FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — National Park Service archaeologists are hoping to learn more this summer about a slave village unearthed within Monocacy National Battlefield.

Joy Beasley, the cultural resources manager for the National Park Service at the Frederick County Civil War site, says the focus of this summer’s dig will be to broaden understanding of structures found in the village. Beasley says researchers hope to complete excavation of one or two dwellings, providing a better picture of the lives of the residents.

Beasley led the team that undertook the initial excavation in 2003. A French family that fled a slave revolt in what is now Haiti had about 90 slaves on 748 acres by 1800, making the family the county’s second largest slaveholder at the time.

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