This article serves as an introduction to this guest-edited special issue of American Antiquity entitled “Global Archaeologies of the Long Emancipation.” We begin by discussing Rinaldo Walcott's notion of the Long Emancipation, noting how the failed promises of the legal ending of slavery led to sensations of freedom and ongoing forms of anti-Blackness. In response, Black communities have employed various strategies in pursuit of freedom. We then apply this argument to archaeological thought and practice, suggesting that archaeology is well positioned to provide evidence of Black creativity, action, and struggle in a variety of global contexts. The article closes with an overview of this special issue, which includes a brief summary of individual contributions.

The 2022 bicentennial of the arrival of Black Americans to West African shores was a moment of reflection for many Liberians. In the wake of civil war, many questioned the celebratory tone of the occasion and challenged settler heritage narratives. At the same time, Providence Island featured prominently in official programming. Since 2019, our Back-to-Africa Heritage and Archaeology project has worked on the island to investigate the site's function beyond the mythic 1822 encounter between those seeking freedom from racial injustice in the Americas and Indigenous West Africans, instead offering a more inclusive and complex account of the public heritage space. We specifically focus on deposits that date to the decades prior to, during, and after 1822, demonstrating the tensions surrounding freedom-making and Black Republicanism from past to present, concluding that the binary of pre- and post-settlement fails to capture the complexities of Liberian pasts that unfolded on the island.