Matthew Greer’s Presentations about Archaeology of the Enslaved Quarter Site at Belle Grove

Matthew Greer, the archaeologist who has been investigating the Belle Grove enslaved quarter site since 2015, recently gave an online talk about what he has uncovered. Matt and his team have more than 53,000 artifacts from the site and many of them are ceramic fragments. These seemingly insignificant small pieces are adding up to tell us what daily life was like for the 276 men, women, and children enslaved by the Hite family at Belle Grove. View a recording of this one hour Zoom presentation here.

Matt will also be speaking at a Lunch and Learn for Montpelier on Wednesday, March 10 at noon. Register here. He will discuss his research on Belle Grove Plantation’s enslaved community. Belle Grove was owned by James Madison’s brother-in-law Isaac Hite, husband of his sister, Nelly Madison Hite, and there are numerous connections between the enslaved communities at Montpelier and Belle Grove.

Matt is a Ph.D. candidate at Syracuse University and is currently a fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at UVA, where he is writing his dissertation. He worked as an archaeology fellow at Montpelier 2011 to 2015 before embarking on the Belle Grove research.