OF OLD NEW YORK
Slave Burials in New York

W. L. Calver

Directly on the line of Tenth Avenue near its junction
with 212th Street in the fields of Inwood about thirty
rude stones may be seen projecting a few inches above
the sod. These stones are partly enclosed by a semi¬
circle of wild pear trees which have been permitted to
grow and furnish shade for the cattle which represent
Manhattan Island's last herd. The regularity with
which these stones have been placed is not at first appar¬
ent, and a careless observer might easily pass them with¬
out notice; indeed, few residents of Inwood know of
their existence; yet they marl<: human graves—and real
slave graves at that. Within a stone's throw of this
burial place is another where lie the masters of these
poor blacks. It was a custom, more forcible than law—
though laws there were, too—that the servant could not
be consigned to consecrated ground. For further proof
of this one need only stroll out the Hunt's Point Road to
where that thoroughfare first reaches the Sound, and
there where rest other ancient lords and masters of the
soil in the "Hunt and Legget burial ground" may be seen
the usual adjunct—a slave plot—just across the roadway.

By a singular coincidence these two reminders of slav¬
ery days in New York are most inappropriately situated.
The fields of Inwood encircled by the surrounding
heights are like a vast amphitheater in whose arena was
fought one of the most disastrous battles in the struggle
for American Independence. The human chattels in¬
terred subsequently in the blood-bought soil were not the
property of Loyalists.    There is quite a touch of irony in

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