The New York African Burial Ground History Final Report

Part of the Archaeology of African Burial Ground National Monument, New York project

Edna Greene Medford (Editor)

The unearthing of the colonial cemetery known historically as the “Negroes
Burying Ground” in Lower Manhattan in 1991 has given both scholars and the general
public the opportunity to study and comprehend the broad dimensions of the African-
American experience. The African Burial Ground and the remains contained within it
provide a unique vantage point from which to view New York City’s Africans and their
descendants over two centuries. As the final resting place for thousands of enslaved and
free black people who lived and labored in the city from roughly 1627 until the end of the
eighteenth century, the cemetery offers insight into physical stressors, ethnic identity,
cultural continuities and assimilation. While each burial tells an individual story,
collectively, they, along with archival evidence, enable us to reconstruct a forgotten
community and to reveal the centrality of a marginalized people.

Following the suggestions outlined by the team of multi-disciplinary scholars who
developed the Research Design in 1991, the African Burial Ground Project historical
researchers pursued two goals. First, they attempted to place the biological and
anthropological findings from the cemetery into a historical context, suggesting
explanations for certain physical characteristics present in the skeletal remains. Their
second task has been to provide a broader understanding of the lives of enslaved and free
people in colonial New York. Hence, historical research has addressed issues beyond
those specific to the burial ground population.

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