The Royall House and Slave Quarters
Medford, Massachusetts
Volunteer
Like all community organizations, we rely a great deal on the energies of our volunteers. We need your talent and we need your help! Volunteer.
Visitor Schedule
The Royall House and Slave Quarters will re-open for weekend Tours on May 26, 2012 (tours at 1, 2, 3, and 4 p.m. on the hour). Tour inquiries and reservations for Group Tours (offered from mid-March, 2012 onward) may arranged by e-mailing our Executive Director at Cloaking . More details at: Visitor Guide.
Getting There
The Royall House and Slave Quarters are located at 15 George Street in Medford, Massachusetts. Detailed Map.
Archeology
Karen Mansfield and Trent Bingham, undergraduate volunteers from Boston University, map in a feature during the 2000 archaeological field season.
The Royall House Association is committed to a contemporary interpretation of the site that will incorporate not only a more refined understanding of the Royall family themselves, but also of the many Africans and Creoles at the site, who did, after all, comprise the majority of inhabitants here.
We have tried to look at artifacts, architecture, and landscape as part of a "conversation without words" between master and slave.
Archeology is one of the key tools that help us interpret this fascinating and profound story.
Archaeological excavations were undertaken by the Boston University Department of Archaeology under the direction of Dr. Ricardo Elia and Dr. Alexandra Chan in 1999, 2000, and 2001. From the outset, we have sought to go beyond information on site layout and construction methods. Our goal has been to investigate the social meanings behind the buildings, landscapes and artifcats found.
Over 65,000 artifacts were unearthed on the Royall House grounds during excavations in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Many thousands of these belonged to the Royall period of occupation (1737-1775).
It is these that have contributed the most to the reinterpretation of the Royall House.
Discovery
In the case of the Royall House and Slave Quarters, we have tried to look at artifacts, architecture, and landscape as part of a "conversation without words" between master and slave.
Air-twisted stemware and fine, enameled porcelain would have adorned the Royalls' table. Port was served from bottles with the Royalls' own seal stamped on the front: The Hon'ble Isaac Royall, Esq. Pectore Puro [Pure of Heart].
Air-twisted stemware
These artifacts recovered from the site are more than just reflections of wealth and privilege. They communicate messages about the Royalls: who they were; who they wanted to be; how they saw themselves and strived to be seen; how they legitimated the world they built; and something about their individual desires, aspirations, and fears in that.
Landscape as Artifact
Landscapes are artifacts, too. In many ways, a landscape can be "read" as a physical map of social relations and realities of the past. Planned landscapes often reflect conscious attempts by those who commission them to state an ideal. The landscapes of inequality found in various American slave regimes, for example, betray the hope that the spatial and visual dominance in architecture and the landscape created by white masters (such as a commanding house set among beautiful gardens and grounds) will result in an an internalized acceptance of their social and political dominance of the slave class.
Excavations revealed an expertly laid cobbled surface that would have greeted the Royalls' illustrious guests in their carriages and would have been part of the Royalls' social display.
In a similar vein, our discoveries have provided good evidence of some of the refurbishment, construction, and beautification that was undertaken by the Royalls to transform a modest dwelling into a lordly residence worthy of their social standing in the community.
Landscapes also communicate more subtle messages that illuminate the daily lives of people who lived hundreds of years ago.
On the one hand, the land immediately surround the mansion house, from the Royalls' perspective, might have served as a daily reminder of their legitimate mastery over land and men. The neo-classical architectural elements of house, quarters, and gardens appeared to support the rightful hierarchy of men that stemmed from time immemorial. The trash-strewn work yards would have emphasized the separation between master and slave, work and leisure, clean and unclean.
To the people they enslaved, these same work yards might have represented a welcome retreat from constant surveillance, despite their appearance or smell.
Archaeology uncovered a division in the functional use of space at the estate that relegated work and waste-disposal activities to the relatively out-of-sight side and back yards of the Slave Quarters. Nearly 80% of the total artifact assemblage came precisely from the two yards (shown here) not visible from the mansion house.
In fact, artifacts recovered from these areas that seem to reflect not just work life but also family life, leisure time activities, and craftsmanship of slaves, support the idea that these areas were indeed understood by white and black alike to be a "black domain." To them, they might have connoted family ties and time away from Master: long smokes on the stoop out back, an impromptu game of checkers or marbles, quiet time to sew, make beads, or tell stories about Africa and freedom to the children who had never known it.
Archaeology has repeatedly uncovered these contestations between master and slave at the Royall House, as they struggled to define themselves and each other in the violent and shifting world of Pre-Revolutionary America.
Archaeological investigations have revealed information on the daily lives of the slaves who live here: Slave Life at the Royall House.