Brown’s Reaper’s Garden and the African Burial Grounds

Brown’s Article Reapers Garden talked about many things, such as the harsh treatment of living slaves and the harsh treatment of the bodies of slaves. The Article talked about ways in which Europeans could enforce their power onto the slaves. The main way these Europeans decided to enforce their dominion over these slaves is by “making a spectacle of their corpses.” These terror tactics were used to scare slaves into obedience. The reason why these tactics were thought to be effective was these tactics were to attack Africans spiritual beliefs. The bodies of these dead Africans were symbolic, they symbolized what was to come after life and made slaves think what the meaning of it all was. Of course these tactics had some backlash, essentially becoming a requirement in the society slaves had become apart of. In addition to that Slaves of this time were starting to end their lives in order to end the harsh labor, social isolation, and did it in an attempt to return to their “ancestral lands”.Recently I took a trip to the African Burial Grounds in lower Manhattan. Once there i discovered that in 1697 British law banned Africans from having burials in the New York public cemetery. For this reason the African Burial Grounds are “north of the city limits near a ravine.” The reason why this burial ground is significant to the Brown article is, it shows the relation African had with their dead. It shows that they believed in the afterlife, in their culture, and putting their dead to rest in some way.