Five mending base, body, and rim sherds from a printed pearlware saucer. The interior is decorated with a blue transfer printed design depicting a large scale floral pattern between the rim and center motif. The central pattern depicts a boy with a dog in a basket. The base has a printed maker’s mark that reads “STEVENSON’S STONE CHINA” and a partially impressed circle that reads “…[STAF]FORDSHIRE…”, probably “A. STEVENSON/WARRANTED/STAFFORDSHIRE,” with a crown in center.
The broken pottery
One fairly thick redware body sherd from a hollowware vessel. The sherd has a colorless lead glaze on both the interior and exterior surfaces resulting in a bright red color to the body. The exterior is decorated with dark brown splotches in the glaze.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly
Crolius Pottery...
One North Midlands/Staffordshire slipware body sherd with combed slip lines on the exterior. The interior has no visible decoration and portions of the glaze are missing.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly Crolius Pottery...
One creamware body sherd from an indeterminate vessel type.
The sherd is partially spalled and has no visible decoration.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly Crolius Pottery...
One small creamware base and body sherd from a small, undecorated plate.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly Crolius
Pottery...
One very small dipped pearlware body sherd from a hollowware vessel. The sherd is decorated with a rouletted herringbone design around the body with green coloring. The body has at least one blue slip decorated line.
broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly
The
Crolius Pottery...
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly
Crolius Pottery...
One aqua-colored glass bottle neck and finish with an applied, tooled lip for a cork stopper. The bottle neck and finish are rather large. The bottle has a mold seam which is visible to the middle of the neck.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly
Crolius Pottery...
[Left] One small whiteware dish or saucer rim sherd. The interior is decorated with a blue “marble” transfer printed sheet pattern. The body is molded. The exterior has no visible decoration. Possibly from a soap dish, serving dish or basin. [Right] One rim sherd from a finely embossed shelledged plate. The rim has blue shell edge decoration with an embossed floral or botanical pattern.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly Crolius Pottery...
One base sherd from a North Midlands/Staffordshire cup with colorless glaze on the interior and no glaze on the exterior. The sherd is from the base portion of the cup, and likely the body was decorated with glaze and slip. The base has a tooled foot.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly Crolius Pottery...
One Chinese porcelain bowl base and body sherd with an overglaze painted red floral sprig in the center of the bowl. The sherd has a footring with obvious use-wear present.
The broken pottery [and glass] was probably deposited as trash from potteries near the burial ground, possibly Crolius Pottery...
One whiteware cup rim and body sherd with a trace of two handle terminals. One handle terminal appears ornate. There is no visible decoration on the sherd.
Archaeologists used historical and archaeological evidence to place burials in time. Historical-period fence lines and landownership showed which areas of the burial ground could have been used at different times. Trash from the pottery and tannery in some graves suggests the graves were dug during or after the time the trash was deposited (ca. 1728–1765).
One buff-bodied stoneware body sherd from a hollowware vessel like a jug or jar. The body has an unglazed/natural exterior with some spalling. The interior is salt-glazed or possibly has a light brown slip. The sherd appears underfired and is probably locally made.
At Bean Hill was one of the first potteries in this country. They manufactured a yellow brown salt-glazed earthenware, of which there are very few specimens in existence. This saltglaze was discovered about 1680 by a servant who lived on the farm of a Mr. Yale. There was an earthen vessel on the fire with brine in it to cure pork. While the servant was away the brine boiled over, the pot became red hot, and the sides were found to be glazed.
Clamshell fragment on the coffin lid of a 1–2-year-old child (Burial 348), near coffin’s left shoulder break. Excavators found an iron nail beneath the shell. Researchers concluded the placement of the objects was probably deliberate (photograph by Dennis Seckler).
The Iron Coffin Nail is archaeologically described as “One heavily rusted nail, possibly a coffin nail,” with no additional context to a community. Still, it references the previous Potter’s Field, three-quarters of modernday Washington Square Park; however, no African American archaeology and history experts were asked to be involved.
The unearthing of the buried artifacts found at Washington Square Park, part of the Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment, mirrors the findings at the New York African Burial Ground during the 1991-1992 excavation and reconstruction of City Hall. The artifacts in both sites create a time capsule of the African communities in colonial New York, post-Dutch settlement, and pre-emancipation. While connections to Washington Square Park’s excavation and the African Burial Ground have not been previously identified, the artifacts uncovered showcase similarities in objects. Yet, the park and archaeological description of these objects remains unaccounted for in the broad cultural context, which relates to the proximity of the Little Africa community that existed on Minetta Lane/Minetta Road today. Artifacts such as the Iron Coffin Nail and Smoking Pipe Stem provide essential links to the network of African communities in 17th-century New York, and give context to the items found at the 2008 archaeological excavation of the park.
