This report summarizes the results of an archaeological survey on Sapelo Island, Georgia by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Archaeological Field School. Under the direction of the author, a modified systematic survey was undertaken in an area believed to contain archaeological remains associated with antebellum slave cabins. The suspected cabins, about 275 to 300 m north and northeast of the Reynolds Mansion/Spalding Big House were first noted by Dr. Ray Crook, and he provided the UTC researchers with a superimposed section of the 1857 DuVal map over a modern landscape (Figure 1). No Georgia Site File designation has been assigned to this site; it will be referred to in this report as the “Spalding Site.” Thomas Spalding, a major planter on the Georgia Coast during the antebellum period, built a substantial manor at the site of the present Reynolds Mansion. The line of cabins illustrated in the DuVal map are believed to be the nearest to Spalding’s mansion of any slave cabins associated with his plantation. An attempt was made to adjust the survey grid to the same orientation as the northeast line of cabins in order to maximize the probability of encountering structural remains or historic middens associated with them.
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