The skeletal remains of more than 400 enslaved Africans from colonial times will be returned to New York and reinterred in lower Manhattan next month after five days of commemorative events.

The remains were discovered 12 years ago during construction of a federal building in New York. The African Burial Ground just north of City Hall was declared a landmark, though plans were delayed due to controversies and internal wrangling over administration of the burial ground project. The remains and other artefacts unearthed were sent to Howard University in Washington, DC, for scientific study and will begin their return trip from Washington on September 30 for reburial on October 4.

"New York city has a historic Ground Zero," said Howard Dodson, director of the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture, which in conjunction with the US General Services Administration organized the "Rites of Ancestral Return".

"This was a burial ground of 20,000 Africans of the 17th and 18th century," he told a news conference attended by local politicians, activists and the consuls general of Haiti and Angola.

Ceremonies will be held in Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia and Newark, as coffins carved in Ghana containing the remains of one adult male, one adult female, one male child, and one female child pass through on their way to the Wall Street pier site of New York's colonial slave market.

"The sacrifice and service to the city - voluntary and involuntary - to its development is worthy of respect, appreciation and commemoration like the city and state brought to the 9/11 victims," said Mr Dodson.

"This site is a sacred site to New Yorkers and Africans and the whole world."

Dr. Michael Blakey, head of the Howard University research team of more than 200, said an 800-page skeletal biology report was complete and that archeological and historical reports were forthcoming.

An external memorial adjacent to the burial grounds site is scheduled for completion in 2005.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/23/1064083000187.html