The N.Y. African Burial Ground

In 1991 construction workers began to dig the foundation for a new $300 million federal government building in lower Manhattan. It all came to a halt when workers dug into a burial ground, where they found wooden coffins and human remains. Investigators were called in and discovered that this was a colonial burial ground used to bury Africans who were not permitted to be buried in church cemeteries, even if they had converted to Christianity. Thus began the modern-day saga of the African Burial Ground in New York City. These hallowed remains seem now to be threatened for the third time.

Moreover, medical students at New York Hospital regularly stole corpses from the burial ground in the late 1700's. In 1794, the African Burial Ground was ordered closed and it was filled over by the Dutch Americans in the early 1800's. Their cisterns and privies were then dug throughout the grave sites. Slavery ended in New York State in 1827 and the African Burial Ground was forgotten as the city of New York grew.

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