When you disturb the earth… Ancestral memory awakens.
Some Perspectives from History and Archaeology
By, Dr. Tara Inniss
Our ancestors believed that from the moment of birth, we are not only tied to our mothers but also to the land. The invisible and material cord that connects mother to child -- a child's lifeblood before and during birth once severed continued to have profound spiritual power that could be tied to the land. When Bajans gather around the world, they proudly say their "navel string is buried right here" -- in Barbados. Often with great care it is planted under a fruit tree in the belief that it will guarantee the child's future prosperity and self-reliance -- the spiritual and material bond between mother, child and landscape is sealed. Similarly, if care is not taken in burying the umbilical cord and the land around it is disturbed by the forgotten strike of a spade or a foraging animal, it is said that the child will also be disturbed later in life. This is the lesson of our birthright in the Caribbean. It stays with us in a quiet but powerful way throughout life and ends/ begins in death. It is a lesson that never leaves us.
When you disturb the earth at birth … it follows you.
In a known place of burial, we return to this tacit knowledge. It bubbles to the surface having been suppressed or swallowed to render these meanings powerless. The Empire builders have stripped this knowledge from our consciousness... but alas it is undying. It is there and never leaves us.
When you disturb the earth in death … it follows you
When I was a student assisting with rescue archaeology at Fontabelle slave and free burial ground in the 1990s with Dr Karl Watson with contractors ready to bulldoze the city’s historic burial ground to make way for Government’s Small Business Development Centre, I returned daily to my residence at UWI and was immediately and resoundingly told by every woman of Caribbean nationality that I lived with, to leave my trowel and shoes at the bottom of the stairs at the entrance to our building. The only word common to everyone's phrasing was "duppy" and that my tools and shoes had been somewhere with unknown spiritual power. I didn't fight it. It didn't seem irrational. I don't even think there was much discussion and certainly no opposition. I just did as I was requested. These were women my age or younger -- not older women tied to the lore of a past age.
We were – connected
When you disturb the earth … generations do not forget
The common mythology of archaeology is that archaeologists look for land to disturb -- to excavate. This is no longer the case. Our material culture and its setting are safer and better preserved in situ in an undisturbed landscape. In fact, quite the opposite often occurs for student and teacher archaeologists. It is not easy to find locations to learn the practical skills for archaeology. They often rely on accessing sites that are otherwise being developed -- usually for economic purposes -- to put some of these skills into action. In jurisdictions with robust antiquities or cultural heritage legislation, archaeological assessments are usually required in the development process – sometimes before and after development begins. An archaeologist is there to assess and determine context and value for further archaeology. Often projects are unknowingly strengthened by relying on these capacities. The African Burial Ground National Memorial in New York City, for example, started as a project to build a federal office building. Human remains were found. An archaeological assessment was done which ended up uncovering “the most important urban archaeological project in the United States” – a forgotten/ remembered/ forgotten 18th century burial site for an estimated 15,000 African-Americans in the heart of New York City. There was some fumbling in planning circles about what to do with the information. But it was the African-American community who spoke out to point the project in a different direction. The civic building was erected partially over the intact archaeological site and a memorial and interpretative centre was built. Archaeology was centred – not destroyed in the development.
When the people you call archaeologists disturb the earth … people will remember
In the Caribbean we think of funerary architecture as being just that -- something built. Something somewhat lasting on our landscape. Tangible reminders of the past importance of names, people and families. But our ancestors did not have full access to resources to build lasting reminders that are often built in European sand and stone. They used the knowledge of birthright. Spirit was tied to the land and maybe the planting of plants or trees became important signifiers to people who either placed as much value on botanical markers as more lasting ones and/or they just used what was available. Regardless, our monuments to our departed ancestors are not typically marked on our landscapes and in fact, in many cases they no longer exist at all. Prof. Jerome Handler, an American anthropologist conducted an extensive survey of sites labeled “Negro Burial Grounds” or other pejorative or euphemistic names used on the island’s field maps when he was looking for more sites like Newton. He could not find the physical evidence of their survival at the time likely due to deep ploughing as arable land was returned to sugar cultivation.
We fashioned memorials. You do not see.
