page_title: African Burial Ground National Monument
section_title: Pre-Revolutionary War
hierarchical_section_title: African Burial Ground National Monument / Africans and African Americans in New York City / Pre-Revolutionary War
caption_attribution_description: English: In 1741, British authorities executed 34 people for conspiring to burn down the city. Thirteen African American men were burned at the stake and another 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged. An additional 70 blacks and seven whites were banished from the city
context_page_description: African Burial Ground National Monument is a monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way in the Civic Center section of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its main building is the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway. The site contains the remains of more than 419 Africans buried during the late 17th and 18th centuries in a portion of what was the largest colonial-era cemetery for people of African descent, some free, most enslaved. Historians estimate there may have been as many as 10,000–20,000 burials in what was called the "Negroes Burial Ground" in the 1700s. The five to six acre site's excavation and study was called "the most important historic urban archaeological project in the United States." The Burial Ground site is New York's earliest known African-American "cemetery"; studies show an estimated 15,000 African American people were buried here.
  The discovery highlighted the forgotten history of enslaved Africans in colonial and federal New York City, who were integral to its development. By the American Revolutionary War, they constituted nearly a quarter of the population in the city.
context_section_description: Slavery in the New York City area was introduced by the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland in about 1626 with the arrival of Paul D'Angola, Simon Congo, Lewis Guinea, Jan Guinea, Ascento Angola, and six other men. Their names denote their place of origin: Angola, the Congo, and Guinea. Two years after their arrival three female Angolan slaves arrived. These two groups heralded the beginning of slavery in what would become New York City, and which would continue for two hundred years. The first slave auction in the city took place in 1655 at Pearl Street and Wall Street - then on the East River. Although the Dutch imported Africans as slaves, it was possible for some to gain freedom or "half-freedom" during the time of Dutch rule. In 1643, Paul D'Angola and his companions petitioned the Dutch West India Company for their freedom. Their request was granted, resulting in their acquisition of land on which to build their own houses and farm. By the mid-17th century, farms of free blacks covered 130 acres where Washington Square Park later appeared. Even slaves in full bondage were granted certain rights and afforded protections such as the prohibition against arbitrary physical punishment – for example, whipping.
  After the English took over New Amsterdam in 1664, they changed the name to New York (after the Duke of York) and changed the rules governing slavery in the colony. Some 40 percent of the small population was in bondage. The new slavery rules were more harsh and restrictive than those of the Dutch, and rescinded many of the former rights and protections of slaves, such as the prohibition against arbitrary physical punishment. In 1697 Trinity Church gained control of the burial grounds in the city and passed an ordinance excluding blacks from the right to be buried in churchyards. When Trinity took control of the municipal burial ground, now its northern graveyard, it barred Africans from interment within the city limits. Through much of the 18th century, the African burying ground was beyond the northern boundary of the city, which was just beyond what is today Chambers Street.
  As the city population increased, so did the number of residents who held slaves. "In 1703, 42 percent of New York's households had slaves, much more than Philadelphia and Boston combined." Most slaveholding households had only a few slaves, used primarily for domestic work. By the 1740s, 20 percent of the population of New York were slaves, totaling about 2,500 people. Slaves also worked as skilled artisans and craftsmen associated with shipping, construction, and other trades, as well as laborers. "On the eve of the American Revolution, New York City had the largest number of enslaved Africans of any English colonial settlement except Charleston, South Carolina, and it had the highest proportion of slaves to Europeans of any northern settlement." Africans had become essential to the development of New York.
caption: Slave being burned at the stake in N.Y.C. after the 1741 slave revolt. Thirteen slaves were burned.[11]
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