He has been fighting for recognition for African-American convict laborers, whose role in Texas history, he said, has been mostly forgotten.
Moore, who lives nearby and had long suspected such graves might be hidden there. The discovery was particularly gratifying for Mr. “They were really doing a lot of heavy labor from the time that they were young,” said Catrina Banks Whitley, a bioarchaeologist who is analyzing the bones.īecause of that, she said, it is possible that some were former slaves. Their bones show stress from poor health during childhood, such as fever and malnutrition, and stress from repetitive work later in life. So far, the results show that the men who were buried there lived difficult lives, researchers said. In June, a judge granted permission to exhume the remains. Today, the Fort Bend Independent School District is building a technical high school on the site of a former sugar plantation that later served as a state-run prison farm.Īfter construction workers spotted human bones in February, archaeologists eventually discovered the cemetery on the site, according to court records. During this time, prisoners helped build the Capitol building in Austin and constructed part of the Texas State Railroad. White prisoners, he said, were often assigned easier work indoors.įrom 1870 to 1912, 60 percent of prisoners in Texas were black, according to the Texas State Historical Association. He noted that vagrancy laws at the time made it so that blacks were often convicted of minor offenses, such as loitering, and sentenced to years of hard labor in the fields. It was “more or less slavery by a new name,” said Reginald Moore, a historian and prison reform advocate who has studied convict leasing in the Houston area. Texas first “leased” out prisoners for caretaking on plantations and later took over the land as state-run prison farms, Mr. The researchers estimated that the cemetery, which was on the plantation’s grounds, was used from 1878 to 1911. This week, archaeologists announced that the bones were most likely those of African-American laborers who worked as part of the so-called convict lease system, in which the state of Texas outsourced prisoners to work and live on plantations. The remains of about 95 people were discovered early this year on a construction site outside Houston, where the Fort Bend Independent School District is building a new school, according to school district officials and court records. That finding, announced Monday, opens a window onto a little-remembered period in which black people in certain Southern states were essentially treated like slaves post-emancipation. 1 US Gen Web Archivesīethany Cemetery, Ver.The remains of dozens of people found at a construction site in Texas this year are most likely those of African-Americans who were forced to work on a plantation there around the turn of the 20th century, officials said this week. Percent Photographed Iron Ore Cemetery Find a Graveīethany Cemetery, Ver. Loftin-McLain Cemetery US Gen Web Archives 2 US Gen Web ArchivesĬamp & Clement Cemetery US Gen Web ArchivesĬherry Mound Cemetery US Gen Web ArchivesĬoffman-Layne Cemetery US Gen Web Archivesĭripping Springs Cemetery US Gen Web Archives 1 US Gen Web ArchivesĬalvary Cemetery, Ver.
Greenwood/Jenkins Cemetery US Gen Web ArchivesĬalvary Cemetery, Ver. Texas, Select Headstone Photos, 1850-2005 (includes headstones from Grayson county) Ancestryīell`s North Cemetery US Gen Web Archives Pilot Grove and Old Pilot Grove Cemetery inscriptions WorldCat Percent Photographed Magnolia Cemetery Find a Grave Percent Photographed Blair Cemetery Find a Grave
Lost, abandoned, family and small community cemeteries : along the Red River Valley in northeast Texas, in Fannin, Grayson, Collin, Red River, Delta, Cooke, Hunt and Lamar counties, a compilation of cemetery listing copied between 19 Family History Library Grayson County, Texas, cemetery inscriptions and related family data WorldCat Grayson County, Texas, cemetery inscriptions and related family data Family History Library Grayson County, Texas marriages, 1846-1877 WorldCat Grayson County, Texas cemetery records WorldCat Grayson County, Texas cemetery inscription and related family data WorldCat Census of Collinsville Cemetery, Grayson County, Texas WorldCatĬensus of Ethel Cemetery, Grayson County, Texas WorldCatįamily trees grown in the Christian Chapel Cemetery : alias: Needle Ridge, Sadler, Texas Grayson County Family History Library
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