It is probable that practices differed between the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries and even between different times in those centuries.
As Henry noted, plantation practices and urban practices were no doubt
different as well. So I don't think that it is possible to generalize.
However, there may have been locations that were preferred by the enslaved
as opposed to slave owners, which is another consideration.

Martha Katz-Hyman
Curator
Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation
Williamsburg, VA


On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Terry Meyers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
>         Several of us at the College are are renewing efforts to find the
> College's burial ground for those it enslaved.   Several questions come to
> mind:
>
>         Is there any conventional or usual connection between the location
> of a slave quarter and a burial ground for the enslaved?  Any standard
> distance, for example, separating the two, or any preferred kind of
> location for the burial ground?
>
>         Somewhat relatedly, was there a law or custom that required owners
> of the enslaved to bear the cost of their burial?  The W&M archives have at
> least one receipt for a coffin, provided to Lemon (after whom the College's
> Lemon Project is named).  And a local undertaker's Daybook and Ledger that
> I co-edited some years ago has many invoices to owners for the burial of
> those they had enslaved.
>
>
> http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/?p=collections/controlcard&id=7710
>
>         Was this a regional custom or was there some mandate in Virginia
> requiring it universally?
>
>         Thanks.
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Terry L.. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, College of William and
> Mary, Williamsburg Virginia  23187              757-221-3932
>
>                 http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/
>
>                 http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>        Have we got a college?  Have we got a football team?....Well, we
> can't afford both.   Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
>
>                                                        --Groucho Marx, in
> "Horse Feathers."
>
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