Has old masonry been found with the bodies of slaves inside?
Upvote:0
Not the United States, but to my astonishment I did find a reference to this exact practice:
Tibet Human sacrifice was practiced in Tibet prior to the arrival of Buddhism in the 7th century.[c] Historical practices such as burying bodies under the cornerstones of houses may have been practiced during the medieval era, but few concrete instances have been recorded or verified.[86]
It says 'few instances' which presumably means that some have been verified. I haven't looked at the book it's cited to. It could be that the author had heard these stories and decided to borrow them in his attack on US slavery.
Cornerstone or no, retainer sacrifices are a known phenomenon in some slave societies. This often meant burying them or walling them up alive in the tomb of their dead master.
Probably not the US, but you never know.
Upvote:4
I believe the question has taken literally what was meant in a more metaphoric manner. The moral I see represented in this anecdote would be along the lines of (my interpretation)
the foundations of American society has been built (in a very antichristian manner) upon the bodies of dead slaves.
Concerning actual construction techniques, there is no way for a person to end up inside a solid cornerstone, (one of the corners of the spiritual house), and if one were hollowed out to hold a person it would loose the structural integrity needed to support a building.
Comments and the question bring up cavities in concrete, but construction utilizing concrete in the US wont become common until much later in the 19th century. Portland cement, the main component in modern concrete, wasn't patented in England until 1824 (after the 'no later than 1820' time frame of the story).
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