NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) - The city of Newport is working with Brown University to create a digital map of one of the nation’s largest and most intact Colonial-era African burial grounds.
The city wants a high-resolution map of God’s Little Acre to serve as the foundation for future site management and exploration. Doctoral students from the Ivy League university are working on the project.
The Preservation Society of Newport County says the burial ground contains about 200 professionally carved headstones for enslaved and freed Africans from the 17th and 18th centuries, a time when African graves were typically left unmarked in the United States.
City officials hope the map will be ready next summer so it can be made available to the public through a smartphone app and online. Tours currently rely on a printed map.
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