April 17, 2006
18th-century black burial ground in New Hampshire
Amateur historian Valerie Cunningham was sure she knew what lay buried beneath Chestnut Street.Now the site's finally been excavated; read about it here.Forty years of combing through old documents for clues about this small seaport's black history told her what physical evidence did not: that a few blocks from the trendy downtown shops, buried and all but forgotten below the brick and asphalt of Chestnut Street, lay the remains of Portsmouth's earliest black inhabitants, freed and enslaved.
"You can park on it, if you've got a quarter," said Miss Cunningham
Posted by David on April 17, 2006 2:31 PM
Part of the mythology that New England children absorb along with their oatmeal is that slavery was limited to the South and the New England states were a haven for blacks. A moment's reflection: the Underground Railroad would not have been secret by necessity if that were true. Those who helped slaves to Canada (my ancestors among them) ran the risk of being burned out and killed along with the escapees, if caught. Still, though, the North had a higher percentage of anti-slavery opinion than did the South. So there is a grain of truth to the mythology.
Posted by: Sarah on April 17, 2006 2:54 PM
cronaca.com