Two sample fragments of crumbling gray mortar. The fragments are associated with a wall that was thought to be introduced during the 1970 park renovations.
Through the Howard University investigation and cultural analysis in “The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York,” the Iron Coffin Nail and Smoking Stem Pipe found on site reconnect to a broader social understanding of the seventeenth-century West and West Central Africans existing during this timeperiod in New York, and offer a wide picture of the continuous readaption of spiritual customs inspite of colonial rule.
One plasticized paper bottle wrapper that reads “PASTEURIZED/ CHOCOLATE DRINK/16 FL. OZ (1 PT)/DAIRY-LEA COOPERATIVE, INC. N.Y. N.Y 10001/WITH PLANTS AT (1) 31-5950, (2) 319205 PROCESSED AT PLANT STAMPED ON TOP”. “Dairylea” becomes “Dairylea Cooperative, Inc.” in 1969.
One white plastic sunglass lens label/sticker with black printed lettering that reads “MAXIMUM PROTECTION - ANSI. UV. STANDARD” around the label and “UV LENS” in center.
“It is not taboo to return and fetch it when you forget.”
Clay pipe stem and bowl from Burial 165 (photograph by Christopher R. DeCorse) (from The Archaeology of the New York African Burial Ground, Part 1).
One smoking pipe stem fragment. The stem has traces of possible glaze and might have been glazed on the mouthpiece.
The Smoking Stem Pipe relates to the African ritual of offering to the recently deceased and placing these loved objects into their burial spaces by putting the offering alongside their bodies. The Smoking Stem Pipe found at Washington Square Park identically mirrors the clay pipe stems discovered in the African Burial Ground near City Hall. In Howard University’s cultural analysis, the purpose of the offerings was to provide spiritual network channels between the living and the dead to communicate throughout times of need or uncertainty.
For years, weekend folksinging has been a tradition in Washington Square Park, in New York City’s Greenwich village. But in the spring of 1961 the City rescinded its customary permit for singing in the park. This triggered a protest demonstration on Sunday, April 9th of that year, which was put down with excessive force by the NYPD but eventually resulted in the City backing down and reinstating the permit. SUNDAY is a 17-minute, impressionistic documentary about the events of that day.
Six cigarette filters without paper wrappers.
Six cigarette filters without paper wrappers.
Commons of Memory
Washington Square is a commons— a twentieth-century agora.
The site's open architecture lures passersby to the collective assembly of displayed members of our society
For a brief moment, we glance at the individual opposite us and gaze into the eyes of a supposed stranger; together, in that moment, we share a memory.
Without thought, the consciousness of this shared moment embeds, compresses, and stores itself in the neurological network of remembrance.
Here, the essence of the commons exists not only in the physical or digital realm— but also in the spiritual.
This module network operates on the unseen, nonphysical experience of glancing at the person seated before you, tapping into the archive of the mind.
The non-fiber-optic transmittable information resides within bodies, within minds, within communities.
This ‘archive’ does not function within the framework of the landlord, where memory is structurally distributed and labeled as property in storage boxes, but rather— in the temporal entanglement of the senses.
As each individual steps onto the soil, the history of the predecessors— laid or slaughtered— awakens, knowing the history of kinship continues, regardless
As each root, stem, and water crystal stretches and weaves into the ecosystem— that is the commons of memory
Design Strategies
Design Interventions Through Collage
Key Plan
01. Investigate (Discover)
Through investigations, the soil reveals hidden artifacts and buried history.
02. Teach (Disseminate)
Replace the bordering private libraries with a public access media display.
03. Connect (Draw a Parallel)
This module network operates on the unseen, nonphysical experience of glancing at the person seated in front of you, into the memory archive of the mind. This nonfiber-optic transmittable information lives within bodies, minds, and communities.
Disseminate
DrawaParallel
For my proposal, I sought to create a temporary structure that reflects the exterior urban environment of NYC and the site of Washington Square Park while also embodying the earthen interior of the excavation site.
2
3/4”
2
A - SECTION ELEVATION
SCALE: 1’-0” = 1/2”
SOUTH ELEVATION
SCALE: 1’-0” = 1/2”
I took a literal approach to the materials in a construction site and had the exterior walls be hunter-green painted plywood with 12x12-inch openings mirroring the construction fencing seen throughout the city.
