Freedman's Cemetery was the primary burial ground for virtually all of the African American community of Dallas, Texas, between 1869 and 1907. From 1991 through 1994, the Texas Department of Transportation sponsored archaeological investigations exhuming 1,150 in situ burials (containing a total of 1,157 individuals) from the path of highway construction. Fifteen burials were found with pierced coins, interpreted here as charms. The origins of coins modified as charms are first traced to the British Isles and the Middle Ages, and then an explanatory model for their adoption by enslaved (and later freed) African Americans is presented. Turning to the Freedman's Cemetery burial data, a detailed appraisal of the demographics of charm utilization within a late-19th-century urban African American community is given. Comparisons of the cemetery charm sample are made to the demographic profile of charm use compiled from the Works Progress Administration ex-slave narratives. The manner of coin alteration (and thus charm creation) is also documented. important differences between the historical documentary data and the archaeological evidence reveal the strengths and weaknesses inherent within each kind of data.
