97 |
| Table 13: Relative Abundance of Meat Cuts | 98 |
| Table 14: Relative Abundance of Meat Cuts Used for Different Purposes | 99 |
| Table 15: Bone Counts and Weights of Selected Taxa for each Layer by Species | 99 |
| Table 16: Feature 3 Fish Remains | 100 |
| Table 17: Summary of Tableware, Feature 8 and Feature 3 | 118 |
| Table 18: Summary of Mary Collins Feature 8 and Thomas Collins Feature 3 | 119 |
| LIST OF FIGURES | |
| Figure 1: Profile through Feature 3 | 101 |
| Figure 2: Clothing and Jewelry | 102 |
| Figure 3: Dolls | 103 |
| Figure 4: Containers and Stoppers | 104 |
| Figure 5: Relative Abundance of Meat Cuts by value | 105 |
| Figure 6: Value of Beef Cuts by Layer | 106 |
| Figure 7: Proportion of Beef Steaks by Layer | 107 |
| Figure 8: Pie Charts, Artifact Summary by Functional Category | 121 |
| Figure 9: Pie Charts, Beef-cut Price Ranges | 122 |
| Figure 10: Pie Charts, Beef-cut Yield Ranges | 123 |
| Figure 11: Bar Graph, Beef-cut Prices | 124 |
| Figure 12: Bar Graph, Beef-cut Yield | 124 |
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