African Burial Ground, African Burial Ground National Monument African Burial Ground A Sacred Space in Manhattan From about the 1690s until 1794, both free and enslaved Africans were buried in a 6.6-acre burial ground in Lower Manhattan, outside the boundaries of the settlement of New Amsterdam, later known as New York. Lost to history due to landfill and development, the grounds were rediscovered in 1991 as a consequence of the planned construction of a Federal office building. New York's African Burial Ground is the nation's earliest known African and African American cemetery. An estimated 15,000 men, women and children were buried here between the late 1600s and the mid 1790s. More...