The Strange Journey of an Abandoned Gravestone

A New York man finds a gravestone on a Manhattan sidewalk.

African Burial Ground National Monument Opens in New York

On Saturday, the visitor's center at the African Burial Ground National Monument opened in Lower Manhattan. The museum and memorial mark the location of a graveyard used by New York's enslaved and free black communities between 1690 and 1790. In the 1990s, construction uncovered more than 400 bodies, which have been catalogued, studied, and reburied beneath the new monument.

The New York Times has a lengthy review of the new museum. The author, Edward Rothstein, is a bit skeptical of some of the exhibits' politics and questions whether the conclusions on display are supported by the evidence. I haven't visited yet, so I can't really speak to his specific criticisms, but I know that it can be very tempting to over-interpret evidence in graveyards. Still, I wish that Rothstein had interviewed some of the attendees about what the memorial meant to them. As he notes in the first sentence of his review, "Cemeteries are at least as much for the living as the dead." That's very true, and I do not necessarily think that that is a bad thing. It is the main contention of my dissertation that colonial American graveyards were political spaces from the first, so it is unsurprising that they still are today.

I'm not a great lover of New York (too big for me), but I'm excited about visiting this memorial. Wouldn't it be great if we could get a visitor's center for God's Little Acre in Newport?

A Factious People

I'm spending a lazy day going through A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York by Patricia Bonomi (1971):

But by late 1734, it was becoming increasingly apparent that despite these gains in popular party strength it would be impossible to topple Cosby from power so long as he retained the support of his patrons at Whitehall. It was in London that the real decisions about Cosby's future and Morris's displacement as chief justice would be made, and the Morrisites recognized that a more forceful presentation of their case was essential. Besides, many of the problems which had taken shape during the turbulent months since Cosby's arrival touched upon broad questions of constitutional relationships within the empire, and the colonists sensed, correctly, that their point of view was not well understood at home.

Too much politics for my taste - I only perked up during the chapters that were about patterns of settlement and land ownership. Any discussion of the intricacies of 18th-century elections puts me right to sleep.

Colonial New York: A History

I prefer Hogwarts: A History, but I will have to content myself with Michael Kammen's Colonial New York: A History (1975):

His summons would almost seem to be an ultimatum: "Elect and make choice of two proper and fit persons to repair forthwith to this city, empowering them as your representatives to consult, debate and conclude all such matters and things as shall be thought necessary for the supply of this government in this present conjuncture, of which you are not to fail, as you will answer the same at your peril." Surprisingly, there was no response to this decree; whether the reason was apathy or fear of treason and subsequent retribution we do not know. Leisler issued new writs on April 8, and this time an assembly was elected.

Zzzzzzz. When I have to read a book like this one, I am thankful that time will pass whether I get through it or not, and that no matter how painful my Thursday seminar may be, it will end eventually.

My favorite passage:
"Here in 1649 a group of Connecticut Indians attacked the tiny settlement and massacred Phoebe Halsey, the wife of Thomas. Her ghost is said to hover still over the house and its charming herb garden" (38).
I am intrigued by the idea that one can "massacre" a single person, but it's really the "charming herb garden" that gets me. Who ever said antiquarianism is dead?

New York Burning

Today, I am reading Jill Lepore's New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (2005). Actually, I'm reading a single chapter - chapter 5: "Water" - for my Tuesday seminar. Unlike many historians, who write books by smooshing together discrete essays, Lepore writes beautiful narratives. This makes for great reading, but lousy read-one-chapter-in-the-middle.

Anyway, here's page 123:

Horsmanden's role in the investigation can be uncovered, by careful reading and by placing the Journal alongside other evidence, like Horsmanden's letters and the surviving court manuscripts. But Horsmanden himself did his best to bury it. He had every reason to hide.

See? I appreciate suspense that doesn't involve wondering how many clauses the author can string together.

Professor Lepore teaches a course on historical writing, but she was on leave this past fall. I'm going to try to take it next time around.