Parting Ways was an

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

settlement of

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their owners), emancipation (granted freedom as part of a larger group), or self- ...

adjacent to present-day Route 80 in

Plymouth, Massachusetts Plymouth ( ; historically also spelled as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in and the county seat of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklor ...

, near the Plymouth/

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

town line. Other names for Parting Ways include the Parting Ways Archeological District and the Parting Ways New Guinea Settlement. It was founded on by four former enslaved people who fought in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

: Cato Howe, Prince Goodwin, Plato Turner, and Quamony Quash and their families. They were granted their freedom by the Massachusetts courts due to their service in the war. The land was granted in 1792 as part of an agreement with the town of Plymouth, that whosoever could clear the land could claim ownership of it. Part of this land was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on April 19, 1979. The site consists of a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

, trash

middens A midden is an old dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bones, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupati ...

, and the

foundations Foundation(s) or The Foundation(s) may refer to: Common uses * Foundation (cosmetics), a skin-coloured makeup cream applied to the face * Foundation (engineering), the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads f ...

of the families' houses. This site was excavated in the middle 1970s by an

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

team headed by Dr. James Deetz, a professor of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

and assistant director at

Plimoth Plantation Plimoth Patuxet is a complex of living history museums in Plymouth, Massachusetts founded in 1947, formerly Plimoth Plantation. It replicates the original settlement of the Plymouth Colony established in the 17th century by the English coloni ...

. In the chapter entitled, "Parting Ways," in his 1977 book, ''In Small Things Forgotten'', Deetz demonstrates that 18th and early 19th century African Americans retained certain ethnically distinctive folkways of African origin. Their houses were arranged in the distinctive

shotgun house A shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than about wide, with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from t ...

style, and their meat was butchered by chopping, whereas their white neighbors butchered by sawing across the bones. Deetz' shotgun house interpretation of the extremely limited evidence – two rooms that "may or may not have been unified" – has been challenged as "premature".

References

External links

See Plymouth page on Parting Ways

Parting Ways Plymouth – Tribute to Old Museum

* {{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Historic districts in Plymouth County, Massachusetts African-American history of Massachusetts Archaeological sites in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Plymouth, Massachusetts Populated places in Plymouth County, Massachusetts Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Populated places established by African Americans Cemeteries in Plymouth County, Massachusetts Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Plymouth County, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Cemeteries established in the 1790s Plymouth, Massachusetts

See also

References

External links