African Burial Ground National Monument is a monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way (Elk Street) in the Civic Center section of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its main building is the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway.

The site contains the remains of more than 419 Africans buried during the late 17th and 18th centuries in a portion of what was the largest colonial-era cemetery for people of African descent, some free, most enslaved. Historians estimate there may have been as many as 10,000–20,000 burials in what was called the Negroes Burial Ground in the 18th century. The five to six acre site's excavation and study was called "the most important historic urban archaeological project in the United States."

The discovery highlighted the forgotten history of enslaved Africans in colonial and federal New York City, who were integral to its development. By the American Revolutionary War, they constituted nearly a quarter of the population in the city. New York had the second-largest number of enslaved Africans in the nation after Charleston, South Carolina. Scholars and African-American civic activists joined to publicize the importance of the site and lobby for its preservation. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 and a national monument in 2006 by President George W. Bush.

In 2003 Congress appropriated funds for a memorial at the site and directed redesign of the federal courthouse to allow for this. A design competition attracted more than 60 proposals. The memorial was dedicated in 2007 to commemorate the role of Africans and African Americans in colonial and federal New York City, and in United States history. Several pieces of public art were also commissioned for the site. A visitor center opened in 2010 to provide interpretation of the site and African-American history in New York.

Africans and African Americans in New York City

Pre-Revolutionary War

Slavery in the New York City area was introduced by the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland in about 1626 with the arrival of Paul D'Angola, Simon Congo, Lewis Guinea, Jan Guinea, Ascento Angola, and six other men. Their names denote their place of origin- Angola, the Congo, and Guinea. Two years after their arrival three enslaved Angolan females arrived. These two groups heralded the beginning of slavery in what would become New York City, and which would continue for two hundred years. The first slave auction in the city took place in 1655 at Pearl and Wall Streets – then on the East River. Although the Dutch imported Africans as slaves, it was possible for some to gain freedom or "half-freedom" during the time of Dutch rule. In 1643, Paul D'Angola and his companions petitioned the Dutch West India Company for their freedom. Their request was granted, resulting in their acquisition of land on which to build their own houses and farm. By the mid-17th century, farms of free blacks covered 130 acres where Washington Square Park later appeared.]]

The English seized New Amsterdam in 1664, and renamed the fledgling settlement to New York (after the Duke of York). The new city administration changed the rules governing slavery in the colony. At the time of the seizure, some 40 percent of the small population of New Amsterdam were enslaved Africans. regarding slavery were more restrictive than those of the Dutch, and rescinded many of the former rights and protections of enslaved residents, such as the prohibition against arbitrary physical punishment. In 1697 Trinity Church gained control of the burial grounds in the city and passed an ordinance excluding blacks from the right to be buried in churchyards. When Trinity took control of the municipal burial ground, now its northern graveyard, it barred Africans from interment within the city limits.

In 1799 the state legislature passed An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery with little opposition. Similar to Pennsylvania's law, it provided for gradual manumission of slaves. Children born to slave mothers after July 4, 1799, were considered legally free, but had to serve as indentured servants to their mother's master, until age 28 for men and 25 for women, before gaining social freedom. Until reaching age 21, they were considered the property of the mother's master. All slaves already in bondage before July 4, 1799, remained slaves for life, although they were reclassified as "indentured servants."

In 1817, the New York legislature granted freedom to all children born to enslaved people after July 4, 1799, under the Gradual Emancipation Act, with total abolition of slavery to take effect on July 4, 1827. July 4 is now known as New York's Emancipation Day, more than 10,000 slaves were freed in New York State with no financial compensation to their former owners. Blacks paraded in New York City to celebrate.

Under the 1777 New York constitution, all free men had to satisfy a property requirement to vote, which eliminated poorer men from voting, both black and white.]]

thumb|The "Negros Burial Ground" near [[Collect Pond, looking south (map about 1760)]]

Site history

Negros Burial Ground

The burial ground in use for New York Town residents in the late 1600s was located at what is now the north graveyard of Trinity Church (of the Anglican / Church of England – today the Episcopal Church U.S.A.). The public burial ground was open to all for a fee, including to enslaved Africans. Some burials of deceased slaves were made just south of the public burial ground to avoid the fee. The stockade in this area ran northeast from the present-day corner of Broadway and Chambers Street to Foley Square; the wide street on the top right (southwest) is Broadway.

