Earlier this month archaeologist Jeffrey Shanks said tests indicated with “a high level of confidence” that approximately 40 unmarked burial graves lie on the grounds of Capital City Country Club in Tallahassee, Florida.
“The preliminary results of this testing appear to confirm the presence of a cemetery at the site,” Shanks said in a release after a month-long test operated by the National Park Service in coordination with Capital City staff and the city of Tallahassee near the seventh hole on the property.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, records suggest the cemetery is associated with the former Edward Houstoun Plantation, which operated from the 1830s through the Civil War. Approximately 80 slaves worked the plantation land, and it’s believed the formerly enslaved stayed on to work the land as agricultural laborers after the war.
“The cemetery likely includes burials of enslaved persons who worked on the plantation,” said historian Jonathan Lammers, who researched the site. “It may also include burials dating to the post-Civil War period, when formerly enslaved persons living nearby continued to use the site.”
Shanks said two acres (7,000 square meters) of property were surveyed by not only using ground penetrating radar (GPR), but also two trained human remains detection dogs who confirmed the presence of human remains.
“GPR, in cases like this, will not pick up all of the graves,” said Shanks. “It is safe to assume there are more graves present than what the (radar) is showing.”
A known gravesite is currently maintained by the country club and exists in an area that is not commonly disturbed by golfers.
What’s next
“A hundred years ago when the golf course was constructed there was certainly no technology to decipher what was or wasn’t here,” said Jay Revell, Capital City Country Club’s resident historian. “It’s fair to say that the golf course is one of the reasons why this burial ground has been preserved as well as it has for so long.”
Delaitre Hollinger, executive director of The National Association for the Preservation of African-American History & Culture, Inc., and immediate past president of the NAACP in Tallahassee, is heading the efforts to memorialize the burial ground at the course.
“They deserve much better than this,“ said the 26-year-old Hollinger, whose ancestors were enslaved in Tallahassee’s Leon County. “And they deserved much better than what occurred in that era.”
From the Tallahassee Democrat:
Shanks said it was important to note the cemetery at the golf course “is not an outlier —there are many hundreds of these abandoned and unmarked historic cemeteries across the state, many of them African American … It is a major statewide issue that needs to be addressed.”
Archaeologists found 120 coffins in what is believed to be the first African-American burial ground in Tampa in September. Then in November, another 145 caskets were discovered in Tampa at King High School.
“The discovery of these graves at the Capital City Country Club will be an important part of the statewide conversation on how to best protect abandoned African American cemeteries,” Shanks said. “I would not, however, recommend any excavation or ground disturbing activities. These burials are not under threat of development or other disturbance and, in my opinion, should be left in place if possible.”
According to the Associated Press, there are no plans to exhume or disturb the rediscovered remains at Capital City Country Club.
“I want us to be accurate and truthful in the story we tell,” said Hollinger, who doesn’t want the site “to be prettied up.”
Shanks agrees: “Personally, I would like to see them memorialized in some way, so they are not forgotten to history.”
Contributing: Associated Press, Tallahassee Democrat.
