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Sandy Ground, a multi-media
installation of sound, sculpture, and cyanotype prints,
was based on the history of an oystering community.
In the early 1800s a number of blacks newly freed from
slavery came to Staten Island and to the community of
Sandy Ground in particular from the Eastern shores of
Virginia and Maryland. They were fleeing increasingly
oppressive laws and hostility. Although Staten Island,
then known as Richmond County, had plantations sustained
by the labor of black slaves, a 1799 New York state
law was passed that gave freedom to the slaves who were
born after that year. Those already enslaved were to
become free in 1827.
In the early 1900s the oyster beds were closed because
of pollution from New York and New Jersey. The oystermen
sought other kinds of work in neighboring towns and
states. Today, the skeletal remains of what was once
the prosperous community of Sandy Ground includes an
old church and cemetery surrounded by a few mostly abandoned
houses.
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