...The burial site is on what was the Buena Vista plantation and was confirmed in a June report written by an environmental consultant hired by Formosa Plastics Group called TerraXplorations Inc. and obtained through the Texas public records law by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit legal group that is representing RISE St. James. The consulting company did an archaeological investigation of two sites on the Formosa property and found that the Buena Vista cemetery contained evidence of four human remains, eight potential grave shafts, and 14 posts or post holes. Among the objects found at the site were bones (including a crushed skull), wood fragments, and coffin nails. The consulting company did not find human remains on the other site and concluded that any possible burials there “have been destroyed by previous land use activities.” Because there are records of the plantations’ owners being buried elsewhere, the people who were buried at the Buena Vista cemetery are thought to be the slaves who worked on the plantations. ...

Read the full piece here.