Preserving the Cultural Memory of a Place

Abstract

This chapter examines the history of commemorative efforts designed to celebrate St. Mary’s City’s history as the founding site of Maryland. Following the move of the colony’s capital from St. Mary’s City to what would become Annapolis at the end of the seventeenth century, St. Mary’s City was converted from an urban settlement into an agricultural landscape populated by white farming families and their enslaved African and African American laborers. This transformation preserved the city as an archaeological site, but much of its early history was forgotten as it became buried beneath plowed soils. Beginning from the perspective that all types of commemoration, including archaeological study, are forms of memory work, this chapter traces the use of legislation, monuments, events, and historical archaeological study to resurrect Maryland’s early history and more firmly cement St. Mary’s City in the minds of the general public.