RAMMED EARTH BRICKS (CEBS)
NORTH ELEVATION
SCALE: 1’-0” = 1/2”
FLOOR PLAN
SCALE: 1’-0” = 1/2”
NORTH LONGITUDINAL SECTION
SCALE: 1’-0” = 1/2”
*Meanwhile, in the interior, the walls of basket-weaved earth blocks create nonuniform platforms and openings for the artifacts/offerings.
3/4” PLYWOOD SHEATHING
2X4 LUMBAR FRAMING
The rammed earth floor concaves in the center, mixing with the brick and mortar and theoretically exposing the roots of the archive. The center pays homage to the West and West-Central African communities buried in the park and their ceremonial burial traditions of placing their loved ones’ objects on top of their grave.
As mentioned in the common proverb, not taboo to return and fetch it when you forget.”
Each opening offers a different perspective for the viewer, including 45-degree angles, a kneeling observatory, and direct view access to the centered pit. Most importantly, each view forces the viewer to take in the earth, the objects, and the person in the adjacent viewing portal. This experience envelopes the ideas that the artifacts from Washington Square Park can exist as part of a collective and community, and their offerings live outside the liminal space of the research archive.
(V1) VIEW ONE: SALT-GLAZED STONEWARE BODY SHARD
(V2) VIEW TWO: PAPER BOTTLE WRAPPER
(V3) VIEW THREE: CLAMSHELL FRAGMENT
(V4) VIEW
(Re) Claiming Archives:
The Role of the Archive in “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”
Submitted by Kiara Villa on May 5, 2025 Capstone Paper for:
Studio Lab: Research and Writing
Ben Goldner, Instructor, Parsons The New School for Design School of Constructed Environments
Table of Contents
List of Figures Page 2
Abstract Page 3-4
Introduction Page 5-6
Chapter 1: Archiving as a Colonial Technology.
Chapter 2: Washington Square Park/Little Africa/Manhatta.
Chapter 3: Unearthing
Page 7-8
Page 9-12
Page 13-14
Chapter 4: (Re) Claiming Archives Page 15-17
Conclusion Page 18-19
Bibliography Page 20-22
List of Figures
Fig. 1: Initial Site Analysis of WSP with images of historical sights, by Kiara Villa, 2025.
Fig. 2: Washington Square Park Artifacts Folder, by Kiara Villa, 2025.
Fig. 3: What’s hidden in the park?, by Kiara Villa, 2025.
Abstract
(Re) Claiming Archives interrogates the role of research archive institutions in shaping the historical narratives of marginalized communities through its systemic use of neoliberal ideologies that emphasize the commodification and privatization of knowledge systems. Framed within the experiences of navigating Western academic spaces as self-identifying Indigenous persons and utilizing formal research archival institutions to search for allocated emblems of native memory, only to find that they have historically failed to preserve the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples and their narratives. As these systems often prioritize market-driven policies, archives become sites that treat knowledge as property, thereby sanitizing historical records and erasing or rewriting subaltern histories. In turn, (Re) Claiming Archives responds to historical examples of historical revisionism and modern models of ‘truth’ ownership, such as the Trump Administration’s Executive Order #142531 entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History2”. Subsequently, by examining Washington Square Park, a public space that intersects with privatized universities and their libraries, and holds embedded reminders of a deep colonial history, the site maintains an inverse interiority of sites of congregation and expression despite governmental interference. The deconstruction of archives as a colonial technology and archival futurism beyond colonial structure referenced in this paper refers to works such as Bad Archives by Paul Soulellis, Autonomous Archiving by Artikisler Collective, Decolonizing Archives by L'Internationale, and Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Smith, which explores how traditional archival practices perpetuate the erasure of Black,
1 “CBCF Executive Order Tracker: Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” CBCF Executive Order Tracker, accessed April 22, 2025.
2 Donald J. Trump, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” The White House, March 28, 2025.
Indigenous, and other marginalized records and promote modes of historical recounting that formulates a needs-based emotional quality to “truth”-telling. In reflecting on institutional practices and spatial politics, the exploration of Washington Square Park embodies the tension between institutional archives driven by neoliberal structures of exclusion, while alternatively being a site of communal memory practices that resist dominant sanitized narratives. Using methodologies drawn from archival research, critical theory, and urban studies, this paper highlights the tension between authoritarianism-driven archival frameworks and the perseverance of grassroots memory practices that provide counter-archives and thereby dismantle the colonial remnants in libraries and special collections. Such examples include artists Wendy Red Starr and Clarissa Tossin, as well as digital archivists metaLAB (at) Harvard, Cassandra Hdrail, and Queer Archive Work. The findings from these alt-institutions underscore that while exclusionary policies exist to enable the commodification of knowledge and the erasure of history, these counter-spaces operate to offer public spaces of community memory. The proposal for Washington Square Park activates the site for its intended purpose as an essential site for resistance, facilitating the reassertion of marginalized voices and the preservation of diverse historical legacies. Through challenging prevailing archival narratives and advocating for a decolonial approach to preserving and interpreting urban history within complex contemporary contexts, the proposal is to deploy an archive (teaching machine) structure into the public park to reposition the archeological remains3 found during the Washington Square Park renovations in 20094 into an open source physical archive- intended as a knowledge commons for active creation, collaboration, community-funded distribution, and a decentralized institutional system.
