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History hidden under the soil of Annapolis

By Gabriella Boston
March 27, 2008

Mark Leone, a professor of archaeology at the University of Maryland, sorts out animal bones in a school laboratory.

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The American fight for liberty was not only the domain of John Adams and his fellow Boston patriots — although HBO's miniseries might lead us to believe that.

The fight also took place much closer to home in places like Annapolis, where a recently opened archaeological exhibit at the Banneker-Douglass Museum shows how an 18th-century printmaker protested the British Stamp Act tax and how mid-19th-century freed slaves fought discrimination by purchasing brand-name canned goods and bottled libations.

"They preferred national brands because of the predictability of price and guarantee of quality," says Mark Leone, founder and director of Archaeology in Annapolis, the group behind the digs and discoveries displayed. He also is a professor of archaeology at the University of Maryland.

Adds Amelia Chisholm, an archaeology student at the university: "It's fascinating how you can tell someone's race and class from broken pieces of glass and rusted cans."

And from fish and meat bones.

The bottles and cans were found at the Maynard-Burgess House in downtown Annapolis along with animal bones that indicate the black residents fished in streams and hunted in nearby woods, probably because they would have been shortchanged by butchers and fishmongers.

"Just the cuts of meat can tell you a huge amount about a whole group of people," Ms. Chisholm says.

Yet this black household wanted to fit in and belong in mainstream America while still keeping its African and African-American traditions.

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