African Burial Ground

African Burial Ground. Exploring Downtown. . The African Burial Ground was active until 1794. Within an area of not quite six acres, perhaps as many as 20,000 people were interred, mostly free or enslaved Africans. During the 18th century, one in ten residents of New York was of African descent, and slavery was widespread in or near the city. The institution of slavery officially endured in New York until July 4, 1827 – a fact celebrated the next day, July 5, by a parade through the city by hundreds of African-Americans. However, enslaved persons were in fact held in New York beyond that date. . . Though old city maps show an African Burial Ground near Broadway and Chambers Street, it was not until 1991 that anyone realized thousands of burial sites still existed twenty feet below ground level. Further investigation confirmed that this was one of New York City’s major Colonial-era sites: an African burial ground dating back to the 18th and possibly even the 17th century, one of the very few surviving anywhere in the Americas, and now the largest known excavated African cemetery in the world. The burials were discovered by archeologists digging in advance of a new Federal office building. When bulldozers moved in, angry protests and congressional hearings lead to an Act of Congress that stopped the destruction. Now designated officially as a city, state and national landmark, the African Burial Ground testifies to the centuries-old history of African-American New York. The ancestral remains of 410 African men, women and children were ceremonially reinterred on October 4, 2003.