Underground History

( It is not unusual for a modern construction excavation to yield an interesting archaeological relic or two, but this one was a treasure. The site was the southern tip of Manhattan, where workers last summer began preparing the foundation for a $276 million, 34-story federal office tower and pavilion. Twenty feet below the surface, the diggers uncovered a few human skeletons, then a few more -- and then more still. Archaeologists quickly found that this was no commonplace graveyard but one that early colonial maps called the "Negros Burial Ground," the interment site, from 1710 to 1790, of untold numbers of African slaves and some white paupers. As of last week, the remains of more than 400 bodies had been unearthed.

Sifting daily through the rubble, teams of archaeologists have found evidence to suggest that the burial ground -- the only such pre-Revolutionary cemetery known in the U.S. -- is one of the most significant discoveries of the century. Studies of children's skeletons, for example, indicate that as much as 50% of New York City's slave population died at birth or within the first years of life.

General Services Administration officials at first refused to halt construction of the skyscraper, but congressional intervention, complaints from New York's city hall and a shower of protests from black organizations forced the GSA to cancel its plans. The site is now part of a proposed historic district.