DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/KYNW-0635
Defense Date
2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Sarah Meacham
Abstract
The thesis traces the history of colonial Virginia in an attempt to uncover the origins of several peculiarities in Virginia death-ways. Elite Virginians buried at home more often than not (where they could protect the dead from animal desecration), while avoided death’s heads, reapers, and bone based tomb and mourning jewelry iconography even though such was popular throughout the British Atlantic. Research done for this thesis reveals a fear on the part of elite Virginias regarding questions of both corpse desecration and natural putrefaction. The cause of this cultural obsession lie in two facts: The blackening of the early colony’s reputation by warfare with Native Americans and the cannibalism associated with the Starving Times, and later the casual violence inherent in the slave system. Virginia’s elite disregarded images of decay and death and embraced symbols of stability both the legitimize Virginia as a place for Europeans to settle, and to disguise the barbarity of their economic system.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
December 2013