After Trinity was established as a parish church in 1697, the vestryman of the church began taking control of land in Lower Manhattan, including existing public burial grounds. When Trinity purchased the land at Wall Street and Broadway for the construction of their church, they passed a resolution on October 25, 1697:

<blockquote>That after the Expiration of four weeks from the dates hereof no Negro's be buried within the bounds & Limitts of the Church Yard of Trinity Church, that is to say, in the rear of the present burying place & that no person or Negro whatsoever, do presume after the terme above Limitted to break up any ground for the burying of his Negro, as they will answer it at their perill & that this order be forthwith publish'd.</blockquote>

The "rear of the present burying place" did not include the town cemetery (now the north churchyard). The church petitioned for control of this burial ground, which was granted by the colonial Province of New York on April 22, 1703.

This prohibition against the burial of those of African descent necessitated finding another area acceptable to the colonial authorities. What would become the "Negro's Burial Ground" was located on what was then the outskirts of the developed town, just north of present-day Chambers Street and west of the former Collect Pond (later Five Points). The area was part of a land grant issued to Cornelius van Borsum on behalf of his wife Sara Roelofs (1624–1693) for her services as an interpreter between the town of New York and the various Native American tribes in the area, such as the Lenape and Wappinger. The land would remain part of her estate until the late 1790s when the grade was raised with landfill in anticipation of development, and the land subdivided into building lots.

Labelled on old maps as the "Negros Burial Ground", the 6.6-acre area was first recorded as being used around 1712 for the burials of enslaved and freed people of African descent. The first burials may date from the late 1690s after Trinity barred African burials in the former city cemetery. The area of the burial ground was in a shallow valley surrounded by low hills on the east, south and west, which enveloped the southern shore of Collect Pond and the Little Collect. The burial ground was outside the stockade marking the northern boundary of the city. The stockade in this area ran northeast from the present-day corner of Broadway and Chambers Street to Foley Square after it had expanded northward, similar in form and function to the former stockade on Wall Street. The revelation that physicians and medical students were illegally digging up bodies for dissection from this burial ground precipitated the 1788 Doctors' Riot.

Development

thumb|left|[[280 Broadway, the A.T. Stewart Building]]

After the city closed the cemetery in 1794, the area was plotted for development. The grade of the land was raised with up to of landfill at the lowest points covering the cemetery, thus preserving the burials and the original grade level. As urban development took place over the fill, the burial ground was largely forgotten. Washington Hall, a hotel and banquet hall was built on a portion of the site from 1809 to 1812. The first large-scale development on the land was the construction of the A.T. Stewart Company Store, the country's first department store; it opened in 1846 at the corner of 280 Broadway and Chambers Street, replacing Washington Hall. Several skeletons were unearthed during the commencement of building the store.

The site's earliest discovery in the early 19th century seems to have aroused little interest. According to an article in The New York Tribune, homeowner James Gemmel, who owned a house at 290 Broadway in the early 19th century, told an unnamed daughter that when the cellar for their house was being dug many human bones were found. He assumed that he had discovered a potter's field. Some concluded at that time that these were connected to a 1741 incident in which thirteen African Americans were burned at the stake and eighteen were hanged, however others wondered whether the bones were of Dutch or Indian origin. Many bones were taken as souvenirs by so-called relic hunters.) for the construction of a new $275 million federal office building planned at 290 Broadway between Reade and Duane streets. The building was to be later known as the Ted Weiss Federal Building, named for deceased U.S. Representative Ted Weiss from New York. Under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the federal government is required to identify and assess the historic presence of a site prior to building on the land. The agency had done an environmental impact statement (EIS) prior to purchase of the site, but the archaeological survey had predicted that human remains would not be found because of the long history of urban development in that area. persons from the site, but it had become clear that the extent of the burial ground was too large to be fully excavated. In 1992, activists staged a protest at the site about GSA's handling of the burial issue, especially when it was found that some intact burials were broken up during construction excavation at part of the site.

Located between New York City Hall and the federal courts, the site had symbolic value. "The 'invisibility' of Black history in New York City partially accounts for the importance of the Foley Square site"; activists hoped to find a means there to redress "the injustice and the imbalance of the historic record, and to give voice to the silenced ones".]]

