Annapolis is a planned city. It didn’t grow; it was planted. It contains groups who came together to run Maryland, or to work for Marylanders. Unlike natural cities, Annapolis was first and foremost home to a bureaucracy that ran the colony and later the state. It also was home to governors, administrators, slaves, free African Americans, white folks, black folks, immigrants, and people who spoke many languages, including dialects of English. Annapolis was never one community. It was a group of communities and probably still is. The archaeology from Annapolis shows these separate communities and displays many levels of wealth and several different cultures. These artifacts are evidence of the ways Annapolitans created communities out of strangers and still maintained independence when they had little or none. Seeking Liberty shows five archaeological sites, each with African Americans and European colonists living close to each other, but never as one community. It also shows how people tried to make many separate groups into one community… an imagined community. The imagined community can first be seen in the Annapolis city plan, which was designed in 1695 and was built in the decades afterwards. The plan has many purposes. One is that it highlights the statehouse and the state church, the centers of Annapolis’ power. The spokes of the wheels, which form the streets to the statehouse and church unified people by causing them to look at the sources of power. This focus is one way to create authority when not everybody is equally loyal. After Emancipation and through the 1950s, African Americans lived all over the city, but in small enclaves. They also owned property all over the city. Even though they had few rights they lived everywhere. By 1950, segregation had pushed almost all to Clay, Calvert, and Cathedral Streets. At the very least, there were two completely separate groups, people of European descent and people of African descent, one of which could not even imagine that the other was a worthwhile part of the City. Even so, African Americans maintained independence and integrity. We show that here, in “Seeking Liberty.”     To enlarge map click here. This is a reprint of the 1718 plat map of the city and port of Annapolis, drafted by James Stoddert. A plat is a map drawn to scale that shows the division of land into lots. All five of the sites in the exhibit can be located on this map. Image used with permission: Collection of the Maryland State Archives SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Maryland State Archives Map Collection) Stoddert, James, A ground platt of the citty and port of Anapolis, 1718 MSA SC 1427-1-3