African Burial Grounds (#10)

Elise

            Today, the African Burial grounds are a National Monument that is honored and recognized for its significance to the topic of slavery in New York, specifically the city, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was created over three hundred years ago at the north graveyard of the Trinity Church, and was originally a public burial ground, as opposed to specifically African-American. However, in 1697, the church declared that any African American who attempted to bury a loved one in the graveyard would be physically punished. Thus, the African burial grounds were born when African-Americans found a gravesite on the outskirts of New York City to bury their loved ones.

            Through urban development and landfill, the African burial grounds became lost after the 17th and 18th centuries.

            Three hundred years later, in May of 1991, the site was rediscovered accidentally. There were plans to construct a federal building over the spot where the bodies were buried, and they were discovered during field testing for a cultural resource survey (a prerequisite for building a thirty-four story building). The rediscovery of this historical site emphasized the forgotten history of African slaves in New York City, who were fundamental to its development.

            This rediscovery was a breakthrough in the fields of history, anthropology and archaeology. Scientists dug up the remains of the long deceased African Americans and used them to do research on their lifestyles. From these remains, they were able to find out about the health, diet, gender, age, physical condition and cause of death of each individual corpse. This research, which took about two decades, helped piece together a more complete history of New York City during the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, and manifested a race that, during the 17th and 18th century, was often overlooked and abused.

            From their investigations, scientists discovered that life for the Africans was precarious. Several of the burials were of children younger than the age of two. Calamities such as poverty, malnutrition and back-breaking labor were also found to be common among the Africans of New York.

            The digging up of corpses form a historically significant site may seem inhumane. In fact, once word spread of the discovery, a multitude people of the African-American community, including some politicians and celebrities, voiced concerns that the burial grounds would not get the respect and appreciation that it deserved if it were to simply be re-hidden by a building after such a significant re-discovery. But the cemetery was still honored in a number of ways. It was deemed a National Monument, and a ceremony was held for the reburying of the corpses. A six-day ceremony was first held at Howard University where the corpses were placed in coffins and transported through the cities of Philadelphia, Newark, Wilmington and Baltimore. The coffins then made their way to a port Lower Manhattan on a boat. It is said that his port represented where the original slave trading ship used to dock centuries ago. Before the remains were lowered into the ground, they were blessed by a Yoruba priest. Four years later (in 2007) the memorial was completed. It had been composed with polished granite, and included several design features, such as a triangular structure that represents the middle passage across the Atlantic Ocean during the slave trade. This feature is called the “Ancestral Chamber”.

            What was once a graveyard for the downtrodden African-Americans of seventeenth and eighteenth-century New York City is now a national monument honored and appreciated by millions of New Yorkers of all races.