N.Y. Dig Uncovers History of Early American Blacks : Archeology: The excavation of an 18th-Century graveyard is yielding a wealth of data, scientists say.

When excavation began here last summer for a towering, $276-million federal office complex in the heart of the downtown Civic Center, archeological teams were there along with the construction crews, doing some digging of their own.

Somewhere beneath the surface of the block-square construction site, the archeologists expected to find the remains of the northwest section of a graveyard for enslaved Africans that dated back to New York’s English Colonial era.

The historical sleuths did not anticipate making a big discovery. They were all but certain that previous construction at the site during the late 19th and early 20th centuries had destroyed most of what might be of archeological value.

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But as the work progressed, first a few skeletons were unearthed, then a few more and then even more--until it became evident that the site was a major scientific and historical find.

To date, in fact, the remains of more than 415 bodies have been exhumed, along with more than 1.5 million artifacts, all promising to provide voluminous detail about early African-American life in New York.

“This is one of the most important archeological discoveries of our time anywhere,” said Daniel N. Pagano, New York City’s official archeologist. “It’s like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls or the ruins of Pompeii. We have an incredible opportunity look into the past and recover knowledge we previously had thought was inaccessible.”

The cemetery, which was in use from around 1710 to 1790, is believed to be the oldest municipal graveyard in the nation and the only one for blacks dating from before the Revolutionary War.

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Called the “Negros Burial Ground” on one Colonial-era map, it encompassed the equivalent of about five modern-day city blocks on the northern outskirts of 18th-Century Manhattan. As many as 20,000 people may have been buried there, including many white paupers, archeologists say.

In the early 1800s, the cemetery was itself ignominiously buried under tons of landfill as the hilly outskirts in which it was located were leveled to make room for the city’s relentless expansion northward. No effort was made to remove the bodies beforehand and re-inter them elsewhere.

“So little seems to have been thought of the race that not even a dedication of their burial-place was made by the church authorities, or any others who might reasonably be supposed to have an interest in such a matter,” according to the 1865 edition of the so-called Valentine Manual, an official city guide published throughout much of the 19th Century.

The federal building site is bounded by Broadway and Duane, Elk and Reade streets, just north of City Hall. The section of the cemetery encompassed by that block had remained untouched over the years because it was 20 to 30 feet below street level.

Excavation for previous construction had penetrated only about 15 feet.

“It just goes to show that until you start digging, you can never be really sure of what you might find,” said Laurie Beckelman, head of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which is spearheading efforts to have the site designated a national historic landmark.

Preliminary studies of the remains already have revealed much about black life under slavery, a New York institution from the arrival of the Dutch in the early 1600s to its abolition in the mid-1800s.

From the number of skeletons of children, for example, experts estimate that as much as 50% of the black population in Colonial New York died at birth or in infancy.

When death came, there was no money for costly monuments. Most graves were marked simply by field stones. When headstones were used, they were plain slabs of rock with no inscriptions. Even coffins were a luxury; most of the corpses were buried only in shroud cloths.

Still, despite their abject poverty, the enslaved blacks showed a great respect for the dead. All the graves uncovered so far at the site were carefully dug and the corpses interred with exceptional dignity.

“Despite the fact that the Colonial era was a period when epidemics of yellow fever and cholera were common and victims were often buried in mass graves, there are no mass burials at this cemetery,” Pagano said. “Each body was individually placed in the ground.”

One of the most enigmatic skeletons found so far is that of a black man who was buried in a British Marine officer’s coat. The fabric had disintegrated, but four brass buttons bearing an anchor-and-cable insignia were still intact.

“He may very well have been a British officer,” Pagano said, “but we know that Americans sometimes used British uniforms from captured British ships during the Revolutionary War. So it’s hard to say which side he may have fought on.”

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When the first few skeletons were found, oddly enough, they remained little more than minor curiosities to most New Yorkers. But as more and more skeletons were uncovered and the full historic value of the find became apparent, concerns grew among black community leaders, historic preservationists and city officials over the fate of the cemetery.

Under the federal government’s original plans, all of the skeletal remains were to be exhumed from the site, shipped to a college in the Bronx for scientific analysis and then re-interred elsewhere.

Meanwhile, construction was to continue on the complex, which was to include a 34-story office tower and an adjoining four-story pavilion in the northeast corner of the lot.

But in a compromise worked out after a shower of protests from black New Yorkers, the federal government agreed to scrap plans for the pavilion, which was to have housed an auditorium, day-care center and pedestrian galleria.

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Instead, that section will be set aside for a museum or some other kind of memorial to honor New York’s Colonial African-American community.

Congressional negotiators in Washington agreed last week to earmark $3 million to protect and memorialize the cemetery. The full Senate and House must give final approval for the funds.

An advisory committee of scientists, historic preservationists, officials and community leaders that Mayor David N. Dinkins will help appoint is to develop plans to commemorate the site.

“What has happened is what should have happened a long time ago,” said Beckelman, the Landmarks Preservation Commission chief.

Burial Ground History Lesson

An 18th-Century cemetery was unearthed during excavation for a Manhattan office building. The skeletal remains and artifacts are providing unparalleled insights into black life under slavery.