Bones in Stasis: The Challenging History and Uncertain Future of the Virginia State Penitentiary Collection

Abstract

AbstractThis article describes an archeological ethnographic study of the history and social context of the Virginia State Penitentiary, where burials excavated in the 1990s still remain in limbo: unpublished, unmemorialized, and unmourned. The penitentiary (1804–1991) was a feared site of solitary confinement, carceral labor, and capital punishment. Fieldwork conducted in advance of the penitentiary’s demolition recorded solitary confinement cells within the eighteenth‐century foundations, but also discovered a substantial burial ground within the prison walls. The collection includes the remains of over 200 people, many of whom were black prisoners who died between 1878 and 1884. Unfortunately, archeological analysis and publication were never completed. This article presents a new public engagement process to identify fresh possibilities for the sites and the individuals represented in this collection. Based on over thirty semistructured interviews conducted in 2015 and data from over 230 respondents to the 2018 Richmond Penitentiary Survey, we discuss how the penitentiary remains resonate or fails to resonate with Richmond residents, even as the city’s broader history of archeological neglect is becoming better understood. We discuss how archival research and emerging models for archeological restorative justice may provide new avenues for addressing this urban archeological erasure in a major Southern metropolis.