By Mary L. Maniery, PAR Environmental Services, Inc., President; SHA Co-Publications Associate Editor
In March 2018, the SHA began a blog for the Society webpage and newsletter to highlight our publications and our collaboration with various presses. While our co-publication program and partnerships with Springer, University of Alabama Press, University of Nebraska Press, University of Tennessee Press, and University of Florida Press expands our membership’s publication opportunities, the SHA has also continued to publish works independently as Special Publications. This blog promotes the SHA co-published books and spotlights our authors and their accomplishments.
SHA members can order Belvoir: An Archaeology of Maryland Slavery for $34.95 via the University of Alabama Press website.
If you are interested in contributing to a joint SHA published volume, please contact SHA’s Co-Publications Editor, Sarah Holland.
Belvoir: An Archaeology of Maryland Slavery (2025), Julie Schablitsky and Sara Mascia; University of Alabama Press; Number of pages: 152; 40 B&W figures; 2 Maps.
Society for Historical Archaeology Special Publications
ABOUT THE BOOK
Unearthed truths, buried lives: Belvoir reveals the pain, resilience, and reckoning found beneath the soil of a Maryland plantation.
Near Annapolis, Maryland, a former tobacco plantation dating to the 1730s holds centuries of untold history. In Belvoir: An Archaeology of Maryland Slavery, Julie M. Schablitsky leads readers on an archaeological narrative to unearth the lives and stories still buried there. The book begins with an introduction to the estate’s history, detailing its ownership by prominent families such as the Rosses, Scotts, Worthingtons, and Welshes. Schablitsky highlights the landscape of the estate, including the unique thirty-two-square-foot stone quarter built for enslaved people.
With sensitivity and scientific rigor, Schablitsky shifts focus to the enslaved people who lived and labored at Belvoir for more than eighty years. Through detailed excavation of the stone quarter and analysis of everyday artifacts—buttons, tobacco pipes, food remains, ceramics—she reconstructs the daily life, acts of resistance, and the cultural endurance of a community forced to navigate brutality.
Yet what makes Belvoir especially vital is its ethical compass. Schablitsky centers the voices of descendants, allowing their questions, memories, and presence to shape the narrative. The result is a groundbreaking archaeological case study and a blueprint for restorative justice at sites of enslavement. Scholars, archaeologists, and general readers alike will find Belvoir a deeply human, profoundly necessary book, one that confronts the past with clarity, care, and the hope of reconciliation.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW
MM: What are some of your motivations for writing/spearheading this book?
JS: Belvoir was developed as an 18th-century tobacco plantation by the great, great grandparents of Francis Scott Key. During the American Revolution, Rochambeau and his troops camped at this location for a few nights before marching to Annapolis and onto Yorktown. Behind all this history was another story of people who were forgotten, their lives buried in a stone ruin. The extensive archaeological excavation of this stone ruin, a home for enslaved people, produced hundreds of artifacts and features that allowed us to partially reconstruct their lives. The descendants of these enslaved people were also along for the journey. I was motivated to write the book because the broken teacups, buttons, and faunal remains had something important to say about slavery, resistance, and Maryland history.
MM: Who would you like to read this book? Who is your audience?
JS: The book was specifically written in a style and format that allows anyone to pick it up, read it, and learn something new. A scholar, an archaeology student, or anyone interested in history will be able to digest the data, appreciate the interpretations, and be excited by the discovery.
MM: Now that you have published this book, what kinds of things are you dreaming up next? What is in the works?
JS: I am just finishing up the fieldwork at Harriet Tubman’s Birthplace on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In the next year, I will begin to pull together the story of Tubman using historical records and the archaeological findings from her father’s home and another quarter for enslaved people located on the farm where she was born.