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The greatest danger in the narrow scienti¤c outlook is the assumption that because analytical and statistical methods cannot properly be applied to values that most differentiate man from the other animals, those values must be ignored. —Hawkes 1946:79 EN ROUTE August 16, 1866 Stafford Plantation Slave Village Cumberland Island, Georgia Abraham Trimmins, free person of color, and his mule were almost invisible. There was no sound other than the gentle whisper of the wind through the thick draping of Spanish moss. He was crouched on his haunches in front of the old animal, and anyone standing in the glaring noonday sun would not have seen them among the three enormous branches that arched out of the trunk of the live oak and curled down to softly touch the dull gray sand. The great tree moved gently in the breeze. Abraham stared out beyond the limbs at the rows of small wood-plank houses, which only two short years before had been a chattel enclave of over 250 inhabitants. A prison, yet the only home he had ever known until recently. Now, at age 38, he was a free man on his way to Fernandina, Florida, for a short stay before heading off to Louisiana. He shook his head ever so slightly, and in the second it took to rise up to move on, a myriad of memories rushed through his mind. . . . When Union General William T. Sherman issued his famous order locally known as the Sea-Island Instructions in January 1865, Abraham, his friends Rodgers Alberty and Henry Commodore, and the other 231 former chattel still residing on Cumberland were jubilant. The Instructions reserved 3 / Archaeology Goes to the Opera John E. Ehrenhard and Mary R. Bullard and set apart for the settlement of the now free blacks all of the islands south of Charleston, South Carolina, all the abandoned rice ¤elds along the rivers for 30 miles back from the sea, all the way down to the banks of the St. Johns River in north Florida! “Now we free, de sey we own de lan.” The euphoria was soon replaced with disappointment when President Johnson overturned Sherman’s Sea-Island Instructions. Now, all that had been gained was lost, and most everyone Abraham Trimmins had ever known was gone, a result in part of the Southern Homestead Act of June 1866, which enticed hundreds of former sea island slaves to immigrate. “De al gon,” thought Abraham as he stepped out from beneath the live oak and headed south down Main Road toward a barge trip into an unknown future. Just before the road made a sharp bend to the left, Abraham turned back for one last look at the village. He was surprised that he could not see it through the thick green haze of live oaks, magnolias, and red cedars. It was there but invisible. Humming his favorite ring shout, Abraham continued down the road and soon vanished into the forest blanket. Only the sound of the wind rustling through the Spanish moss remained. Gabriel en da valley / Blowen his horn Gabriel en da valley / Blowen his horn Gabriel blowen / Blowen his horn Gabriel blowen / I be lisnen Gabriel blowen / I be lisnen Gabriel blowen / Blowen for me I be lisnen / My time commen Gabriel blowen / Blowen for me Gabriel en da valley / Blowen his horn Gabriel en da valley / Blowen his horn For the next hundred years, the slave village and the lives, culture, hopes, dreams, songs, and prayers of the hundreds of indentured people who had passed through its gates would be no more visible or of concern than the sound of the wind blowing through the Spanish moss. June 21, 1978 Stafford Plantation Slave Village Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia Newly appointed National Park Service archaeologist John Ehrenhard peered through the sweat dripping into his eyes to tie off the string that marked the outline of the test unit he was preparing to excavate. He was still relishing his appointment as ¤eld supervisor for the stabilization evaluations of the chimArchaeology Goes to the Opera / 41 ney stands at the slave village. “Wow, what a site, what a primo place to work in . . . man, it’s hot! . . . damn sweat bees . . . aghhh! . . . Just doesn’t get any better than this,” he chuckled to himself. Ehrenhard stood up, turned around to get his shovel, and found himself staring into the black pit of a snub-nosed .38. As if in a voice of its own, the...

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