New York African Burial Ground History Final Report. Report and Bibliography

History report related to the archaeological work at the New York African Burial Ground. 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.