Sharpley's Bottom Historic Sites: Phase I Interdisciplinary Investigations, Tombigbee River Multi-Resource District, Alabama and Mississippi.

• Main Authors: Kern,John R, Demeter,C Stephen, Carter,E Suzanne, Tordoff,Judith D, Dotson,C Jason
• Other Authors: COMMONWEALTH ASSOCIATES INC JACKSON MI
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1982
• Subjects: Humanities and History; *HISTORY; SITES; SURVEYS; SAMPLING; ARCHEOLOGY; RURAL AREAS; INTERVIEWING; MISSISSIPPI; Oral history; Historic sites; Sharpleys Bottom; Alabama; Monroe; Archeological Survey
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA128524; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA128524

This report discusses 1980-1981 Phase I interdisciplinary investigations of the Sharpley's Bottom historic sites on the Tombigbee Waterway in Monroe County, Mississippi. Sharpley's Bottom is so named because of its occupation from the 1860s to the 1880s by W. B. Sharpley, a white slaveholder who cohabited with one of his slaves and later willed his Bottom Land to his mixed race children. The study has been distinguished by the wealth of historical material available on the Bottom, by the use of black and white oral historians respectively to interview black and white informants, and by the use of specialists in history, folk housing and oral history to assist in the archeological survey and interpretation of the historic sites. The methods and training of history, folk culture and historical archeology have been combined to analyze how an isolated and predominantly black community of tenant farmers evolved after the abolition of slavery and how that community endured until the demise of cotton tenancy. The report concludes with recommendations for Phase II historical and oral history research and for intensive investigation of 14 of the 22 located historic sites.