YORK COUNTY, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Four hundred eighty-one enslaved African Americans were honored Saturday on the 800-acre historic Brattonsville Plantation in McConnells, South Carolina.
Winthrop University students and researchers found the plots during an archaeological examination using ground penetrating radar on a five-acre plot on the property.
Historians say it’s one of the largest enslaved burial grounds in the Carolina Piedmont. Several members of the Brattonsville descendant community, both black and white were emotional thinking about its significance.
“It is long overdue. We are giving voice in a way to men and women who didn’t have a voice, who were not able to learn to read and write, who were not able to tell their own story,” said Dr. Lisa Bratton, a fifth-generation descendant of slaves on the property.
Her distant relative Sarah Spratt was also in attendance but looking through a different perspective. Bratton’s ancestors were the owners of the plantation. She says she didn’t know about the cemetery despite coming to the plantation as a young girl.
“The focus when I was a child was on my ancestors, the white ancestors and the enslavers. And there’s been… I think a new and better telling of a fuller history in recent years. And I want to be part of that. I want to be part of including everyone’s story, not just the white owners so to speak,” Spratt said.
The cemetery has been the focus of many years of ongoing research organized by Culture & Heritage Museums, stewards of the 800-acre site.
Actively engaged throughout the process, descendants of the interred chose to name the cemetery the “Enslaved Ancestral Burial Ground.”
The Brattonsville Descendant Community elected to honor their ancestors by placing markers at each of the 481 graves and had planned a reconsecration ceremony.
“Approximately 25 years ago I learned that I am a descendant of a family that was enslaved on the Bratton plantation – the Crawford family,” says Margaret Crawford Parson Willins, who also serves on Culture & Heritage Museums’ board of commissioners. “The descendants had conversations about restoring the cemetery for several years before a grant was received for the project. We have been adamant that we owe to our ancestors the preservation of their legacies, for it is on their shoulders that we stand. My journey in witnessing this project come to fruition has been an emotional roller coaster – from sadness and anxiety to anticipation, pride, and excitement. I am thankful to God, to the descendants, and to the individuals at Culture & Heritage Museums for making the Enslaved Ancestral Burial Grounds a reality.”
The reconsecration will also mark the return of the original headstone for Watt, an enslaved man and local American Revolutionary legend. To recognize his role in winning American independence, upon his death, the Bratton family erected a marble headstone for Watt and his wife Polly – a rare occurrence at the time for people of African descent. The original headstone was vandalized, but has been restored by Culture & Heritage Museums’ Preservation Team and will be placed once again at the burial ground.
Watt’s story is an essential component of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution that is interpreted during Historic Brattonsville’s annual reenactment of the Battle of Huck’s Defeat.
Archeology, security, access, and interpretation of the Enslaved Ancestral Burial Ground at Historic Brattonsville has been financed in part with state funds from the South Carolina American Revolution Sestercentennial Commission.
QCNEWS.COM
HONORING BLACK HISTORY
