After gaining state approval, the University of Richmond has begun excavating graves on campus that might belong to enslaved workers who lived on a plantation there 180 years ago.
The state’s Department of Historic Resources on Monday approved UR’s application to excavate, and work began immediately, said Joanna Wilson Green, an archaeologist who oversees cemetery preservation for the department.
It’s too early to speak about what officials have found there, Green said. The university expects to know more in the next two weeks, added Cynthia Price, a spokesperson for UR.
The university has known since 2020 that its campus on the western edge of the city contains a cemetery of enslaved workers. UR plans to build a memorial there to commemorate them.
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Earlier this year, workers relocating utility pipes nearby discovered discolorations in the soil in neatly arranged blocks. University officials met with a group of descendants and possible descendants of the enslaved who asked the university to rebury the remains at the memorial.
Last month, the university applied for a permit to excavate the graves with shovels, trowels and picks. The school hosted a public hearing, which drew no comment from members of the public, Wilson said.
Before approving such applications, the state looks at whether the applicant has hired an archaeologist, whether it has developed a plan for the work and whether it has discussed the excavation with people who could be affected.
UR hired Henrico County-based archaeologist Timothy Roberts and Team Henry Enterprises, a contractor. The university’s permit lasts for one year, which allows for any complications, delays or revisions that may occur after work begins, Wilson said.
Price said the school is following the process outlined with the state.
“We’re also working to be very respectful of the descendant community,” said Price, who declined to make a university official available for interview.
Officials will update the descendants on what has been found before providing information to the general public. The university has committed to “respectful and honorable treatment” of any human remains discovered, according to its permit application.
On Friday morning, the work site, near the intersection of Richmond Way, Gateway Road and Westhampton Way, was quiet. An excavator sat behind a chain-link fence and black wind screens.
Before it was the University of Richmond, the campus was a plantation called Westham, owned by Ben Green, a prominent Richmond businessman and slave owner who had 492 acres of land.
University founders knew about the cemetery when they bought the land in 1910. A topographical map drawn in 1901 marked the existence of a graveyard on a slope of land between what is now Fountain Hall and Richmond Hall.
More graves were discovered in the 1940s and 1950s, and historians believe the remains were exhumed and placed elsewhere.
Decades later, knowledge of the graves had been forgotten until they were rediscovered around 2020 by a researcher named Shelby Driskill. She pieced together maps, newspaper clippings and university correspondence to locate what has become known as the “burying ground.”
The university has installed a historical marker to identify the spot.