Power runs in many channels: Subfloor pits and West African-based spiritual traditions in colonial Virginia

Enslaved Africans and their descendants comprised a significant portion of the colonial Virginia's population. Many enslaved people of African descent lived on rural slave quarters, adjacent to the agricultural fields in which they labored. Since the 1970s, archaeologists working in the American South have been excavating the material remains of these slave quarters and learning about slave life.;A common characteristic of Virginia slave quarters is the presence of subfloor pits dug into the soil underneath the houses. The functions of these pits has long been a matter of debate among archaeologists, with their use as storage places for personal belongings or root vegetables forming the most common explanation. Contextual and ethnohistoric data suggest that some of these pits may have served in a spiritual fashion as West African-style shrines. This dissertation examines physical characteristics and artifact assemblages from subfloor pits in Virginia to determine subfloor pit functions. The date range of this sample spans the late seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. I examined the shape, location, surface area and depth of 103 subfloor pits in order to determine if patterns existed that would allow the formation of hypotheses about pit function. Based on the results of this systematic analysis, I examined the artifact assemblages of subfloor pits from five slave quarters outside of Williamsburg, Virginia. Analysis showed evidence that these pits were used in several ways: for food storage, as personal storage spaces, and as West African-style shrines. The connections between Igbo cultural practices and Virginia archaeological evidence is explored.