3 Joah H. Geismar, “Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment,” (New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Thomas Balsley, Inc, 2005).
4 Geismar, “Washington Square Park, Phase 1 Field Testing: Collections”.
Introduction
5 Shaina Anand. “10 Thesis on the Archive”, in Autonomous Archiving, ed. Artikişler Collective (Barcelona, ES: dpr-barcelona, 2016), pg. 82.
6 Paul Soulellis. “Bad Archives”, in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 62, no. 4 (Summer 2023), pg. 181-187.
In 10 Thesis on the Archive, Shaina Anand states, “think of archiving primarily as the outward movement of distributing things: to create ad-hoc networks with mobile cores and dense peripheries, to trade our master copies for a myriad of offsite backups, and to practically abandon the technically obsolete dichotomy of providers and consumers.”5 The notion of archives as an outward distribution device challenges the ideals of the institutional and governmental archive in the mentioned efforts of repositioning archives as active spaces for creating and interpreting information. Decolonizing archival practices proposes a reimagined ‘bad’6 archive that holds the power to expand, contract, and breathe to serve as a deployable knowledge commons that promotes participation, inclusion, and the active creation of thinking in the face of colonial and neoliberal challenges. Through the lens of ‘bad’7 archives, spaces for resistance and reclamation become available, where marginalized communities can actively engage in the outward collecting of stories, debates, and projection of ideas. The study proposes a multidimensional communal archive to empower diverse communities to share, annotate, experience, study, unite, and promote curiosity through collective experiences. This innovative approach does not simply assert a singular ‘truth’ within the archive. Instead, it incorporates existing research archives, such as NYU’s library, alongside alternative sources, fostering a network of open-source archives. This methodology encourages a collaborative environment where varied narratives can flourish. Alternative systems, such as the Digital Atlas of Native American Intellectual Traditions and Teaching with Things - Fragments Timeline, are employed as case studies to characterize this framework. These systems serve as a reference point for inclusivity and 7Soulellis, “Bad Archives”, 181-187.
representation in archival systems, while also suggesting effective frameworks for developing comprehensive timelines that capture descriptive changes and connections to related sources. By actively challenging the dominant narratives often found in institutional archival spaces, this research advocates repositioning the archive as a dynamic space that preserves history and facilitates the creation and interpretation of urban narratives more inclusively This initiative combines a range of current archival documents, photographs, artifacts, and media with multimodal digital storytelling and deployable fugitive libraries. This archival approach serves as a proactive alternative to colonial methodologies that tend to impose rigid standards or rules of ‘truthfulness.’ Instead of conforming to frameworks of exclusion that have historically marginalized various voices, it emphasizes the opportunity to transparently present existing and personal accounts of history, significant events, achievements, and shortcomings. Such transparency allows a deeper understanding of past, present, and future societal contexts. Critical theorists, including Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, rigorously examine the complexities inherent in the colonial archival institution. They reaffirm the necessity of integrating indigenous and underrepresented individuals into these narratives to accurately depict a holistic view of historical trajectories: where these communities have been, where they currently stand, and where they aspire to go. Furthermore, the research proposes many ways to enhance the functionality and accessibility of such an archival system, paving the way for a more equitable representation of all communities in the documentation of history.
