At Freedom’s Borderland: The Black Regulars and Masculinity at Fort Davis, Texas

Abstract

Archaeologies of military life have made little contribution to the study of Black regulars on the frontier. In part, this is the result of disciplinary boundaries separating scholars who study military history from those who study the African diaspora. Other problems include the nature of military movements and the nature of military record keeping. In this article, ceramic materials from an 1870s deposit associated with Black enlisted men at Fort Davis, Texas, are discussed to demonstrate how material evidence provides insights into the ambitions, experiences, and actions of soldiers, in their status as freedmen and citizens, as they navigated the colonial structure of a western fort.