African American Cemeteries
While no African Americans are believed to be buried at the Call-Collins Family Cemetery, it is important to acknowledge the reasons for their absence and illustrate the cultural practices of African American burials. Despite their knowledge and contributions to the early development of Tallahassee, enslaved people were considered property and were not afforded the same respect after death as their white enslavers. Cemeteries, including Old City Cemetery and burial grounds on plantations, were strictly segregated.[1] Segregation is common in many historic cemeteries, and the Call-Collins Family Cemetery is no exception to this.
A study of African American cemeteries across Leon, Jefferson, and Gadsden counties in 1997 illustrated the influence of African and Euro-American burial traditions on African American grave markers in North Florida from the slavery era to the late 20th century. According to this study, while enslaved Africans restructured their own traditions around white Christian traditions – a result of their oppression, not a desire for change – they did not completely assimilate to white Christian culture. African American funerary practices had major differences from white Protestant traditions like those at the Call-Collins Family Cemetery, particularly in music and dancing and in the reading of the memorial service at regular Sunday service. Christians, in contrast, typically give the memorial service at the funeral itself. [2] In other parts of the country, such as Virginia, enslaved people would have “second burials” for family members of enslaved people on different plantations. This was also a continuation of some African rituals, where the second funeral focused more on celebration in connection with ancestral spirits.[3]
Because enslaved people had limited control over where, when, and how to bury their dead, and because of centuries of oppression and erasure from history, it is difficult to calculate how many African American burials took place during the antebellum period. To complicate matters further, many African American burial grounds have been destroyed during urban development in the 20th century. While today there are protections in place to prevent this, it is still difficult to determine how many African American burial grounds exist across America and what has already been lost. Even more difficult to determine are the locations of these burial grounds.[4] As a result, we are still discovering grave sites of enslaved people today. In 2019, the graves of at least 40 enslaved African Americans were found at Capital City Country Club in Tallahassee.[5] While we do not know the location of the graves of people enslaved by Richard Keith Call, we may yet recover them in the future.
[1] “Richard Keith Call | Grove.” https://thegrovemuseum.com/learn/history/call/.
[2] Robin Franklin Nigh, “Under Grave Conditions: African-American Signs of Life and Death in North Florida,” Markers 14 (March 1997): 159-163.
[3] Lynn Rainville, Hidden History: African American Cemeteries in Central Virginia, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. Chapter 4, loc. 1190-1240 (Kindle Version).
[4] Rainville, Hidden History, Chapter 1, loc. 189-207 (Kindle Version).
[5] Pat Mueller. “40 African American Graves Detected at Capital City Country Club.” WCTV.tv, December 12, 2019. https://www.wctv.tv/content/news/40-African-American-graves-uncovered-at-Capital-City-Country-Club-golf-course-566137251.html.