Colonial Williamsburg, Restoration & Archaeology

To have one thing we sometimes have to give up another in archaeology. Colonial Williamsburg is dedicated to recreating uh, colonial architecture and settings. CNN of course has a different slant on the destruction of a church, as do activists against the erasure of black history. CW acquired a building and tore it down and used the land for other purposes.  It was not a colonial building, so it didn't consider it part of its mission. Honoring local Williamsburg history, or black history, or both might be more worthy goals. But it wasn't their goal. When an old building is restored it is often a matter of some debate what era is going to be favored. The earliest? The largest? The most historically significant? the one with the most pirates or knights or princesses? Archaeologists in Europe two hundred years ago tried to create experiences, impressions of "what it would have looked like" 100 or 1000 or 10,000 years ago. In doing that they sometimes chewed up territory and artifacts in ways that modern archaeologists wish they hadn't. We can try to have an eye to what people will want to see or to study in the future, and now archaeologists take enormous care to destroy as little as possible, just in case.  But when you dig something up, it's no longer where it was.  It is exposed to light, or moisture, or wind now, and will deteriorate.

We make choices.

It's not crazy to think that CW should have made more of an effort to preserve something, because the congregation does date - just barely - from colonial times, and we do often have to bend the rules of strict accuracy in order to preserve something important that would otherwise be missing.  It is true that in the 1950s the historians, let alone the locals, would be likely to undervalue the black history. But they likely would have undervalued any building from 1856. 

As to the burials, they were not known to be there in 1956. It likely would have made some difference. It is sad when people feel sad, but it is not a trump card.  I am really growing to dislike this journalistic method of using old people reminiscing about their childhood in the interests of shaming. The house I was brought home to is gone. A church we went to became a business. The grammar school I attended is apartments now. Unless it's offices - I forget. No one was trying to erase my history.

We do things differently now. A memorial to the enslaved is being constructed on Old Campus at William and Mary. For most of the college's history people would have objected to it far more because it is not colonial looking and impairs the symmetry of the building layout than because it memorialises black people.  But the latter would also have greatly bothered many people as well.  That's just historical fact. We care about different things in every century, even every generation. They still care about preserving that colonial look.  My recently-retired friend was very proud of the ADA approved entrance to the Wren Building that I didn't even notice while I was attempting to prove myself right about the slight asymmetricity of the front and looking at the building closely. It was that subtle. But we consider it more important to belatedly notice black contribution to history now, and that's likely better. 

When we highlight missing black history, we do so by obscuring something else. You really can't do history and archaeology any other way.  Something gets put in front, other things are put behind it.