The Rosewood Massacre : An Archaeology and History of Intersectional Violence

The Rosewood Massacre investigates the 1923 massacre that devastated the predominantly African American community of Rosewood, Florida. The town was burned to the ground by neighboring whites, and its citizens fled for their lives. None of the perpetrators were convicted. Very little documentation of the event and the ensuing court hearings survives today.

Edward Gonzalez-Tennant uses archaeology to uncover important elements of the forgotten history of Rosewood. He draws on cutting-edge GIS mapping, geospatial technology, census data, artifacts from excavations at the site, and archaeological theory to explore the local circumstances and broader sociopolitical power structures that led to the massacre. He shows how the event was a microcosm of the oppression and terror suffered by people of African heritage in the United States, and he connects these historic forms of racial violence to present-day social and racial inequality.