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• 1 2023-07-21T13:23:59-07:00 Student Health Center Cemetery 10 plain 2023-10-27T10:46:42-07:00

  With the discovery by Professor Andrew Sluyter, a geographer at LSU, and Sarah Seibold, an intern working under him, of a Reveille article from 1938 detailing a burial site at the site of the present Student Health Center, it reveals an important part of the history of LSU’s campus.
  LSU’s campus was built on the site of three plantations: Gartness, Magnolia, and Nestle Down.[1]
  
  Professor Sluyter has dedicated much of his research to discovering whether LSU had cemeteries of formerly enslaved people on campus after recent scholarship at other universities in the American South uncovered cemetery sites. According to Professor Sluyter, he found LSU’s cemetery using the surveyors’ documents detailing the land of the former Gartness Plantation in 1918.[2]
   
  When he made this discovery, he hired a research assistant, Sarah Seibold, who searched for a crucial Reveille article regarding the cemetery site while looking through the archives at Hill Memorial Library. It described the finding of human remains behind the Music and Dramatic Arts building in the summer of 1938.[3]
   
  The Reveille article, “Unearth [sic] Old Cemetery on Student Hospital Site” by Henry F. McGraw, from June 21, 1938, notes that there were three graves discovered at the burial site.[4] There were several leg and arm bones discovered as well as ribs and two skulls.
   
  But the article notes that the graves were not buried with a system. McGraw notes, “It is evident that no special system of burial was used in those days for some of the graves extended in one direction while another beside it would run in an opposite direction.”[5] In addition, he states, “Even at that time [when LSU purchased the land on which the current campus is on] the fact that a cemetery stood here was not known.”
   
  It can be inferred that these burial sites discovered in the late 1930s were unmarked and forgotten. And Professor Sluyter, using his knowledge of where the owners of the surrounding plantations were buried as well as the location of the campus on the former Gartness Plantation, could infer that these burial sites were of people who were enslaved.[6] 
  In May 2022, to commemorate this finding, several members of LSU’s Diversity Committee in the School of Social Work decided to hold a West African libation ceremony to honor the enslaved people buried on campus.[7]
   
  A powerful moment during the recording of the ceremony was Professor Sluyter’s naming of 32 enslaved people who worked on the Gartness Plantation.[8] It is difficult to hear that children as young as three suffered on the land we use today. But it is a crucial reminder that many more enslaved people have been forgotten, and Dr. Sluyter’s research is crucial in acknowledging the daily horrors they faced.
  
  Here is a picture of a list of names Dr. Sluyter provided during the ceremony.
   
  Professor Andrew Sluyter’s research and the libation ceremony helped recognize the importance enslaved people had in the history of the land our campus stands on today. It is not well-known that the land generations of LSU students and faculty used every day once held enslaved people on it. Their names must ring in the mind of everyone who comes to campus. The sacrifices and suffering of enslaved people still have an impact on the lives of their descendants today, and everyone should keep that in mind the history of LSU’s campus was not perfect. Sadly, it was full of injustices toward communities of color.

   

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  [1] Stephens, Charlie. “Understanding the Full History of the Land That Became LSU.” The Reveille, July 5, 2022. https://www.lsureveille.com/opinion/opinion-understanding-the-full-history-of-the-land-that-became-lsu/article_d2191bdc-fa65-11ec-8c28-c7b6fbbf9fd2.html.

  [2] Frewin, Nick. “LSU Professor Says Student Health Center Built atop Plantation Cemetery.” The Reveille, LSU’s student newspaper, July 31, 2021. https://www.lsureveille.com/news/lsu-professor-says-student-health-center-built-atop-plantation-cemetery/article_c8236728-f24f-11eb-beec-4fd47f92987e.html.

  [3] Frewin, 2021.

  [4] McGraw, Henry F. “Unearth Old Cemetery on Student Hospital Site.” The Reveille, June 21, 1938, Volume 42 edition. LSU Special Collections.

  [5] McGraw, 1938.

  [6] Frewin, 2021.

  [7] Scott, Maddie. “Ceremony to Honor Plantation Slave Workers Buried on Campus Grounds Led by Faculty, Students” The Reveille, May 14, 2022. https://www.lsureveille.com/news/ceremony-to-honor-plantation-slave-workers-buried-on-campus-grounds-led-by-faculty-students/article_8688fcda-d2e9-11ec-948f-0b9d36cdbd77.html.

  [8] LSU Social Work Diversity Committee Video on Enslaved Peoples’ Libation Ceremony, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzDrG8Wmpqs.