New York African Burial Ground Archaeology Final Report, Volume 1. Chapter 7. The Middle Group

Most burials in the archaeologically excavated portion of the African Burial Ground are placed in the main or Middle Group, by default, because they were not clearly assignable to earlier or later cohorts. Yet even though the temporal groupings are relative rather than absolute, it is likely that burials assigned to the Middle Group were indeed interred during the middle decades of the 18th century. For convenience, we describe the period of New York’s history from approximately 1735 to 1760, when the cemetery would have been intensively used. A sketch of the town and the development in the area of the burial ground is presented, along with an overview of the African population and the mortuary sample. The material culture and spatial distribution of the Middle Group burials are then discussed, followed by a description of some unique and unusual interments.