Dr. James Davidson
Assistant Professor, African American Studies Program and the Department of Anthropology
davidson@anthro.ufl.edu
Dr. Davidson earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in August 2004 in anthropology, with a subdiscipline in archaeology. His research focuses on mortuary archaeology, mainly studying burial sites dating from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. His graduate research involved exhuming Freedman's Cemetery in Dallas, Texas, a burial ground for former black slaves from 1869 to 1907.
Summer 2010: Field School has Completed 5th Year
Field School Director: Dr. James M. Davidson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies
Summer Session A: May 10-June 18
Occupied by circa 1792, this plantation derives its name from Zephaniah Kingsley, who occupied the site between 1814 and 1839. Kingsley was a slave trader and ship’s captain. Defying convention, he took as a wife Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, an enslaved girl from Senegal. Objecting to the harsh laws regarding interracial marriage and biracial children when Florida became American territory, Kingsley and his family moved to Haiti in 1839. The plantation was subsequently owned by a number of individuals into the early 20th century.
The entire field of African-American archaeology can actually trace its origin back to Kingsley Plantation, where in 1968 Dr. Charles Fairbanks (former professor at UF) conducted the first-ever scientific excavation of a slave cabin. Dr. Davidson continues this innovative research.
For more information visit the field school online at http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/davidson/kingsley.htm
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In describing his research, he writes, "Although my early training was in North American prehistory, since the early 1990s I have worked primarily in historical archaeology, pursuing two main threads--issues of the African Diaspora and Mortuary Archaeology. These two interests emerged out of my work at a single site: Freedman's Cemetery in downtown Dallas, Texas, the primary place of burial for all of Dallas's African American community between 1869 and 1907. Due to highway construction, in the early 1990s a team of researchers spent nearly three years exhuming 1,157 individuals from an acre of the venerable cemetery."
"I deal primarily with late 19th century and early 20th century contexts, in cemeteries as well as occupation/household sites. Through a partnership with the St. Paul United Methodist Church, I helped lead an excavation at a former shotgun house site adjacent to and owned by the church. I have a strong desire to contextualize my archaeological data as much as possible with archival documentation and other sources. Within these contexts, I deal with the theoretical issues of race/ethnicity, identity, memory, and domination/resistance. At the University of Florida I plan to continue my work documenting the African-American Experience in Dallas as well as begin local projects within North Florida, allowing the African-American community to guide my research, addressing those issues and sites they deem of value. My first effort toward this goal is my current work with the survivors and descendant community of Rosewood, the former African-American community destroyed by a white mob in January 1923."
Spring 2012
The Slave Narrative- This course presents a historical overview of the American Slave Narrative. Participants will obtain knowledge of the narrative form as it evolved through time, first as a force for social change in the broader abolitionist literature, then as biography for selected African-American leaders, and finally as an attempt to record a history, through the ex-slave narratives of the 1930s. The narratives will be viewed through various lenses -- as literature, as political discourse, as biography, and ultimately as a window through which we may view the conditions of slavery. Through lectures, I will introduce the readings and provide broad overviews of the overarching topics and issues within the Slave Narrative as a genre. A good portion of class time, however, will be spent discussing and critiquing the readings. Syllabus
