Leaders in South Carolina have approved plans to move forward with a housing construction project on a property residents believe to be gravesites for enslaved people.
The Anderson County Planning Commission unanimously approved the project with a 7-0 vote. The approval comes months after a judge stopped Spano & Associates, Inc.’s plans to build more than 100 homes on the former Rivoli Plantation in South Carolina, where dozens of gravesites are reported.
It’s a blow for some residents who went the extra mile to review the site.
At Least 15 Gravesites Found on South Carolina Property
“When those slaves died, they just took them out behind the barn along where the creek is, and they buried them,” Deacon Albert Simmons of New Holly Missionary Baptist Church told local outlet WSPA. “Those bodies are still there. Our slaves, our ancestors are still there.”
Fox Carolina reports resident Stanley Hix hired an archaeologist after the judge overseeing the case gave him 10 days in October to find evidence of gravesites. The developer reportedly also conducted its own search. Hix told the outlet at least 15 graves were found.
“The search of the property by me and the companies I hired found enslaved graves on the property,” said Hix.
“The search done by the developer in the summer of 2024 did not find any burial grounds.”
According to Esri, from the start of slavery in 1619 until emancipation, plantation owners set aside marginal plots for burial sites of enslaved people. Nearly a century after the Civil War, Black families also faced restrictions on burial locations because of laws that supported racial segregation.
Because of that, communities nationwide are rediscovering forgotten and lost Black cemeteries. Many sites are uncounted, unprotected, and rarely documented on maps.
Hix, a lifelong resident and landowner in Anderson County, has suggested taking the matter back to the courts.
“We’ll be back before the judge and we’ll let him decide if what they come up with in this decision is just or not. I don’t think the judge is going to be very happy with the county, or the developer for their actions,” said Hix. “They’ll be consequences.”
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