Archiving as a Colonial Technology
In the essay “Liminal Histories: Archiving as a Colonial Technology and Its Impact on Indigenous Art and Memory”8, I embarked on the anthropological journey of analyzing the colonial architecture of the archival institutions, including entities such as the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and their special collections of indigenous artifacts. Works such as “Basket Jar”9 from The MET, as well as pictorialism portraiture like the “Déaxitchish /
Pretty Eagle”10 by Wendy Star, an interpretation of a portrait from the Smithsonian National Anthropological Archives, act as portals into the inconsistencies within the research-government-archive, or more specifically, the deliberate revisionism of historical experiences. Through Wendy Red Star's annotated analysis of a pictorialist portrait of First Nation Crow members, Star red-lining the inaccurate regalia and ceremonial wear that was not part of the Crow community. Through the anthropologist's lens, the effort of re-indigenizing a native community to be portrayed as more exotic exemplifies the authoritarianism occurring towards marginalized communities that results in a false image projected in an inaccurate form of categorization. Notably, Edward S. Curtis established himself as a famous photographer and anthropologist by conducting research for his project entitled The North American Indian Upon capturing the imagery of “the vanishing race” or Indigenous peoples' final days of land without complete modernization, the work similarly showcases the communities intact despite the colonizer's rule while exoticizing the native communities by staging and propping to fit a stereotyped image. In many ways, archive methodologies have established tactics of devaluation on Indigenous and colonized peoples present in the categorization efforts imposed by Western
8 Kiara Villa, “Liminal Histories: Archiving as a Colonial Technology and Its Impact on Indigenous Art and Memory”, December 15, 2024
9 Native American, Chemehuevi, “Basket Jar,” 1885.
10 Wendy Red Star, “1880 Crow Peace Delegation”, 2014.
collectors that turn traditions into pure collections, structurally housed in spaces for research-based study. Withheld in a framework without sociocultural context, the archive no longer conveys a factual cultural memory based on a relational frame of reference but rather the absence of reference, objects circulating in a void.
Under the Trump Administration (2025) Executive Order #14253, entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, the order entails that “Congress [is] to defund [the] Smithsonian Museum budgets, exhibits, and programs that ‘divide Americans based on race' or acknowledge transgender identity.”11 Particularly, the order positions post-2020 efforts of diversifying art institutions like the Smithsonian as a “rewrite [of] our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”12 As previously mentioned, archives as a colonial entity function to archive marginalized peoples in a fabricated “truth”, acting as a beneficiary to the Americas' colonial agenda and legacy. In the modern context, the revisionism of the archive, or its capacity for revisionism, reflects the inauthenticity of the institutions' tradition. The institution's ability to be rewritten, based on the moments/administration/societal proposition of temporary truth, reflects the foundational, volatile condition of the research archive and its importance in amplifying the counter-archival movements' propositioning community-written-documented memory
11 “CBCF Executive Order Tracker: Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” CBCF Executive Order Tracker, accessed April 22, 2025.
12 Donald J. Trump, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” The White House, March 28, 2025.
Fig. 1: Site Analysis of WSP with detailed ecology, by Kiara Villa, 2025.
Washington Square Park/Little Africa/Manhatta
In reviewing the implications of Research Archive Institutions as they pertain to the historical rewrite/disposal of marginalized communities, Washington Square Park functions as a site of study for collective communal memory as it sits between the borders of privatized universities [Fig. 1] and retains histories of federal funding, yet it simultaneously contrasts against the accounts of public sites of protest, congregation, and spaces for artistic collections.
The site of Washington Square Park features a 9.75-acre plot of culturally rich land, a significant landmark that embodies the crux of modern New York City life. Its placement operates as the beating heart of Greenwich Village, a neighborhood adjacent to the nearby Universities and a historically rich context of social justice movements and artistic expressionism. Prior to settler colonialism, the same acres acted as a gathering space for the Lenape, the Indigenous peoples of Manhatta- or what is known today as Manhattan.13 The people of Sapohanikan, Manhatta, and bordering Lenape communities would embrace this region for its proximity to the Minetta River14, a water source acting as an emblem of life and an active unifying force that establishes the Crossroads of Three Nations, also known as the “Kintecoying.”15 The lush marsh and fishing ground set roots in the generational continuum of instituting Washington Square as the space for open gatherings; however, the square that exists today has been excavated, cemented, and buries the sinister history of America’s past. In the four hundred years after the Dutch16 entered Manhatta and unjustly positioned themselves as owners of this shared plot, a single anchor acts as a bystander to the wrongful duties, rallies, and kinship seen within the park- the hangman's
13 Geismar, “Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment.”
14 Sarah Eccles, “Washington Square Park, Once the Land of the Lenape - Village Preservation,” Village Preservation - Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, November 1, 2021.
15 Sarah Eccles, “Washington Square Park, Once the Land of the Lenape - Village Preservation,” 2021.
16 Manhatta to Manhattan: Native Americans in Lower Manhattan, 2010
elm17. As a cornerstone of the park, the 350-year-old English Elm sits at the northwest corner as a witness and tells the tale of Washington Square.
