ABSTRACT
Black history under slavery has been the subject of considerable literature, most recently centered upon revising misconceptions of slavery (e.g., Blassingame 1972; Fogel and Engerman 1974; Genovese 1974; Gutman 1976; Ransom and Sutch 1977). Historical archaeologists have largely focused their research along similar lines, investigating slave sites (Ascher and Fairbanks 1971; Fairbanks 1974; Handler and Lange 1978; Moore 1981; Otto 1977; Singleton 1980). While attention in American historiography has begun to focus on the South after Reconstruction, only sparse literature exists about the late nineteenth century, especially concerning the invisible poor. We know more about blacks during slavery than we do about their early years of freedom as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Recent historical studies are beginning to reveal black history during this period, especially surrounding family organization, but most have not yet been published (McDaniel 1979; Nathans 1979). The archaeological study of blacks is of growing interest, but like their historian colleagues, historical archaeologists have only recently turned to the study of late nineteenth-century blacks (Adams 1980; Bridges and Salwen 1980; Geismar 1980; Kern 1980; McDaniel 1979; Riordan 1978; Schuyler 1974, 1980). The information presented here results from a major study of a plantation in Mississippi. This essay compares archaeological and historical data for tenant farmer material culture at Waverly Plantation so that we may better understand poverty and its affects on tenant farmer research.
