When we talk about enslaved people in the United States, we naturally focus on piecing together the day-to-day life of enslaved individuals. With all people, however, cultural practices around death and burial offer not just a testament to the dead but a window into the complex beliefs and relationships of the living as well. These can be rare glimpses; oppressed people’s culture and stories are often overlooked or actively suppressed by those in power. In burials, we witness dignity and resistance, love and sorrow, family and tradition.
Starting in 1697, people of African descent in New York were legally denied church burials on consecrated ground. Enslaved and free African burial grounds were relegated to the periphery, often on unwanted or marginal property on the outskirts of towns and cities. The Pine Street African Burial Ground in Kingston was in a small section of the Kingston “Arm Bowery” (a name derived from a Dutch term meaning "poor farm"). Over time, the population of Kingston grew, and the land was developed despite the presence of the burials, a fact that was either forgotten or ignored by later residents. Though some locals knew of the cemetery, the burial ground was not officially reidentified until an archaeological survey in 1990. Through the efforts of multiple area non-profits, the cemetery is now protected, and plans have been made to turn the space into a community memorial.
Unfortunately, in some cases, the burial grounds were destroyed in the intervening years. In 1903, construction in northern Manhattan uncovered buried skeletons marked by crude stones in a location locals believed to be the site on an enslaved cemetery. With no preservation laws in place, the grading and improvement of Tenth Avenue continued with no regard for the burials it disrupted. Local historians were permitted to quickly examine the graves and, though the local authorities ordered that the bones be reburied, relic hunters carried off the remains before that ever occurred.
Mourning itself was an act of resistance for the enslaved in New York. In 1722, the New York City Common Council passed a law restricting the burial of “all Negroes and Indian Slaves that shall dye within this corporation on the south side of the Fresh Water” to daylight hours. Eleven years later, an amendment to that law demonstrates the paranoia that lay at the heart of these restrictive laws:
“For the preventing of great numbers of slaves assembling and meeting together at their Funerals, under pretext whereof they have great opportunities of plotting and confederating together to do mischief, as well as neglecting their Masters Services it was ordered that, if more than twelve slaves assembled at a slave funeral, those present were to be whipped at the discretion of the Mayor, Recorder or one of the Alderman except the 12 slaves admitted by the owner of the dead slave, the gravedigger and the corpse bearers.”
These communities of enslaved and free Africans in New York were made up of people from Central and West Africa, the Caribbean, and other parts of North America. United by ties of marriage, children, and circumstance, a complex and rich culture formed from the roots of so many distinct African cultures and the colonial culture of New York. Commemorations of the dead, along with holidays like Pinkster (an Afro-Dutch celebration of spring and rebirth derived from Pentecost) would have served to bind these communities together. These burials from the African Burial Ground in Manhattan show the practice, widespread in the African Diaspora, of marking burials with cobbles.
The objects that people are buried with, and the materials used to mark their graves, tell us many things about the society in which they lived. African burial grounds reidentified in New York have often revealed the complex mix of traditions that make up the free and enslaved communities in the colonial period. The African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan offers many interesting examples of the culture of enslaved and free Africans in New York City. Some burials show evidence of traditions that survived capture and enslavement. At least two burials contained strings of beads around the hips of what are believed to have been female bodies: one a grown woman and one likely a young girl. The continuation of this West African tradition shows the preservation and perpetuation of African traditions, likely in the face of pressure to assimilate and adopt European-American traditions. Three burials studied during the archaeological excavation of the site had coins placed over the eyes of the dead. The two women and one man were all likely middle aged or older, perhaps indicating that this practice was used to honor older members of the community.
Over time, these marginalized spaces were consumed by the growing communities that surrounded them. Descendants of the interred, if they still lived locally, likely had little of the political power needed to stop development and preserve the graves of their ancestors. In many cases, these spaces were forgotten, although some communities passed the knowledge of their existence down through the generations. When the burial grounds are reidentified, different stakeholders pursue often opposing goals. What is the best way to reclaim and honor these spaces? Who should be involved in making those decisions? How do we balance the need to preserve our past with the needs of current communities? In some cases, it is possible to leave the grounds as they are and protect them from further disturbance. In other cases, preservation of the grounds is not possible, and archaeologists excavate the remains carefully and respectfully, documenting all aspects of the burials so that we might learn as much as we can about the people buried there. In these cases, the remains are often reinterred at another location, typically with descendant community present.
In 2005, construction uncovered a burial ground in an area north of Albany known as Schuyler Flatts. Analysis revealed that the remains were likely those of individuals enslaved by the prominent Schuyler family. The New York State Museum undertook the reconstruction of several of the recovered remains (seen above), bringing to life the memory of those forgotten and mistreated in both life and death.
For more information on the work being done to preserve New York’s African descended burials, visit these links:
Van Cortlandt Park Enslaved African Burial Ground
Slaves of Albany's Gen. Philip Schuyler Honored with Burial Service (timesunion.com)
African Burial Ground National Monument
Pine Street African Burial Ground
Flatbush African Burial Ground
Sylvester Manor Afro-Indigenous Burial Ground
Montgomery African American Cemetery (Wikipedia)
