Bringing an enslaved African burial ground to life

Tucked within the thick greenery of Van Cortlandt Park lies a largely forgotten burial ground  with no headstones and little indication of its existence or its dark past. But the stories of those buried beneath the soil are emerging from the shadows.

The Van Cortlandt Park Alliance (VCPA) announced a partnership with the Design Trust for Public Space in a new initiative – “Reimagining the Enslaved African Burial Ground at Van Cortlandt Park.” The community-driven project is dedicated to creating a permanent memorial acknowledging the site’s painful past with hopes of establishing it as a future grounds for healing, remembrance and cultural reflection.

The effort is also in collaboration with Liminal sp. Immanuel Oni, co-founder and co-director of the nonprofit took on similar projects before, like the Chrystie Street African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan.  

“Our mission is to work with communities to reclaim sites of loss for liberation,” Oni explained, former director of community design at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. 

One of the largest parks in New York City, Van Cortlandt Park Alliance was the site of a sprawling colonial-era plantation with a working farm and grist mill, maintained through the labor of enslaved individuals – Africans, their descendants and some Native Americans.

Although New York outlawed the enslavement of local Native people by 1702, those enslaved in other colonies were brought north to work the grounds. 

Jacobus Van Cortlandt, a two-time mayor of New York City, purchased the swath of land in the late 1600s. He and his son Frederick, both prominent merchants, profited from slave trading and relied on slave labor for nearly every aspect of plantation life.

Records show enslaved individuals maintained the fields, operated the mill and constructed the stone Van Cortlandt House. They hauled water, chopped wood, cooked meals, and cared for the household, living in unheated attic quarters and working under harsh conditions, according to the VCPA. 

All enslaved workers were freed in 1821, six years before slavery was abolished in New York. The Van Cortlandt’s replaced their forced workforce with low-paid immigrant laborers, mostly from Ireland. 

By the 1880s, the family sold the estate to the city, thehome was preserved and the grounds were repurposed into the public park known today, yet it bears little similarity to the massive plantation it once was. What used to be seemingly endless grain fields are now the parade ground, where soccer games unfold and families picnic on warm afternoons.

In 2018, soil scientists with the USDA used ground-penetrating radar to survey the suspected burial ground. The findings aligned with what the VCPA’s Enslaved People’s Project has long suspected – the site was a cemetery. While it was not definitively confirmed as a burial ground, researchers identified “fine linear features that resemble coffins, 1.2 to 1.5 meters underground.”

In 2021, New York City officially recognized the burial ground with a small green sign that offered minimal context. But for many, it wasn’t enough.

“What we kind of kept hearing continually from the community members and park visitors was they wanted the Enslaved African Burial Ground to be more of a destination to pay respect to the enslaved people who once inhabited the park,” Ashley Hart Adams said, VPCA’s arts integration strategist.

That feedback fueled the current memorial initiative, funded by a $310,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation. The park’s alliance and its partners envisioned a memorial grove, educational signage and public art to turn the site into what Adams called “a cultural destination for New Yorkers and visitors alike.”

In collaboration with Liminal sp, Van Cortlandt Park is launching a series of public programs this summer to gather community input and raise awareness of the burial ground. Events will include a procession to the Enslaved African Burial Ground and guided tours focused on the park’s history as a plantation and the enslaved individuals who once lived and worked there.

“We're also going to be having temporary site installations to kind of bring a more visual presence and awareness and just provide new narratives on the space,” Oni expressed. “Kind of adding opportunities for people that may not know about the burial grounds to engage in different ways.”

This article was updated for accuracy on April 21, 2025 at 11:34 a.m.