Tomb of the Unknown Slave

Parishioners designed the monument themselves. It stands in the church garden as a cross of large chains with smaller chains at its base, and it honors enslaved people who died before emancipation. The church's own history places it on the site of the Tremé Plantation House, where enslaved people lived for centuries. The marker was dedicated on October 30, 2004, and was donated by Sylvia Barker of the Danny Barker estate. Inside, the pews of both side aisles of St. Augustine had been bought for enslaved worshippers.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Congo Square — 0.3 mi
  The 2.35-acre corner of Louis Armstrong Park where, from 1817, New Orleans confined Sunday dancing by enslaved people to one place, and where crowds of hundreds gathered to drum, dance and trade.
• St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 — 0.5 mi
  New Orleans' oldest surviving city of the dead, opened in 1789 after the fire of 1788 and the burial place of Homer Plessy, reachable only on a guided tour since March 2015.
• The Cabildo — 0.5 mi
  The Spanish town hall on Jackson Square, finished in 1799, where Louisiana changed flags in 1803 and where the state Supreme Court sat in the same room until 1910, Plessy v. Ferguson among its cases.
• The Historic New Orleans Collection — 0.6 mi
  A French Quarter museum and research center founded in 1966, whose 2015 Purchased Lives exhibition took on New Orleans' place as the largest slave market in antebellum America.

More markers nearby

• Saint Augustine Church, New Orleans — steps away
• First Recording Studio of Cosimo Matassa — 0.2 mi
• Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong — 0.2 mi
• Mahalia Jackson — 0.3 mi