Accounts of the history and folklore relating to the English Elm reveal impressions about the previous burial ground beneath the cemented park, establishing a basis for the contradiction between the supposed archival record and the account that presents itself through oral or personal inquiries by/for communities. In particular, this presents itself through the public recording of
The Execution of Rose Butler by Dorothy Ripley, which states the execution of an illegally enslaved person occurred as a prosecution “for setting fire to her mistress’ dwelling house.”18
The description of the events by Dorothy Ripley prior to and subsequent death of Rose Butler represents the ever-changing landscape of the neighborhood where the park stands and the corresponding nature of the societal values and ideologies shifting about race, class, and status from the 19th century onward. Sequentially, this recording marks a documented chronology of the discrepancies in the societal apprehensions relating to enslaved people, suggesting that the “Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery that declared children born after July 4th, 1799, to enslaved mothers would be free”19 would lastly not stand, considering the status of freedom that Rose Butler held during the time of her execution. The nature of the publicity involved in the execution of Butler likely relates to what was addressed by Minister John Sandford, which states, “The wings of the Constitution of America are extended to defend and to foster the property, the liberties, and the lives of all its citizens, without exception. In this inestimable privilege, our fellow citizens of color enjoy a mutual share with us; and this unquestionably should dictate to
17 Dresslar, Serena. “Nature Walk Through History: Ten Famous Trees of NYC.” New York Public Library. May 11, 2020.
18 Dorothy Ripley and Benevolus. An account of Rose Butler : aged nineteen years, whose execution I attended in the potter's field ... for setting fire to her mistress' dwelling house, J.C. Totten, 1819, pg. 1.
19 “The Life and Death of Rose Butler.” Washington Square Park Conservancy.
them a correspondent spirit of gratitude…”20 Implying the emancipation of black and Indigenous enslaved people bordered on gratitude and privilege at the time of Butler ’s death in 1819 embeds a conflicting reality in which nine years later in 1827 would mark the end of slavery in New York. In contiguous, the same year characterizes the opening of Washington Square Park as a public park, further latticing the roots of marginalization under the soil, clay, and manufactured
rubble that remains today, with the English Elm as its last-born witness to the historic underbelly.
20 Dorothy Ripley and Benevolus. An account of Rose Butler : aged nineteen years, whose execution I attended in the potter's field ... for setting fire to her mistress' dwelling house, 1819, pg. 18.
Fig. 2: Washington Square Park Artifacts Folder, by Kiara Villa, 2025.
Unearthing
The unearthing of the buried artifacts found at Washington Square Park, part of the Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment21, mirrors the findings at the New York African Burial Ground during the 1991-1992 excavation and reconstruction of City Hall22. The artifacts in both sites create a time capsule of the African communities in colonial New York, post-Dutch settlement, and pre-emancipation. While connections to Washington Square Park’s excavation and the African Burial Ground have not been previously identified, the artifacts uncovered showcase similarities in objects. Yet, the park and archaeological description of these objects remains unaccounted for in the broad cultural context, which relates to the proximity of the Little Africa community that existed on Minetta Lane/Minetta Road today
Artifacts such as the Iron Coffin Nail23 and Smoking Pipe Stem24 provide essential links to the network of African communities in 17th-century New York, and give context to the items found at the 2008 archaeological excavation of the park.
Through the Howard University investigation and cultural analysis in “The New York
African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York,” the Iron Coffin Nail and Smoking Stem Pipe found on site reconnect to a broader social understanding of the seventeenth-century West and West Central Africans existing during this timeperiod in New York, and offer a wide picture of the continuous readaption of spiritual customs inspite of colonial rule. The Iron Coffin Nail is archaeologically described as “One heavily rusted nail,
21 Geismar, “Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment.”
22 The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York (Washington, D.C: Howard University Press, in association with the General Services Administration, 2009).
23 “Iron Coffin Nail.” NYC Archaeological Repository and NYC Landmark Preservation Commission, 2009.
24 “Smoking Stem Pipe.” NYC Archaeological Repository and NYC Landmark Preservation Commission, 2009.
