Prehistoric: How One Biracial Community In Appalachia Uncovers An Underappreciated Reality Of American History

Black Americans have an inevitable termination in their entire family ancestry prior to 1865. Census Records in the United States did not include African-Americans as individuals until the 1870 census. Prior to the 1870 census, Black Americans were chattel only listed in numbers under their master’s name. The absence of Black history prior to 1865 becomes more pronounced as our society struggles to acknowledge the contributions of African Americans throughout American history. Our society attempts to understand Black history prior to 1865 with stories of Nat Turner, George Washington Carver, and other great figures. The Great Man theory, a nineteenth century approach in which history can be mostly explained by the impact of great men or heroes, runs counter to the narrative of Black history, about which we know so little. Most professional historians stopped writing top-down history in the 1960s in favor of bottom-up histories that seek to explore the experiences and agency of marginalized groups of individuals within a society. Examining history from the bottom-up presents ordinary people’s lives and struggles as central to the historical process.