Bullhead Camp Cemetery Marker. Credit: James Hulse, HMdb.org
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, expect as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
This part of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery has been subject to debate for generations due to its scope. In the years after the Civil War ended, the clause—and the subsequently passed “Black Codes”—were exploited by those still trying to subject African American and Black people to a life of slavery.
To work within the law, many African American individuals in the south were “convicted” of trumped-up charges and forced into convict leasing camps. The conditions here were akin to slavery—they were shot, beaten, starved and more.
One such camp was the Bullhead Bayou Camp in Sugar Land, Texas. Whether in the grueling Texas summer heat or cold and wet winters, the individuals were forced to complete heavy labor. And when deaths inevitably occurred, the individuals were stripped of any identification and interred in makeshift graves.
In February 2018, while building a career center in Sugar Land, the first set of human remains in a mass grave from the Bullhead Bayou Camp were discovered. Those remains and 94 others buried there became known as the Sugar Land 95. (Researchers actually ended up recovering 101 remains.)
At ISHI 35 last month, Meradeth Houston Snow—who runs the Forensic Anthropology program at the University of Montana—gave an update on her team’s efforts to restore the names of the individuals who died at that labor camp between 1875 and 1911.
“These individuals deserved better, and we’re hoping through this project to be able to do that,” said Snow during her presentation.
Anthropology, historical records and DNA
The first set of human remains were discovered on Feb. 19, 2018. On June 6, large-scale exhumation began to uncover as many individuals as possible. With community approval, two teeth were withheld from each individual for genetic testing. If there were no teeth, a small amount of bone was retained before reinterment—which was completed from November 24 to 30.
“There was a very short period of time to exhume all the burials to ensure respect,” said Snow. “Extensive anthropological analysis of each of the burials were done in an attempt to find different identifying markers, sex, things like trauma, and [anything] in the overarching patterns of the skeletal remains that help us better understand what was going on at the convict camp.”
Take burial number 39, for example. The remains indicated a male adult of about 5’11”. Anthropological notes indicated multiple traumas: a healed fracture in the right wrist, gunshot trauma to the left hand, and a callous formation on his ribs. The most egregious trauma, though, was his below-the-knee amputation. At exhumation, anthropologists noted saw marks on the bone and other indications that the amputation is likely what killed the man.
Then, in what little records remain from the time, researchers found a death record with the cause of death listed as “effects of leg amputation.” The man in burial 39 weas the only one with such an amputation. The record indicates his name was Sebe Froche. He was 61 years old, originally from Georgia. He had been convicted of theft of property. The record also seems to indicate he was part of an escape attempt—which possibly led to him losing his limb and life.
While the circumstantial evidence certainly points to burial 39 being Froche, DNA work will still be completed as confirmation. There were a lot of identifying traits in this specific set of remains—along with historical records—but that’s not usually the case.
“Anthropology and records can tell us a lot, but they can only go so far. Genetic information can help,” said Snow. “The Sugar Land community has been seeking DNA evidence to identify the individuals from the start.”
Tentative identities
After reburials, a lab was contracted to help identify the remains, but they did not manage to give back a single name in 5 years. So, about one year ago, Snow and her team at the University of Montana were brought in.
Obtaining permissions from the Texas Historical Commission and Texas Archeological Research Laboratory took the better part of a year, but Snow’s lab was finally sent materials a few months ago.
“We are working as fast as we can to reestablish identities,” she said.
Snow’s lab uses the Kintelligence Kit and the MiSeq FGx next-generation sequencing kit. The bones are over 100 years old and highly degraded, so the team is not getting—nor did they expect to get—amazingly high DNA yields.
“We’re getting very low DNA concentrations at the picogram level. However, from all of the samples, we have managed to obtain profiles that have been between 73-99% of the >10K SNPs. There has not been a sample yet that has been below the threshold needed to create a GEDmatch report and run it through the database,” explained Snow.
She said the GEDmatch Pro comparisons are yielding matches of 4th degree relatives—to be expected due to these individuals living 100+ years ago. The number of matches range from 4 to 45 for each Sugar Land individual.
In fact, the team already has tentative identities for the individuals they have data for. The non-profit Principal Research Group is reaching out to living relatives of the possibly identified.
Snow and her team will keep analyzing the DNA samples taken and comparing with GEDmatch for familial ties and extensive genealogical work. Snow, who is extremely active in the Sugar Land community, also said she will launch a community push to get more individuals in the hyperlocal area into GEDmatch PRO in hopes of increasing the probability of matches as her lab works toward identifying as many Sugar Land 95 individuals as possible.