As a Midwesterner, I grew up believing that slavery only happened in the South and that the northern states, especially New England, were all abolistionists at heart. That changed when I started working on a project in Rhode Island. I always like to research places if I’m going to be spending a lot of time there and I was shocked when I read Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island and learned that Newport was one of the busiest slave ports in the young nation. I also learned that Rhode Island outlawed slavery earlier than most states, but I did not realize what an internal struggle it was until I read Sons of Providence, a book about the Brown brothers and their role in the slave trade.
My readings, along with a course I was taking in African American Deathways as part of my thanatology degree at Marian University, inspired me to search for African American cemetaries in Rhode Island. God’s Little Acre is part of the Common Burying Ground on Farewell Street in Newport. Their website, which is run by the 1696 Project, does an excellent job of telling the history of African Americans in Rhode Island so I won’t repeat it all here, but will hit some of the highlights.
Enslaved Africans began being transported to and through Newport in the 1600s and by the time of the American Revolutionary War, Newport had a significant population of Africans who had gained their freedom. These free African-Americans created the country’s first Free African Union Society to support black people in Newport. One of the key duties of the society was to record births and deaths of African community. The society also ensured the burial of its members.
One of the unique features of God’s Little Acre is that many of the people buried there have carved tombstones, which was expensive and unusual for both free and enslaved Black people at the time. In addition to serving as monuments for the dead, these tombstones also represent some of the first signed art by African Americans. God’s Little Acre’s website includes photos of a number of gravestones. Many of the tombstones are in disrepair and some of them were carved of slate, a material that does not weather well in the harsh New England winters.
Like many Black cemeteries across the United States, God’s Little Acre fell into disrepair and it wasn’t until the 1980s that the town and civic groups began to clean it up and to refurbish gravestones. The site is featured on the National Trust for Historic Places website where you can read about efforts to refurbish the site and donate to its restoration.
My daughter and I spent a sunny afternoon in March 2023 wandering among the tombstones and imagining the people buried beneath our feet, some of whom had lived over 300 years ago. The gravestones were beautiful, but some of them were so hard to read because years of harsh New England weathers had worn away the lettering. However, even if we could not read their names, we were able to bear witness to the fact that they had lived and died.