Many burial grounds for enslaved people remain unknown because slavery, the separation of families, and migrations after the Civil War prevented people from caring for graves or remembering their locations, and the erasure of these sites is a consequence of slavery and racial discrimination. At Monticello, this burial ground endures as evidence of deep family connections that withstood slavery and time. Long after slavery ended, descendants of people buried there, African American employees of Monticello, and other community members protected the sacred space by remembering its location and guarding it from damage, and their knowledge saved it in the 1970's when surrounding parking lots were built. In 2001, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation formally recognized the burial ground and began preserving it, and in 2022 the Foundation undertook a major renovation of the surrounding landscape in consultation with descendants of Monticello's enslaved community. Situated on a busy plantation road, the burial ground was visible and accessible to the plantation community, and its location away from known slave dwellings suggests shared use by many families. Because Thomas Jefferson enslaved over 400 people at Monticello, enslaved African Americans may have used other burial grounds on the plantation. Archaeologists identified 20 of the more than 40 graves thought to exist by recording visible depressions, excavating to document burial shafts, and establishing the burial ground's boundaries without disturbing the burials.