Monticello home of Thomas Jefferson near Charlottesville, VA

Monticello Graveyard

July 2010

African-American Graveyard at Monticello Historic Site.

A sign here reads:

Buried in this graveyard are more than 40 of the nearly 400 men, women, and children who lived in slavery at Monticello from 1770 to 1827. Although the names of Monticello's enslaved residents are known, it has not been possible to identify the individuals buried here.

African-American graveyards are considered the first black institutions in North America, and were expressions of the separateness slavery created. This burial ground became a sacred place that reinforced the human ties that bound together the members of Monticello's enslaved community.

At a commemoration ceremony at this site in 2001, Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP, addressed the audience, observing that the enslaved had been buried here as property, but that "we honor them as people."