Abstract
Buffalo soldiers and Black cowboys are popular symbols of African American heritage in the West. The archaeological remains of the African American owned Boston Saloon provide yet another example of this legacy in the context of mining boomtowns. The Boston Saloon operated during the 1860s and 1870s in Virginia City, Nevada to serve that community's African Americans. Hollywood portrayals and western historical literature tend to present saloons and mining boomtowns as sordid places populated primarily by European Americans, with Chinese and Native Americans on the margins. Yet African Americans rarely enter this popular imagery. When synthesized with insights from documentary records, the Boston Saloon's archaeological remnants enhance an understanding of the cosmopolitan dimensions of the so-called, "wild West."
Recommended Citation
Dixon, Kelly J.
(2006)
"Archaeology of the Boston Saloon,"
African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter: Vol. 9:
Iss.
2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol9/iss2/3
