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."

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html