Episode 36 “Burial Grounds in a Segregated City”: with Tom Angotti,

Professor Emertis, Hunter College.

During the period of Dutch and English settlement, New York City was one of the nation’s largest urban centers for the slave trade and served as a financial patron, of the plantation economy, in the South. In the Dutch colony, as many as 40 percent of the population were slaves.

Slaves had no choice of residence, were treated like a commodity, and even in burial were denied equal access. At the end of the 17th century, Trinity Church formally banned blacks from its cemetery in lower Manhattan as land in the fortified city became scarce. The African Burial Grounds in lower Manhattan were a result of this process. And perhaps most shocking of all, it even limited their access to New York City’s Potters Field, Hart Island. Even in death their discrimination persisted.

Michael T. Keene is the author of Folklore and Legends of Rochester, Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Mad~House, Question of Sanity, and now his new book, 

NEW YORK CITY’S HART ISLAND: A CEMETERY OF STRANGERS

Order a signed, soft cover copy of the book: New York City's Hart Island, directly from the Author

https://michaeltkeene.com/hart-island-soft-cover-book/

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