In large part due to activism by the African-American community, the United States Congress passed, and on October 6, 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed, HR 5488 "The Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations Act" (which became Public Law 102-393) which ordered the GSA to immediately cease construction, archeological excavation & skeletal exhumation on the pavilion portion of the Ted Weiss Federal Building (where the remains had been found) and to appropriate $3 million to modify the pavilion foundation, prevent further deterioration of the burial ground & memorialize the site. The southern portion of the building, slated to be built on the parcel by Duane and Elk Streets, was eliminated to provide adequate room for a memorial. There was also growing support for a museum on the site to interpret African-American experience and history in New York. The discovery and long controversy received national media attention, raising interest and awareness in public archaeology projects. Theresa Singleton, an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution said,

<blockquote>The media exposure has created a larger, national audience for this type of research. I've been called by dozens of scholars and laypeople, all of them interested in African-American archaeology, all of them curious about why they don't know more about the field. Until recently, even some black scholars considered African-American archaeology a waste of time. That's changed now. These remains stand for the estimated tens of thousands of persons at the burial ground and historically in New York, representing Africans' "critical" role in "the formation and development of this city and, by extension, the Nation."

As a result of public engagement, the Howard University team identified four questions which the community hoped to have answered from studies of the remains:

  • cultural background and origins of the burial population;
  • the cultural and biological transformations from African to African-American identities;
  • quality of life brought about by enslavement in the Americas; and
  • modes of resistance to enslavement.

Before the erection of the monument, the burial ground had endured an immense amount of abuse. Archeologists found a substantial amount of industrial waste and ceramics while excavating the site. Archaeologists concluded that the burial ground had been used as a dumpsite by Europeans during the 18th century. The burial ground was also subject to grave robbing and looting during this time. In April 1788, the Doctor Riot spread throughout New York City. The riots were led by physicians who would steal corpses from graves to study them as the supply of medical corpses was extremely low. Many of these stolen corpses came from the African Burial Ground. There was speculation that the grounds were not only being looted but were overcrowding due to the burial of unclaimed bodies in the place of the stolen remains.

Some bodies had items buried with them, as part of personal and cultural rituals. An example is the silver pendant shown at right. Some skulls showed filed teeth, an African ritual decoration. Howard University did forensic studies, assessing the remains for nutrition, diseases and indicators of general living conditions for African slaves and free blacks.

After the Howard University studies were completed, the 419 skeletons were placed in the Ancestral Reinterment Grove on October 4, 2003, in a ceremony including the "Rites of Ancestral Return". They were placed in hand-carved wooden coffins made in Ghana and lined with Kente cloth, which were placed in 7 sacrophagi & buried in 7 burial mounds with the heads facing west. The "commemorative ceremony was inclusive and international in scope, and was organized by GSA and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture" of the New York Public Library. was selected in April 2005. The cultural landscape architect for the memorial was Elizabeth Kennedy Landscape Architects.

The memorial consists of two components: the tall Ancestral Chamber and the large Circle of the Diaspora. The height of the Ancestral Chamber represents the depth of the discovered graves. The Ancestral Chamber is made from Verde Fontaine green granite from Africa and its engraved heart-shaped Sankofa symbol from West Africa means "Learn from the past to prepare for the future". The Circle of the Diaspora features a map of the Atlantic area in reference to the Middle Passage, by which enslaved people were transported from Africa to North America. It is built of stone from Africa and North America, to symbolize the two worlds coming together.

On February 27, 2006, President George W. Bush signed a proclamation designating the burial site as the 123rd National Monument. The federal government also announced plans for a $8 million memorial at the site. The Burial Grounds was transferred to the operating jurisdiction of the National Park Service as its 390th unit. The memorial was dedicated on October 5, 2007, in a ceremony presided over by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and poet Maya Angelou. As part of the dedication ceremonies, the city officially renamed Elk Street as African Burial Ground Way.

In 2016, Dan Hoeg, CEO of the African American owned development firm the Hoeg Corporation, tendered a $34.3 million offer and development proposal to purchase 22 Reade Street and the Burial Grounds to the City of New York. The African-American bidding group was led by Hoeg; Burial Ground Monument architect, Rodney Leon; and Davide Bizzi, CEO of Italian development company, Bizzi & Partners Development.

Visitor Center

thumb|upright=1.2|[[Aerial view of the African Burial Ground National Monument. The mounds to the right contain the reinterred remains.]]

On February 27, 2010, a visitor center for the African Burial Ground National Monument opened in the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway, which was built over part of the archaeological site. The visitor center includes a permanent exhibit, "Reclaiming Our History", on the significance of the burial site. Created by Amaze Design, it features a life-sized tableau by StudioEIS depicting a dual funeral for an adult and child. Other parts of the exhibit explore the work-life of Africans in early New York and connection to national history, as well as the late 20th-century community success in preserving the burial ground. The visitor center includes a 40-person theater and a shop. The NPS runs the visitor center and arranges for various cultural exhibitions and events at the site throughout the year.