Ellis Camp (No. Unknown)
Site Brief:
Founded: 1878
Location: Sugarland, TX
Additional name(s): Sugar Land 95 Burial Ground
Affiliate group(s):
The Convict Leasing and Labor Project
History:
The Sugar Land 95 are the 95 African-American individuals unearthed during a construction in Sugar Land, Texas, 30 miles southwest of Houston. Archeologists found evidence that the 95 individuals were incarcerated under the state of Texas' convict leasing system and were buried in unmarked graves.
The first bone was found in February 2018, by a backhoe operator clawing through the dirt on land owned by the Fort Bend Independent School District. By the summer, the remains of 94 men and one woman, all African-American victims of convict leasing, had been recovered on the future site of a career and technical education center. Ranging in age from 14 to 70, the inmates had muscular builds but were malnourished, their bones misshapen from back-breaking, repetitive labor. They were buried in plain pine boxes sometime between 1878 and 1911.
