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A genealogist scoured historical records for years to establish the identities of enslaved people who she believes are buried on the grounds of a planned $9.4 billion plastics facility in southeast Louisiana.
The effort is part of a long-running battle by local community groups, often descendants of enslaved people who worked plantations in St. James Parish and neighboring parishes, to halt industrial development and protect their cultural heritage.
Lenora Gobert’s research—published Monday by the environmental organization Louisiana Bucket Brigade and local community group Inclusive Louisiana—identified five enslaved people who had died at a former plantation now slated for a massive facility owned by Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group.
The five enslaved people were between the ages of 9 and 31 when they died. Gobert’s research shows most had been mortgaged multiple times by the plantation’s owners.
Few records exist containing details about their lives besides financial documents revealing how their owners leveraged them to generate more wealth, Gobert says. She believes the five enslaved people recorded as dying at the plantation were likely buried there due to plantation customs.
St. James and neighboring parishes have hundreds more potential burial sites of enslaved people, according to research from London-based research agency Forensic Architecture, which studied maps and aerial imagery to identify geographic “anomalies” indicating possible graves.
The Formosa property has at least one site with human remains, according to a 2020 archaeological report commissioned by the company. The report also stated that guessing the origins of the remains was “only speculative and possibly inaccurate.”
Formosa initially reported in 2018 that an archaeological survey it commissioned found no burial grounds. It later withheld information about the discovery of at least one burial site for more than a year, activists have said.