possibly a coffin nail,” with no additional context to a community. Still, it references the previous Potter ’s Field, three-quarters of modern-day Washington Square Park; however, no African American archaeology and history experts were asked to be involved. In the African Burial review, the iron coffin nail links to a clamshell fragment (Burial 348)25 and directs to the spiritual offering done by the Twi-speaking Akan-Asante people of West Africa referenced in the common proverb, “Se wo were fi na wo sankofa a yenkyi,” or “It is not taboo to return and fetch it when you forget.” In this case, the clamshell was nailed by an iron nail to the lid of a coffin of a 1-2-year-old child in burial 348 and provides a glimpse into the shared moment of remembrance. The use of iron nails in the New York African Burial Ground for coffins makes up ninety percent of the coffins found on site26 due to its cost-effectiveness and disregard for proper or culturally relevant burial practices. Likewise, the Smoking Stem Pipe relates to the African ritual of offering to the recently deceased and placing these loved objects into their burial spaces by putting the offering alongside their bodies. The Smoking Stem Pipe found at Washington Square Park identically mirrors the clay pipe stems discovered in the African Burial Ground near City Hall. In Howard University’s cultural analysis, the purpose of the offerings was to provide spiritual network channels between the living and the dead to communicate throughout times of need or uncertainty Due to the removal of the objects from modern-day Washington Square Park, resulting from the lack of cultural historians, the burial grounds on site now remain spiritually disturbed, and the cultural offerings remain looted in the NYC Archaeological Repository. Without thought, the consciousness of these mementos, which has lived embedded, compressed, and stored in the neurological network of the park’s soil, stored as remembrance, lives unattached from its spiritual and burial commons.
26 The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York, pg 86
25 The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York, pg 11 14
(Re) Claiming Archives
Through my Interior Design Capstone project, entitled (Re) Claiming Archives, I am proposing a temporary structure that will house the artifacts found at the Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment as well as additional findings from the New York African Burial Ground and curated works by multi-disciplinary artists whose work reflect decolonial strategies and responses to the neoliberal culture of white collectors, colonial art markets, and the arts industrial complex. The intention of creating this alternative archive, as a public-access teaching device for Washington Square Park, activates the site for its intended purpose as an essential site for resistance, facilitating the reassertion of marginalized voices and the preservation of diverse historical legacies. In challenging prevailing archival narratives and advocating for a decolonial approach to preserving and interpreting urban history within complex contemporary contexts, the deployment and dissimination of a temporary archive (teaching machine) structure into the public park repositions the archeological remains found during the Washington Square Park renovations in 2009 and the African Burial Ground in 1991-1992 into an open source physical archive- intended as a knowledge commons for active creation, collaboration, community-funded distribution, and a decentralized institutional system. The structure’s exterior facade mirrors the construction fencing seen throughout the city’s urban landscape, indicative of a construction, excavation, or demolition site. In this context, the excavation occurring through the device brings the unearthed artifacts back into their found state. The facade then transforms into a three-dimensional model, and the interiority of the structure brings the shoveled soil onto its walls. It completely encompasses the objects, offerings, and art, returning the works to their original context and providing a snapshot of the park's “truth”.
Fig. 1 illustrates that the Blue Clay Stratum, twenty feet under the park's cemented grounds, remains the last indicator of the native ecology of Manhatta/Greenwich Village. It reminds us that the Minetta River created a lush marsh for the Indigenous people of Lenapehoking to cultivate community and inevitably provided ample land for the colonization and development of Manhattan, New York. In unearthing the artifacts for development and renovation, the previous clay deposits, soil, and entangled roots of the module network, our communal memory, find their way to the outer world. Doing so, the delicately woven landscape of our Earth’s surface forms holes, thus opening pockets of connection to links in time, space, and the operating signals of the unseen, nonphysical experiences that are the memory archive of the mind. This non-fiber-optic transmittable information lives within bodies of land, water, and communities. In creating a non-linear archive, inspired by the works of contemporary archival technologies, such as metaLAB’s Teaching with Things Project27, which conceptualize a form of archiving that combines new-wave forms of material digitization, such as 3D scanning, multi-media, and audiovisual information, with clarifying annotation timelines that visually depict the sources and evolutionary relationships of documented objects with various archives, libraries, and museums' open-source catalogs. The temporary device achieves this by connecting both Washington Square Park excavation findings and the City Hall excavation, creating a direct link between the communities and spiritual offerings otherwise left unrelated in the NYC Archaeological Repository. By way of re-creating the works by 3D scanning the artifacts, and printing the works onto fabrics to create light boxes, to both comment on the reluctance of the repository to return the items to their spiritual home, and allowing the returned objects from the African Burial Ground to exist in their returned homeland. Yet, the semi-physical input of the
artifacts allows the viewers to understand the common ground as a commons not only for the private-school attendees and tourist visitors, but also for the indigenous people and Africans who once touched the soil that lies twenty feet below the artificial soils above.
