The African Burial Ground

On October 9th 2009, my class and i went on a trip to The African Burial Ground. The African Burial Ground is a sort of cemetary that was used in the 16 and 17 hundreds to bury African American slaves. The African Burial Ground is important to people because maybe people would like to know about their ancestors.
While at The African Burial Ground, our tour guider played a short film about The African Burial Ground, and how it was first discovered in the 1990s. The African Burial Ground was discovered by construction workers who, were building a building. They found bones, old jewelry and more. They also built a wall so tall, so that people wouldn't have know what going on. Then the word got out to someone who reported it to Fox News. Fox News had a helicopter fly right over the wall and report on what was happening behind that wall.
When people found out what was going on, how do you think they felt? They felt mad, disappointed and very upset. Why? They were very upset because when you go to a real cemetary it's quiet and peaceful so all souls can rest peacefully. New york is not the right place for that. When you look around New York, you see cars, mostly people, and you hear alot of noise. So, that wasn't the right place to bury them.
What i learned that day made me think about how miserable and hard Frederick Douglass' life as a slave was. I found out that when slaves were captured they were shipped somewhere on a boat for about 3 months with no food, water, shackled and no where to go to the bathroom. Also, boats back then were really cramped and i cannot imagine people shackled on the with some of them dying, and having to go to the bathroom on theirselves, and and probably even giving birth. I also heard that they were sometimes punished by getting whipped or hanged. That's what i learned from The African Burial Ground.