Revitalizing Tradition and Instigating Change: Foodways at the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead, c. 1871–1905

Abstract

ABSTRACTFollowing emancipation, relatively few African Americans held the status of landowning farmers. Within the context of racial and economic subjugation, these individuals struggled to maintain their land and autonomy as they transitioned into new lives as free citizens and independent farmers. Our research addresses how the household economy, especially foodways, proved essential to their economic mobility, rural identity, and racial uplift. We use as our case study the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead in central Texas. The archaeological evidence reveals how the Williams household reproduced tradition and instigated change within the realm of foodways. Tradition served to concretize their Southern agrarian identity and provided economic stability; change in the form of consumerism was tied to the household lifecycle and Sarah’s labor demands. Our comparison of data from three sites demonstrates how rural and urban household economies differed, as African Americans employed divergent subsistence practices that point to their heterogeneous lifeways.