But the work and the honor and the sweat are no less there. Limited excavation at Newton in the 1970s revealed that several burials were hand-hewn -- with coralstone scraped out by living family members to bury individuals and families and then backfilled with soil and limestone. That effort to carve a space out of a blood-stained landscape is no less meaningful than obelisks towering in the sky. That effort -- that work is buried, but no less there... and maybe it is even more profound because of the lack of equipment and little free time to build them faster and more opulent. Some burials had intricate assemblages of grave goods. Some were in coffins. Some were not. They are no less there, and Government-funded Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) studies in 2021 and 2022 confirm that the burials are near, on and beyond the boundaries of the site currently owned by the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS).
When you disturb the earth of a known sacred space… take great care
We began with birth. We have spoken about death. Let’s return to the sites of living… burial grounds tell us so much. Archives can tell us some more. Voices – we have few. But where people lived can tell us volumes. When you have an opportunity to explore the spaces in which the people you have learned about in a burial ground lived – the sites of slave villages, you do the work of finding, unearthing, and remembering. But first you stand at the threshold of the living and the dead, and you humbly ask to disturb. You feed. You replenish. You honour. You repeat. Living communities share in the work to revere. They are not left out. You certainly do not scrape the earth to build parking lots and monuments to the very people you wish to memorialize without first trying to learn about a past that is so vulnerable and fragmented that it breaks and scatters under the weight of excavators and compactors.
When you disturb the earth... you ask for permission.
When the soil – ancestral remains – is removed once again without understanding, you lose opportunities to connect the worlds of the living and the dead. In archaeology, context is everything. When you remove artifacts from the earth surrounding them, they become difficult to date, assemble and interpret in an already broken landscape with an already broken past.
When you disturb the earth and you ask us now to sift through our past,
we are like beggars looking for crumbs, who only find dust.
You can’t feed your people dust.
A few weeks ago after construction work was underway enveloping the Burial Ground of the Enslaved at Newton, coming right up to its boundaries disturbing the land without the permission of our ancestors, large Sahara dust plumes shrouded the island in a haze. I learned from a recent talk delivered by geologist/ geophysicist Dr. Brian Whiting (who has been doing non-invasive geophysical mitigation work at Newton with GPR trying to sense what has been lost) that our very clay soils that intermingle with the limestone base of our island have their origins in Africa. The burial shafts that he has studied in Barbados have a distinctive profile of limestone and clay collapsed on to what is likely human remains. The clay is formed from parent material from Africa which our ancestors mined to make earthen vessels for the manufacture of sugar and daily use as they worked the land day and night (except maybe at Christmas) – the very shards of which we want to find at Newton and elsewhere. It is the same material that our artists today use to create and inspire as they shape a new future.
When you disturbed and exposed the earth leaving us without answers,
Africa sent a shroud to cover us because you could no longer
see.
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As you may be aware, I have a deep personal and professional interest in the Burial Ground of the Enslaved at Newton. I have worked very closely with the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS) and communities on low impact projects to interpret, enhance and protect its development as a sacred space and a Site of Memory for the Slave Trade and Slavery. I have served as its Chair of the Newton Development Committee. However, I have written the above and provide the below appeal as an Historian and Heritage Practitioner. I am not speaking on behalf of the BMHS and I hope they will provide their own comment.
There has been no confirmation of when works began around the Burial Ground for the Enslaved at Newton for Phase One of the Newton Ancestral Memorial, but the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS) was not consulted when works began. Requests were made to developers prior to development in the planning application process to ensure adequate protections for the burial ground as a sacred space and sensitive archaeological site. Requests were also made to ensure pre-construction archaeological assessments were carried out in the area known as the “Upper and Lower Negro Burial Yard” or slave village and that archaeological monitoring be in place as soon as works began. Developers were also encouraged to engage with multifaith practitioners to ensure that they were included as stakeholders and involved in decision-making regarding the site’s development and management.
A Committee Member saw works underway on Saturday, December 14, 2024 and reported it to Museum officials but by Monday, December 16, 2024 boundaries for the burial ground had been encroached and the areas known as the “Upper and Lower Negro Yard” had been excavated with heavy equipment. No archaeological monitoring was in place. Although the efforts of developers to engage the relevant archaeological experts to assess and mitigate damage are underway, I am concerned about the lack of engagement with the public, especially the faith-based communities who use the site.
Communities of descendants have not been included in this project. This is a key area of concern for Caribbean archaeologists working with sites with human remains and is encoded in the International Association of Caribbean Archaeologists (IACA) Code of Ethics.
I look forward to an effort to pause, reflect, acknowledge and heal the land of trauma so that we all can move forward more resolved to honor our ancestors with intention and reverence and to help find peace. If you wish to learn more about how you can make your voice heard, consider reviewing, signing and sharing this petition.
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