Monday, October 31, 2016

"African Burial Ground Memorial"


                                African Burial Ground Memorial





The African Burial Ground Memorial is located Downtown Manhattan  in the financial district. Originally unearthed in 1991 during excavating for a new federal building. brought light to the fact that NYC from the colonial days had a long history of slavery. At first a dozen of remains found some twelve feet underground by construction workers. Most of the remains were men under the age of thirty. Later excavating the area all in total over 419 sets were found. An estimated fifteen thousand African Americans were buried on the grounds.



     











Memorial Designed by Rodney Leon

Most Americans like myself have the presumption that slavery was a Southern phenomenon that the northeast was free state. But in fact at some point there were more slaves in New York State then Georgia. Even a public slave market at the east end of Wall Street opened up 1711 it wasn’t until the mid 1800-century were African Americans even considered free men.

A few Google searches in and you can see the horror that these people faced. Laws restricting slaves to participate in any form of society. 

The architect designed a well thought out memorial to commemorate the site and teach the sacrifice the African Americans made to build New York City. His concept was a space that reflected a ritualistic ideas through libation and ceremony.






References
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/slave_island_01.shtml







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