The seventh American president, Andrew Jackson
28 new graves of people who were enslaved by former US President Andrew Jackson were found.
Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the USA, between 1829 and 1837, during which time enslaved almost a hundred people.
During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Jackson trafficked people between his home in Nashville and other parts of the American South, and slavery was one of the main sources of his wealth. When he became the seventh president of the United States, took people he enslaved to the White House.
In 1804, Jackson purchased 172 acres of land in Nashville and named the property The Hermitage, where they are now found. 28 graves of people who were enslaved by Jackson.
As the investigation leader explained, Tony Guzziin , despite the land having changed hands over the last few decades, that location has remained as intact as possible over the last 180 years“.
What archaeologists have now discovered was a cemetery in January, about 305 meters from the plantation’s main house, on a slight hill beside a stream, after experts used maps, surveys and aerial images to identify the site. graves referred to in a 1935 report.
“The location of these remains is a stark reminder of what this landscape was and what it represented – historically, a white elite spacea plantation and a place of slavery sustained by hard work and the sacrifice of black bodies”, he explained, to , Carlina de la Covaa bioarchaeologist at the University of South Carolina who was not part of the investigations.
“Our work here is just beginning,” he said. Jason Zajacpresident of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, cited by the same magazine, highlighting that, in the future, more graves may still be found.
Pam Kobanchairman of the board of the Andrew Jackson Foundation, says in the statement that the cemetery “will become an educational landmark central to the history of the Hermitage”.
The Foundation is working to bring together an advisory committee of historians and descendants of people who were enslaved on the property to help make decisions about how to preserve and present the site.
For nearly a century, more than 300 people were enslaved by the Andrew Jackson family.
