Archaeology of Urban Bondage

The unexpected rediscovery and the ensuing excavation of the African Burial Ground - known in the 18th century as the Negro Burial Ground - has lifted the lid on the early history of the African presence in New Amsterdam-New York City. The African Burial Ground Memorial is, today, one of the landmarks managed by the National Park Service as tribute to these men, women, and children, enslaved to build the wealth of that extraordinary and vibrant metropolis.

Augustin Holl has been part of the African Burial research project from its beginning in 1993 to its end in 2006, and this volume is the only comprehensive presentation of this unique project in its multidisciplinary dimension. It looks at the enslavement of Africans in the Atlantic world in the 17th and 18th centuries, from their origins in Africa to their life and death on the United States East Coast, relying on history, archaeology, and bio-anthropology. The argumentation is rigorously fact-based and inferences are data-driven.

The archaeology and history of the African presence in the northeastern United States are not limited to a meeting of Europeans and Africans face to face. The genesis of the Negro Burial Ground was the result of different strands of history. Some issues, like the location of the African Burial Ground, generally taken for granted as a starting point, are problematized in this book. The following important questions are framed and addressed: Why was the African Burial Ground located where it was? How was the cemetery built up? What are the key patterns of the buried population? Can agency and intentionality be discerned in the archaeological record at hand?

Organized in two parts and framed from the "Global Africa" theoretical perspective, Archaeology of Urban Bondage weaves data from history, archaeology, and biological anthropology to craft an integrated narrative on the deceased individuals buried in the African Burial Ground.