This article has been reproduced as originally published. BNT now uses the term ‘enslaved person’ instead of ‘slave’.
Before Emancipation in the mid 19th century, slaves and free blacks were usually buried in a part of the churchyard that was separate from the white burial area. It has long been known that in the case of Warwick this was in the place now called the Rubber Tree which is on the opposite side of Middle Road from the parish church.
Susette Harriet Lloyd in the early 1830s wrote, “The Negroes have, at their own expense, laid out a very good burying-ground, as they are not permitted to be interred in the churchyard belonging to the whites. It lies in a cedar grove planted with rows of trees, and has some neat tombstones.” Both free persons and slaves were buried here.
Slavery ended in 1834 and by 1903, when the photograph below was taken, the area was described as the ‘old graveyard’ although it still shows on the 1898/1901 Savage map as part of the graveyard of St Mary’s Church. Much of the land south of Middle Road was swampy so the graveyard was limited in size and subject to flooding, and its use was probably discontinued long before 1927 when the church bought an additional acre to north of the church itself for use as a cemetery.
As late as the 1950s children going to and from Sunday School at the nearby Lough Memorial Hall often saw bones, and even Skulls, protruding from the graves after rain. At an unknown time the church arranged that the remains should be exhumed and placed in a common grave in the main graveyard near the church. It is believed also that some families arranged at their own expense for the remains of their ancestors to be moved to the main graveyard.
The area gradually became overgrown and was used as a dumping ground until in the 1960s it was deemed necessary to improve the junction of Middle Road and Khyber Pass and some of the land was needed for this purpose. The church was not able to provide deeds so a special Act of the House of Assembly was passed in 1969 enabling just under half an acre to be sold to the Bermuda Government for road improvements and maintenance of the area. At that time there was a commitment to erect a ‘tablet’ commemorating the graveyard and those buried there. Either then or later the section shown in the photograph was excavated to create the current level space and there were many complaints that the area was being improperly used.
The cedar trees mentioned by Susette Lloyd in her book have long since disappeared and it is not known when the rubber trees were planted. It is surprising that they flourish in an area known to be swampy.
The new Post Office on an adjoining piece of land was opened in mid 1981 but the commitment to erect a tablet commemorating those buried in the old graveyard had still not been honoured.
In December of that year Senator Charles Bean requested that a proper monument similar to the Jervis Bay memorial on Albouy’s Point rather than just a tablet should be erected and this was agreed by the Board of Public Works. It has not been possible to establish an exact date for when this actually happened.
However collegiate memory in the parish is strong that the area was a graveyard for slaves and other black people and should be treated with respect.
The site is included on the African Diaspora Heritage Trail, an officially designated UNESCO Slave Route Project.
Bermuda Architectural Heritage Series: Warwick published in Bermuda in 2020, available from the Bermuda National Trust www.bnt.bm
