Memory and Power at l’Hermitage Plantation: Heritage of a Nervous Landscape

Uncovering evidence of slavery and control
in the spatial landscapes of a Maryland plantation

In this book,
Megan Bailey uses archaeological data and historical records to document the
treatment of enslaved people at L’Hermitage Plantation in Maryland from 1794 to
1827. Bailey uses the concept of the ＂nervous landscape＂--a space where power is
not absolute and where resistance is possible--to show how the Vincendière
family’s fear of losing control of their workforce drove their brutality.

Bailey
shows how the Vincendières’ strategies to maintain their power were inscribed
in the plantation’s landscapes through the design of the enslaved peoples’
village, which maximized surveillance and control while suppressing
individuality. Despite the
family’s behavior, enslaved people found ways to exercise agency, including through
use of yard space, forming relationships with local
residents, and running away. Considering fear and anxiety as a fundamental
element of the colonial experience, Bailey argues that emotion should be
considered in archaeological analyses of the past.

Today,
L’Hermitage Plantation is a part of the Monocacy National Battlefield operated
by the National Park Service. Bailey discusses the public interpretation of the
site and how excavations of the plantation highlighted a more complicated narrative than the prevailing story of
Civil War conflict and heroism. Memory and Power at L’Hermitage Plantation uses archaeology to
connect the Vincendières to the present-day landscape in a complex, layered
narrative of precarity and control.

A
volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel

Publication
of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American
Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.