Ifègbemìí
ABG Portrait
Although the African Burial Ground National Monument was opened to the public in 2010, this is a first visit to the site. The discovery of the remains of hundreds of Africans in an excavation site in preparation to build a skyscraper in Manhattan in 1991 was a watershed moment, which opened the doors to the rediscovery of the early history of New York City (then New Amsterdam.)
It was revealed that Africans (the majority of whom had been enslaved), who had worked to build the settlement of New Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries, were not allowed to bury their dead in the grounds where the European immigrants buried their own dead. Thus one of the first instances of segregation in what was to become the United States of America had some early origins. Closed as a burial site nineteen years following the U.S. declared its independence from England, the site fell into disuse, and became part of the growing settlement which would eventually become the metropolis of New York City.
It wouldn’t be rediscovered almost 200 years later, but was developed as a national monument, following an extremely strong advocacy from the local and national African American community.
ABG Portrait
Although the African Burial Ground National Monument was opened to the public in 2010, this is a first visit to the site. The discovery of the remains of hundreds of Africans in an excavation site in preparation to build a skyscraper in Manhattan in 1991 was a watershed moment, which opened the doors to the rediscovery of the early history of New York City (then New Amsterdam.)
It was revealed that Africans (the majority of whom had been enslaved), who had worked to build the settlement of New Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries, were not allowed to bury their dead in the grounds where the European immigrants buried their own dead. Thus one of the first instances of segregation in what was to become the United States of America had some early origins. Closed as a burial site nineteen years following the U.S. declared its independence from England, the site fell into disuse, and became part of the growing settlement which would eventually become the metropolis of New York City.
It wouldn’t be rediscovered almost 200 years later, but was developed as a national monument, following an extremely strong advocacy from the local and national African American community.