Mark P. Leone

Mark P. Leone is a historical archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology. He works in eastern Maryland, particularly in Annapolis and on the Eastern Shore in Talbot County. His work ranges from the late 17th century to the mid 20th century. Beginning in 1990, he was concerned with African Americans who were freed before Emancipation and who lived throughout Annapolis and established a Black middle class there, which continued to grow after Emancipation and found ways to deal with Jim Crow and segregation. In Talbot County he spent 9 years excavating slave quarters at Wye House Plantation, where Frederick Douglass was enslaved as a young boy. There, he worked on African American food, African American religious practices, and African American medicine. The work in Annapolis and in Talbot County produced 7 dissertations on African America, 4 of which were published subsequently as books.