BRAZORIA - Cynthia Ericson dangles a cone-shaped piece of stainless steel over a section of dirt where a couple of worn bricks poke through the surface.

Ericson, a graduate student working for University of Houston anthropology professor Kenneth Brown, uses what's known as a plumb bob to mark a straight line, and more importantly, let her colleagues know where to dig.

"This is like using a fine-toothed comb," she said, as she sectioned off the earthen plot. "If there's something here, we'll find it."

For the past few weeks, Brown and his students have been excavating parts of the former sugar mill connected to the historic Levi Jordan Plantation in Brazoria County. Among other things, they are searching for a large cache of metal, just like the one found outside the plantation house years ago.

Brown thinks the metal was part of the slaves' spiritual defense against life's many cruelties dealt to them on the plantation. Finding the deposit at the mill site would buffer his belief that Jordan's slaves somehow managed to retain their West African culture, once thought to be an impossible feat at most Southern plantations.

"They worked from sun up to sun down. In factories like this one, you could work 24 hours in a day," Brown said. "So in theory, the enslaved here wouldn't have had much time to practice their customs. But what we found in the slave quarters when they were excavated would suggest otherwise."

Back to Gallery University of Houston anthropology team searching for... 7 1 of 7 Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle 2 of 7 Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle 3 of 7 Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle 4 of 7 Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle 5 of 7 Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle 6 of 7 Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle 7 of 7 Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle













Indeed, the excavation of the slave quarters and the restoration of the plantation house - a Herculean effort that began in 1986 and wrapped up in 2002 - provided a cornucopia of artifacts that are changing the way historians view life on a Southern plantation.

Brown said artifacts from four plantations - the Jordan plantation and plantations in Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina - make a strong case that slaves at large plantations were able to maintain many of their spiritual practices much like the famed Gullah and Geechee people of Georgia and the Carolinas.

His work at each of those sites has captured the attention of the Smithsonian Institution, which is set to open its National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington D.C. in September. The Smithsonian is planning to display artifacts from the Magnolia Plantation in Louisiana and has expressed interest in the Levi Jordan site as well.

"Historians say what we are finding at these sites shouldn't be there," Brown said.

Treasure beneath Jordan plantation

The Brazoria County plantation, one of the most significant Antebellum sugar-producing centers of Southeast Texas, was founded by Levi Jordan, who arrived at the site with a dozen slaves in 1848.

By 1860, Brown said, Jordan's sugar and cotton plantation was worked by up to 140 slaves. Census data from 1850 indicate that at least some had been born in Africa. After emancipation, the cabins continued to be used by African-American sharecroppers. The houses were inhabited until 1887 when, amid economic and social conflict, the black farmers were forced to move.

Over time, the slave quarters and plantation house fell into ruin. In fact, when Jordan's descendants ultimately sold the land to a foundation that would later give it to the Texas Historical Commission, Brown said, "The house was pretty much being held together by termite spit."

Renovation of the house ensued as did the excavation in and around the former slave quarters, which yielded the treasure trove of artifacts. Many of them clearly demonstrated Jordan's slaves maintained their beliefs and customs, though likely practiced in secret.

Among the items found were chain bound-pots — amula — that served to ward off evil spirits; kettle bottoms similar to plates used in African healing ceremonies; items carved with six-pointed stars found in African textiles; a church, and an apparent curer's cabin. Just as important as the artifacts themselves was the location of the artifacts. Many were deposited at the north, south, east and western ends of the cabins, which in Brown's mind, was strong evidence of the crossroads, the symbolic connection of lines connecting the different directions to form an "X".

In West African spiritual practices, he said, east represented birth; north, the height of your adult powers; west, the transition to the spirit world; and south, the entrance to the world of spirits.

"For them it was the control mechanism," Brown said of the crossroads. "And they didn't have much control. The sugar mill was a very dangerous place. Put the cane a little too close to the crusher and you're lucky if it's only your arm that's ripped off."

Mystery of the cooking pot

Brown and his UH team first began digging around the sugar mill last summer, drawn in part by a historical mystery.

A contractor hired by the state to restore the plantation house found a buried cast-iron bucket - Brown thinks it was a cooking pot - filled with pieces of metal. Several West African cultures valued metal for its perceived ability to help ward off evil spirts.

Historians, however, think the pot may have been placed there by one of Jordan's descendants who lived in the house in the late 1940's. Brown, however, isn't so sure.

He said records indicate the boy was four years old at the time and has a hard time believing a child could be strong enough to bury such a heavy pot, especially through a thick deposit of mud deposited by river flooding in 1913.

"One of the things I thought was, OK if it wasn't Mikey, and it wasn't the mason, it was probably someone in the enslaved community," Brown said. "And they probably did the same thing here at the sugar mill."

If he's right, it wouldn't mark the first time Jordan's slaves had buried an object of spiritual significance.

When the Brazoria plantation's slave quarters were excavated, several coins were found. Likewise, a coin was found inside the pier of the plantation house. Based on the age of the coins, Brown thinks the slaves put it inside the house, not the mason that some historians have suspected.

Using that same logic, it seems likely those enslaved at the Jordan plantation would have deposited a metal cache at the sugar mill where they worked.

"What I'm operating under is the impression that the enslaved were trying to redefine the landscape around the house to have some kind of control over Jordan," Brown said. "It makes sense they would try to protect themselves at the mill, which was certainly a dangerous place."

Understanding survival

After a few weeks of digging, Brown and his students have yet to find a metal deposit in the remains of the old sugar mill, which is located on private property still owned by Jordan's descendants and has born the brunt of time, weather and rooting feral hogs.

Still, it's been a valuable experience for the students who are learning archaeological techniques and picking up new historical insights into plantation life.

For Ericson, it's personal. She grew up in Brazoria County, but left to join the military and later complete law school. It was only then that she got interested in local history.

"As I've been poring over census records, and birth and death certificates, it's been a strange sensation of seeing the last names of my classmates," Ericson said. "For me, this site ties a piece of history into my personal life."

For Brown, he'll continue to pursue research funding so he can continue looking for more clues that shed light on Southern plantations and the people who lived there.

"It was brutal. It was oppressive. But the enslaved at these plantations did survive," Brown said. "I think it's important to understand not only how they survived, but why they survived."