Forgotten Graves

Exploring the Racialization of Death in Black Nova Scotian History

[forgottengravesns]

Negro Cemeteries - Afua Cooper

A man walks on his farms

the morning after a thunderstorm

He sees broken headstones pushing through the earth

He rubs the mud off

and sees the inscriptions

like hieroglyphics

reveals names, dates, ancestry

a cemetery in a field of corn

The local museums say it’s an old ‘Negro’ cemetery

And all over

‘Negros cemeteries are surfacing

appearing in potato fields

appearing in wheat fields

appearing in fields of corn

Like Osiris they rise from the earth in green resurrection

African skeletons shake the dust from their bones

Skulls with rattling teeth

recite litanies of ancient woes

Tongues pout where none existed before

and speak in funerary language

Griots rise from their graves

and recount the stories of their journeys

Hafiz tongues uncleave

and recite the surahs of the dawn

Babalawos emerge from the storm

and divine with their shells and stones

I see the drummers they come

they run and they come

They play the talking drum

The bata drum

The long drum

The funde

The kente

sending electric messages across this land

Toussaint Louverture rises from his dungeon tomb

and prohesies blood and fire

and he says

“If a fire make it born and if a blood make it run”

And a woman names Dorinda sits on her tomb

a pipe clenched between her teeth

smoke curling from her lips

as she recites and recites and recites the stories of her many passages

and the stories of her many, many, many, many, many transformations

and all over

In Halifax in Havana in Montego

in Rio in Edmonton

in Kingston in Kingstown

they say

“Give us strengths. Give us strengths”

And we say

“Rise up fallen fighters rise up fallen fighters

Rise up, up, up, up, up, up”

This is a version of Afua Copper's poem 'Negro Cemeteries' from the book Copper Woman and Other Poems. This version was presented in a video published by CBC of the author preforming the poem.

[forgottengravesns]

Exploration of Camp Hill Cemetery - Pt 3 A Reflection

I spent some time wondering around the area and taking it in. The bareness of the land really struck me. To know that there were individuals in front of me with a name lost to time because they lacked a grave marker moved me. There was a sort of anger present too. Anger that this area wasn't recognized in the slightest. There was no sign, no markers, not even a simple note on the map that clarified what C-S meant. The area simply looked like another section of the cemetery that wasn't as populated.

I was very moved by how bare the coloured section looked in comparison to the rest of the cemetery. I wondered if perhaps many some of the missing grave markers were wooden and simply eroded. In Steven Burg's article titled The Material Culture of Pennsylvania's African American Cemeteries and Burial Grounds he notes how in some African American communities wooden grave markers were preferred.

"Wooden markers were the preferred method for marking graves in some communities. They were easy and relatively inexpensive to produce from a single painted or carved board or from two pieces of wood formed into a cross... They were intentionally frail and temporary, meant to eventually deteriorate and fall away. That style of simple, ephemeral markers may have been adopted in African American cemeteries..."

Though this article is in reference to African American cemeteries in Pennsylvania, I'm curious to know if the same logic can be applied to the Camp Hill Cemetery.

Prior to visiting the cemetery I read Elgin L. Kulgh's article titled Black Cemeteries as Archives. In the article the author highlights how there is a lack of visibility to black individuals in death. Klugh and their team start a memorial project to combat this at a cemetery in the US. Their three primary goals for the memorial project were:

(1) erect a permanent memorial in recognition of the several thousand African Americans interred at Historic Laurel Cemetery, (2) ensure the safety and stability of the site into the foreseeable future, and (3) educate the public about the rich history of the cemetery and the lives of those buried there. (Source)

I think a revised version of this goals can be applied to the coloured section of Camp Hill cemetery. A memorial or sign recognizing the site should be priority. It promotes historical awareness and education. Acknowledging the site on what it is educates visitors to the cemetery on the historical injustices of the time. It educates on how racism towards Black people is truly systemic and how it followed people not only in life but in death.

[forgottengravesns]

Exploration of Camp Hill Cemetery - Pt 2

It case you have not been there before, Camp Hill is a large and densely populated cemetery. I don't pass it often on my way into the downtown area, so I forgot just how densely populated it is. Walking into the cemetery I became intimated, it was so big and there were so many graves just how was I gonna find what I was looking for. Using the map I posted previously, I started my way towards what was marked as Division 1.

Arriving at Division 1 my first thought was that I was in the wrong spot. This article describes the coloured section as having around 200 grave sites and what I was looking at was way more than 200. Being a little confused, I pulled up google on my phone and decided to try and find to find some more information that I hadn't come across earlier. I didn't think I would be lucky, but I stumbled across the Find A Grave website for Camp Hill cemetery and I found this map.

I also found this tweet that says the C-S marked in Division 1 stood for coloured section. Sure I shouldn't be following the advice of a tweet, but what led me to trusting the tweet is that I knew the account belonged to Craig Ferguson. If you can recall, I linked a Dal Gazette article in my first post. In that article they are interviewing Ferguson, who they note as the owner of the account Dead in Halifax. That account is who posted the tweet I found, which led me to having a bit more faith that the information had a higher chance of being correct.

Now I had an exact spot to look for and, if you remember from part 1, I had two names to look for. The graves of Daniel Perry Simpson and William Parker would let me know I was in the correct area. I walked towards that corner of Division 1 and I noticed something immediately. The spot I thought could be the coloured section was bare in comparison the other sections.

These photos were taken in the coloured section.

While this photo was taken in sections labelled PP and OO on the map above.

