Sites of resistance: threatened African burial grounds around the world

A historical map overlayed on modern New York shows the ‘Slaves Burying Place’, which held the graves of at least 36 Africans enslaved to Dutch colonial settlers in northern Manhattan.A historical map overlayed on modern New York shows the ‘Slaves Burying Place’, which held the graves of at least 36 Africans enslaved to Dutch colonial settlers in northern Manhattan.

or archeologists, what defines people as human is how we bury our dead. Imagine, then, a society that relegates a whole community as legally inhuman, enslaved with no rights. In spite of slavery, African burial grounds are tangible reminders of the enslaved and free – defying oppressive circumstances by reclaiming people’s humanity through acts of remembrance.

When I first visited the British overseas territory of St Helena in 2018 and saw the burial ground in Rupert’s Valley, I was astounded by its size and significance. It unambiguouslyDuring my time on the island, I spoke to many community and government stakeholders, who sometimes seemed hard-pressed to reconcile their sense of “Britishness” with acknowledging their history linked to the transatlantic slave trade.

Today, I am a global expert specialising in protecting and memorialising African burial grounds. Here are five other historical burial sites around the world. How we choose to remember these places matters. They are sites of reclamation and resistance, where revolutionary acts of remembrance will for ever mark our cultural landscape.

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