Attempted Erasure and Recovery of the Free Black Community of Wilberforce, Ontario

ABSTRACT Archaeologists have long recognized the relationship between colonialism and the attempted erasure of Indigenous heritage by creators of the dominant ideology. Efforts to rewrite history with practices that include attempts to erase have also negatively impacted how African heritage is presented in the Americas. The Wilberforce settlement in southwestern Ontario, Canada, provides an example of attempted erasure. An archaeological perspective, when coupled with textual evidence, even in the absence of excavation, demonstrates that complete erasure by the dominant and powerful is seldom successful.