I remembered how the Dal Gazette article discussed how many of the graves in the coloured section were without headstones. Now, I was seeing it with my own eyes. While I was saddened, I also felt a sense of motivation. The full story of Nova Scotia's racist and segregated past needs to be known, and I can contribute to this.

I started to walk around and within seconds I found the grave of William Parker. It was one of the few fully intact and legible headstones in the area. I started to notice the common African-Nova Scotian last names located on the tombstones around me (e.g., Sealy, Tolliver, Desmond etc.) I also noticed the military graves. On the graves was the regiment the individual served in, and many of them said NO.2 CONST BATTN, C.E.F. I read this book a couple years ago about the all-black No.2 Construction Battalion that participated in WWI. The graves of these soldiers solidified that I was in the coloured section.

The graves of soldiers who served in the No. 2 Construction Battalion.

As I looked around, in the slight distance I could see it. Daniel Perry Sampson's grave. There was something so poignant about Daniel Perry Sampson's grave. The last person to be hung as capital punishment in Nova Scotia and it was a black man. Knowing his story made me feel a little more connected to Daniel. This individual had a family that loved him. A family that grieved him, regardless of his potential actions. And in death, as he was in life, he was categorized and segregated by the colour of his skin.

[forgottengravesns]

Exploration of Camp Hill Cemetery - Pt 1

When doing my research on the Black experience of death in Nova scotia and the Maritimes, I ran into an article published by the Dal Gazette. Reading through it I found myself focused on the part of the article that discusses the historic segregation of black and coloured people in the Camp Hill Cemetery. This was news to me. I didn't know that right here in Halifax, a 15 minute walk away from the Saint Mary's University campus, was proof of Nova Scotia's racist past. I wanted to observe for myself what so many of the scholarly papers I have been consuming over the past few months talked about. But first, I had to locate the specific area were the coloured section lay.

Evidence of the coloured section wasn't too difficult to come across during my research. I simply started with google search of 'Camp Hill Cemetery coloured section'. Not many official websites came up, but there were multiple PDF's that showed up. Firstly, I came across this document that is supposedly the written transcript for audio tours of the cemetery. Not the most well-accredited source, but it was a start. The document let me know that the coloured section was at the south-east quardrant of the cemetery. Great start! The next source I found was a published outline for the Camp Hill Conservation Strategy. This document gave a photo of a map and also wrote that the coloured section could be found in division one.

Ok great. So now I have a specific location to go to in this enormous graveyard. But there was still one more question, how would i know I am in the coloured section? Being black in Nova Scotia myself and a bit of a history buff I was well aware of the prevalent last names of African-Nova Scotians. But identifying a black individual by their last names just isn't concrete enough. So I continued my research.

The Dal Gazette article linked above discusses the story of Daniel Perry Sampson, a black WW1 veteran who served in the All Black No.2 Construction Battalion who would be convicted of double homicide and be the last person in Nova Scotia to be sentenced to death by hanging.

"It is the story of a man who suffered from mental illness after serving in the war and was arrested for the murder of two young white brothers named Edwin and Bramwell Heffernan. Facing an all-white jury, Sampson was found guilty. He was the last person to be sentenced to death by hanging in Halifax. Questions still remain on whether Sampson truly committed the murder. The further injustice lies in the implication the real murderer of the two boys may have gotten away." (Source)

The article made clear that Daniel Perry Sampson was buried in the coloured section. His tombstone would be a marker to me that I am in the coloured section. I also came across this article, which discusses how another black WW1 veteran named William Parker was buried in the same section. The would be the two names that would guide me to the right place.

Now, I felt I had enough info to start. I would be going out to Camp Hill Cemetery to see for myself the segregation of black bodies.

[forgottengravesns]

The Who, What, Where, and Why

This blog was created in order to fulfill the unessay portion of my term project for the course Archaeology of Death. This unessay's intent is to explore the Black experience in death. I want to focus my research on understanding how Black individuals have been historically discrimated against in death and how this discrimnation is still visible today. My primary question I want to answer is 'In what ways have Black burial sites been marginalized in Nova Scotia?'

Who

This unessay's focus is on African-descended individuals in Nova Scotia. In this blog, I intend to show examples of the Black experience in death. II intend to present and explore the ways in which Black people have had systemic racism perpetuated against them in death. I want to understand and bring attention to the progressive or total loss of these Black spaces.

What

When exploring the Black experience in death, I am focusing my research particularly on Black burial sites. In particular I am looking at the Camp Hill Cemetery in Halifax. I intend to analyze the cemeteries conditions (or lack there of) and try to understand how systemic racism may have contributed to their conditions.

Where

The first Black man to lay foot on Nova Scotian soil was Matthew Da Costa in 1605. Between 1813 to 1816 some 2000 Black individuals would come to Nova Scotia, fleeing the Southern United States with promises of support and freedom from the British. They would come to find that racism, segregation, and discrimination was still strongly alive in Nova Scotia. (Source). My research focuses on these Black/African descended Nova Scotians and their ancestors.

Why

As a African-descended person that lives in Nova Scotia, I've learned a lot of the deeply rooted history of Black individuals in the province. I knew of how systemic racism and discrimination historically held ground here, and when the opportunity for this project arose I wanted to explore if and how those things manifested themselves in death in Nova Scotia. Learning about the different Black burial sites and just the conditions they were in saddened me. I felt a sense a determination to bring light to the topic of how Black people have been marginalized in death. Research was very limited on the specific topic of Black burial sites in Nova Scotia as a whole, and I feel bringing attention to the lack of recognition of Black burial grounds and their histories would make an impact to reperations between Black Nova Scotian's and the province of Nova Scotia.