African Burial Ground, New York City 11identity, culture, physical and social mobility, and overall
humanity, coupled with the legal mandates that prohib-
ited enslaved blacks from sharing burial space with whites,
made necessary the African Burial Ground among other
Negroes Burying Grounds interspersed throughout the Af-
rican Diaspora.
West African culture remained a consistent infl uence
on enslaved Africans in the Americas during the colonial
and postcolonial periods. Th e eff ect of West African culture
on enslaved blacks in New York was articulated through the
retention of various West African traditions and beliefs, es-
pecially as it related to funerary customs. Th e use of burial
shrouds, the ritual adornment of bodies and coffi ns, and
even the physical orientation of the bodies demonstrate
links to West African spiritual practices alive in colonialcentury. Th e excavation and construction project was sus-
pended in 1992 following a congressional mandate issued
largely in response to a public demand. Th e African Ameri-
can New York community pressured the federal government
to ensure that the skeletal remains of their African ancestors
be appropriately studied and ultimately reinterred.
In 1992, a team of researchers from Howard Univer-
sity’s department of sociology and anthropology began
studying the skeletal remains found at the African Burial
Ground site. Th e New York African Burial Ground—for-
merly referred to as the Negroes Burying Ground—was
established in 1712 and used until 1794 as the fi nal resting
place for “people of African descent, paupers (poor peo-
ple), and British and American prisoners of war during the
American Revolution” (Hansen and McGowan, 2). Th e en-
slaved populations interred at the burial site were believed
to have originated from West Africa, West-Central Africa,
and the Caribbean, exported to the North American main-
land through the Atlantic slave trade.
By 1644 when the British acquired New Amsterdam,
subsequently renaming the territory New York in reverence
of the Duke of York, increasing numbers of enslaved Af-
ricans were channeled into the colony to labor for British
colonists. As a consequence of the English acquisition of
New Amsterdam, black New Yorkers—enslaved and free—
were subject to more restrictive laws that suppressed New
York Africans’ ability to participate in the social and reli-
gious institutions that existed in colonial New York. With
the strict governance of the social, religious, and political
welfare of enslaved New Yorkers came orders that regulated
the activities of enslaved blacks during nonlaboring hours.
Due to the special edicts designed for persons of African
descent residing in New York City during the colonial pe-
riod, New York Africans were forced to bury their deceased
outside of the New York City limits.
With the suppression of the social and human liberties
of enslaved Africans in New York City, enslaved blacks fash-
ioned the African Burial Ground as one of the initial social
institutions established by enslaved Africans in the colony.
Th e institution of slavery and its practitioners consistently
challenged the humanity of the enslaved who were rou-
tinely forced to relinquish their identities through arbitrary
“renaming” practices, separated from kin—blood born and
fi ctive, prohibited from the exercise of religious expression,
and defrauded the ability to communicate through the use
of indigenous African languages. Th e assault on the African
Photograph of Burial 213 at New York’s African Burial Ground
shows a brick drain constructed during the 19th century extending
down through the grave. (National Park Service)