Conclusion
To (re) claim an archive, under the contexts of this research, means to remove the white supremacist ideologies of ownership. In response to the collections of the NYC Archeological Repository and other private entities such as the NYU Libraries, The MET, and The Smithsonian archive. The endeavor to reconstruct the archive as a means of research is indicative of the continuous efforts to reinstitute the findings of previous anthropologists and excavators with additional contexts to provide a more comprehensive narrative of the historical framework of the past that includes multiple perspectives. In earlier and current histories, the right to ownership and dictation of the truth falls into unruly circumstances where the legacies of the marginalized fall into extinction, by way of rewriting and erasing to generate non-consensual narratives. Counter-cultural archives make way for the decentralized system of outwardly distributed content that allows communities to relish kinship through shared knowledge. The ability to curate personal memories as part of a collective whole, or to recall events, pieces together a more truthful validity than relying on an individual or governmental entity to pictorialize. The history of pictorialism, censorship, and historical retelling has led to a personal deep dive into the skeletal closets of the archive's imperialist past and countermovements, resulting in subversive archiving methodologies. The limited research and understanding pertaining to artifacts found at Washington Square Park presented a chance to understand the historical context of the site and its problematic systems of erasure, burials, and upholding of American falsities, which unravel in a sinister set of untold stories. In understanding the context, I could then relish in the countercultural movements that stand not to uphold the systems born out of colonization but rather establish communities that exemplify the validity that the Indigenous people and Africans, too, deserve to be historically monumentalized for the existence of. And elaborate on the
Fig. 3: What’s hidden in the park?, by Kiara Villa, 2025.
significance of ensuring the validity of cultural memory. Thus, community-based research and inclusivity of the archives establish a new realm of detailed accounting for the livelihoods of marginalized peoples and those with marginalized identities, seen in the initiatives presented and conveyed by independent and institutional organizations. Alongside the proposal for a public-access archive, the artifacts from Washington Square Park can exist as part of a collective and community that, in turn, means that their existence no longer becomes a commodity for the anthropologist, and their offerings live outside the liminal space of the research archive.
Bibliography
Anand, Shaina. “10 Thesis on the Archive”, in Autonomous Archiving, edited by Artikişler Collective (Özge Çelikaslan, Alper Şen, Pelin Tan). Barcelona, ES: dpr-barcelona, 2016. Accessed April 8, 2025.
https://monoskop.org/images/c/cd/Artikisler_Collective_ed_Autonomous_Archivi ng_2016.pdf
“Digital Atlas of Native American Intellectual Traditions.” Cassandra Hradil Projects. Accessed December 11, 2024. https://cassandrahradil.com/projects/danait/
Dresslar, Serena. “Nature Walk Through History: Ten Famous Trees of NYC.” New York Public Library May 11, 2020.
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/05/11/nature-walk-through-history-ten-famous-tr ees-nyc
Eccles, Sarah. “Washington Square Park, Once the Land of the Lenape - Village Preservation.”
Village Preservation - Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, November 1, 2021.
https://www.villagepreservation.org/2021/11/01/washington-square-park-once-the -land-of-the-lenape/
Geismar, Joah H. “Washington Square Park: Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment.” New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Thomas Balsley, Inc., 2005.
“Iron Coffin Nail.” NYC Archaeological Repository and NYC Landmark Preservation Commission, 2009.
https://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/collection/search/washington-square-21249 9-iron-coffin-nail/site/washington-square/page/3/view_as/grid.
Manhatta to Manhattan: Native Americans in Lower Manhattan. Edited by Alexandra Harris. National Museum of the American Indian, 2010.
https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2023-10/manahatta_to_manhattan.pdf
metaLAB. “Teaching with Things - Fragments Timeline.” Posted in 2013. Vimeo video, 01:54.
https://vimeo.com/60721270
Ripley, Dorothy, and Benevolus. An account of Rose Butler: aged nineteen years, whose
execution I attended in the potter's field ... for setting fire to her mistress' dwelling house. New York: J.C. Totten, 1819. Accessed February 17, 2025.
Schnapp, Jefferey T. “Buried (and) Alive.” In Decolonizing Archives, edited by L'Internationale Online and Rado Ištok. L’Internationale Online, 2016.
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. “Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples.”
University of Otago Press, 1999.
Soulellis, Paul. “Bad Archives”, in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 62, no. 4 (Summer 2023): 181–187. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jcms/images/14_62.4soulellis.pdf
“Smoking Pipe Stem.” NYC Archaeological Repository and NYC Landmark Preservation Commission, 2009.
https://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/collection/search/washington-square-21249 7-smoking-pipe-stem/site/washington-square/page/3/view_as/grid
“The Life and Death of Rose Butler.” Washington Square Park Conservancy. Accessed February 17, 2025.
https://washingtonsqpark.org/news/2025/02/01/the-life-and-death-of-rose-butler
The New York African Burial Ground: Unearthing the African Presence in Colonial New York. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press: in association with the General Services Administration, 2009.
