A History of Platform Mound Ceremonialism: Finding Meaning on Higher Ground

Abstract

plantation owners. Elijah was seduced by the ease of money and privilege. Per the letters presented, Elijah had a strained relationship with his parents and siblings as he tried to convince them that his new lifestyle was acceptable. He sought, but never achieved, much acceptance or approval from them. After the death of his father-in-law, he inherited and inheritance of the estate, legal documents, newspaper articles, and personal letters demonstrated that Fletcher became increasingly greedy, aggressive, and nearly fanatic about his holdings, especially as related to human property. Another turn of perspective provides accounts stating that Fletcher kept some families together, purchased an enslaved woman who wrote to him asking to be removed from the abusive household she was in, not pursuing a runway child that wanted to work with another family, providing Christmas presents, and other actions that overall make Elijah an enigmatic character. Elijah Fletcher died in 1858, just a few years before the Civil War. Indiana inherited a portion of the estate and later bought out her sister for the rest. Indiana did not free the enslaved peoples until she was forced to, and then retained many of them as staff at Sweet Briar with only marginal improvement of their situations. The death of her daughter Daisy resulted in increasingly worse treatment of the now staff despite their decades of service to the family. Daisy’s untimely death was also the impetus for Indiana starting Sweet Briar college. Letters, journals, and interviews of living people demonstrated a romanticized history concerning Sweet Briar. For example, Rainville recounts how Daisy was popularly assumed to have had friendly relationships with many of the enslaved people at Sweet Briar because she spent her summers on the plantation away from her parents. A closer look at Daisy’s journals suggests a passive relationship with the staff at Sweet Briar, rarely using their names. An account from one of Daisy’s most frequent caretakers documents him stating that Daisy was a spoiled child and that all work was dropped to accommodate her every whim. The sentimentalized history continued for over a century as promoted through campus tours, literature, websites, and annual events. Rainville recounts how Indiana required multiple rituals to be performed, sometimes daily, in remembrance Daisy’s death. One of the rituals is still practiced at Sweet Briar. It was the disconnect of the endearing history and the physical evidence of enslaved individuals that motivated Rainville to pursue this project. She had arrived at Sweet Briar in 2001 to teach anthropology and archaeology and endeavored to incorporate local history and landscapes into her teaching. She quickly became aware of the complicated history of the place. Further investigation found that approximately 30 percent of Sweet Briar’s current staff were the descendants of individuals that had been enslaved on the plantation, participating in the 200 years of development prior to its transformation into a women’s college. Rainville’s work is active social justice. She recognizes this in the text and provides recommendations for ways others can follow her lead. Her project redefined “founder,” corrected campus maps, enhanced educational events to portray the accurate use of former slave cabins, and aided the identification of slave burial grounds. Work like this is grounding and empowering because it contributes to a broad range of identities and celebrates survival, tenacity, strength, and stamina. This book is accessible to a broad audience and can be used as casual reading or required course materials. I wholeheartedly recommend it.