Roane Smothers
Three VCR Tapes
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Broken glass-archaeological dig (clear)
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Broken glass-archaeological dig (black, brown, white)
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Broken white shell-archaeological dig
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Black material-archaeological dig
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Lime green headless army woman toy-archaeological dig
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Horseshoe-archaeological dig
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Rusted figure-archaeological dig
from the collection of Roane Smothers
Brick-archaeological dig
from the collection of Roane Smothers
An interview with Roane Smothers
My family was free a long, long, long time ago. Before whites even came to this country. I thought that this was an unusual occurrence, and I wanted to say that I learned that it’s not unusual. [Anna-Lisa Cox in The Bone and Sinew of the Land] found 336 pioneer African American settlements in the Northwest Territory, before the Civil War. So, it’s not an unusual occurrence, it happened all over. This community became so large, it took a long time to whittle the population down. Most, like my grandfather, in the 1920’s, his family left farming and took skills of carpentry and masonry to Richmond, Indiana.
Read more of this interview