The African Burying Ground in Portsmouth: A History Rediscovered

In the downtown area of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Court Street and Chestnut Street are two perpendicular streets flanked by colonial style housing and period-style lighting. At their intersection stands a small, pedestrian pathway with a circular fenced area that marks the spot of New England’s oldest known African American cemetery. Built over and rediscovered several times over, this African Burial Ground is considered an archeological treasure that continues to inform us today on the African American narrative and its deep connection to New England’s roots and history. The African American Community’s Roots in Portsmouth Route 1 runs directly through Portsmouth, New Hampshire: a port town established in the early 1600s that relied upon both the slave trade and African American labor to build its foundations and economy. African Americans acted as slaves, servants, and sold goods; in 1779, they even fought alongside the colonists for freedom from the British. (20 of those who fought went on to unsuccessfully petition for their freedom.) The African American community’s strong presence in Portsmouth, and the town’s continued reliance upon them, necessitated that they receive the appropriate considerations of that time: that is, a segregated space to be buried. As a brass plaque installed by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire on the African Burial Ground’s perimeter states: “In colonial Portsmouth, segregation applied in death as in life. City officials approved a plan in 1705 that set aside this city block for a ‘Negro Burial Ground.’ It was close to town but pushed to what was then its outer edge. By 1813, houses were built over the site.” In the cemetery’s roughly 100 years’ duration, around 200 graves—unmarked and occasionally containing multiple coffins—came to rest within the plot of land. These graves held the remains of any African American who lived, worked, and died within Portsmouth at that time; after the cemetery was covered over, African Americans were buried elsewhere, and the town continued to grow above the resting dead. The Burial Ground’s Curious History Although no longer visible, the town remained aware of the cemetery’s existence. City records contain multiple references to the cemetery, and a Portsmouth Chronicle article written on June 24, 1853 noted that “In digging to put down the gas pipes in Court Street, the workmen have disturbed numerous remains of the negroes, who were buried during the days of slavery here, and for some years afterwards”—the most recent burial occurring about 50 years prior. After finding “one coffin in tolerable preservation, near the corner of Chestnut and Court streets, containing the bones of a large and tall man,” the workers reburied their discovery. Six years later in 1859, newspaper editor and historian Charles W. Brewster published a collection of essays that pinpointed the site of the burial ground on a map accessible to, and known by, city planners, developers, and historians from that point onwards. And in 1861, historian Tobias H. Miller mentioned the burial ground in a Portsmouth daily newspaper. Calling it “the old negro burying ground in front of the old jail,” his casual language evokes a familiarity with the site that suggests common citizens, as well as scholars, might have known of its presence. However, with the exception of independently acting historians who called attention to the site, the 200+ interred African Americans remained invisible and unrecognized to the city’s inhabitants until 2003, when a construction project unearthed a hexagonal pine coffin. Archeologists, who had been standing by in case of such an encounter, came to the scene and began the process of excavation. Over the course of six days, they uncovered the remains of eight African American individuals, ranging from children to adults, while also identifying five other graves on the periphery that remained untouched. The condition of the preserved remains varied widely; sewer lines, gas lines, shovels, and the conditions of the soil had all taken their toll, although archeologists still gleaned valuable information from the remains. (Indeed, they continue to do so to this day: in February of 2020, scientists began a DNA sequencing project on two sets of remains to learn more about the lives of those individuals, as well as possibly find living descendants.) Restoring Honor to and Memorializing the Sacred Ground The city spent several months working together to plan how to proceed after the rediscovery. In addition to consulting government officials, scientists, engineers, and museums, the city met with African American community members to discuss how to not only rebury the human remains, but also to property memorialize the site as both the final resting place of African Americans and a significant piece of New England history. Eventually, the city commissioned African American artist Jerome Meadowsto create an installment that symbolically conveyed the site’s importance. Meadows constructed eight life sized gold silhouettes to stand on the perimeter of a circular grave; each figure contained a line of poetry written by the artist, while space between them allowed citizens to fill in the gaps and in so doing, step into union with those resting below their feet. Behind the silhouettes, a fence constructed of pewter gray railings shaped like paddles—to represent the oars that ferried slave ships in the Middle Passage—were embedded with ceramic tiles created by middle school students in tandem with the artist. Meadows provided students with symbols and patterns from West Africa, which they incorporated into culturally significant designs. Lastly, Meadows sculpted two bronze figures standing back to back on a slab of granite: an African woman with her hand reaching around the side to almost graze the fingertips of an African American man. The woman represented Mother Africa; the man, the slaves and servants who never returned to their homeland, but believed that they would do so in the afterlife, and whom Meadows strove to symbolically reconcile with the installment. In May 2015, Portsmouth held a reburial ceremony commemorating the park’s completion and honoring those there discovered. Meadows spoke to his artwork, including a Petition Line engraved in the sidewalk that held the signatures of the 20 enslaved Revolutionary War fighters who asked for their freedom. Afterwards, Pallbearers carrying wooden boxes with the exhumed remains placed them in the circular vault, which was permanently sealed over with a large mosaic Sankofa. This West African symbol is a bird looking over its shoulder; the name translates to “Go back and get it,” as a reminder that sometimes one must retrieve what’s been lost in order to move forward. Since that ceremony in 2015, the Burying Ground has become one of Portsmouth’s most recognized sites. It attracts presidential hopefuls, archeologists, writers, historians, and wanderers who, intentionally or not, encounter a deep and complex history on a tiny New England corner. Over 200 years after their passing, the African Americans buried there continue to participate in the community: as symbols of a history reburied, retraced, and ultimately retrieved from the depths of an unacknowledged past, into a recognized present moment.