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Honoring Ancestors in Sacred Space: The Archaeology of an Eighteenth-Century African-Bahamian Cemetery

Online ISBN:
9781683400493
Print ISBN:
9781683400202
Publisher:
University Press of Florida
Book

Honoring Ancestors in Sacred Space: The Archaeology of an Eighteenth-Century African-Bahamian Cemetery

Grace Turner
Grace Turner
Antiquities, Monuments & Museum Corporation
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Published:
21 November 2017
Online ISBN:
9781683400493
Print ISBN:
9781683400202
Publisher:
University Press of Florida

Abstract

This book examines the history of a black cemetery through archaeology. Archaeological evidence suggests that the cemetery was deliberately established on the waterfront in the early eighteenth century by a black community on the east side of the main town, Nassau, Bahamas. It is important to understand that, though this cemetery was officially sanctioned and maintained by the Anglican Church, the black community intentionally established a separate cemetery in order to observe some non-European burial customs, such as the location near water, leaving personal items on graves, planting a tree at the head of a grave, and placing food offerings on or near graves. This cultural pattern continued for about 100 years, but by the mid-nineteenth century there is a transition away from these public displays of an African-derived cultural identity. The cemetery remained in use until the first decade of the twentieth century. Hurricanes in the 1920s devastated Nassau’s coastline, and this cemetery site was covered by debris from the storm surges. In the 1930s the government constructed a sidewalk through the site and much of the skeletal remains and grave markers were gathered and discarded elsewhere. Despite this destruction, enough archaeological evidence remains as mute testimony to the cultural and historical significance of this site’s past.

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