Marking the Unmarked: The Confluence of Community Archaeology and Ground Penetrating Radar at the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground, Bronx, NY

Summary

The 2010 discovery in a New York museum of a photograph labeled "Slave burying ground, Hunts Point Road," launched a Bronx elementary school's innovative preliminary research project leading to the identification of the unmarked and forgotten burial ground’s possible location. The City Parks Department subsequently initiated a documentary and Ground Penetrating Radar study that confirmed the enslaved burials to be segregated across the roadway from the 18th-century burial ground of the Hunt, Leggett, and Willetts and preserved within present day Drake Park. GPR also revealed a north-south orientation to the burials, further differentiating them from the adjacent family burial ground, an orientation only found to date at several of the City’s Potter’s Fields. This paper presents the results of this community based archaeology project substantiating historical precedent and highlighting the need for further examination of the City’s historical burial practices towards a better understanding of differential grave orientation between populations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018   •
• Reclaiming Identity at Forgotten Cemeteries in New York City

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 700