11/24/2023 0 Comments Womens burial shrouds![]() ![]() It was upon this second site, “the African Burial Ground,” the new federal building was to be constructed. In 1697, three centuries before the 1991 excavation, Trinity Church, located a few blocks away, banned the burial of “Negro’s” in its graveyard, thereby forcing the enslaved to find another place to inter their deceased. And by investing in Southern plantations and military suppliers, New York City became so rich through the “peculiar institution” that in January 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, Mayor Fernando Wood proposed secession from the Union rather than lose cotton trade with the South. Through its burgeoning shipping businesses, insurance companies, sugar refiners and clothing manufacturers and retailers-supported by its equally burgeoning banking, accounting and investment firms-New York garnered some 40% of all the cotton revenue generated in the American colonies. This triangular trade route was astonishingly lucrative. Raw crops produced in the South were transported to the North, or to Europe, to be turned into finished products, the sale of which was used to fund more trips to Africa for the capture and purchase of more slaves who were then trafficked to America to further its economic growth. Stolen Africans were brought not only to grow cotton, sugar and tobacco in the South, but also to perform much of the hard labor needed to build towns, cities and railways. For varying periods throughout colonial history, every American colony had slaves. ![]()
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