This cemetery has served Arrow Rock's African American community for more than 150 years. In Missouri, many communities maintained designated cemeteries for African American burials as part of segregation. Oral history passed down through Emmanuel Banks's family held that this cemetery was set aside for enslaved people before Dr. John Sappington's death in 1856. It contains about 350 burials, many now unknown, and burials before 1865 were likely unmarked. After emancipation in 1865, generations of African Americans connected to Arrow Rock continued to use it. Its varied gravestones reflect the community's economic and social status over time as well as its burial traditions, and its simplicity stands in stark contrast to the ornate cemetery for white members of Dr. Sappington's family only one quarter of a mile away. By 1880, African Americans made up more than half of Arrow Rock's population. Their labor helped a rich farming society prosper before the Civil War, and Arrow Rock's Black residents made lasting contributions, though segregation forced them to build their own social and religious customs, schools, and burial practices. Those buried here include John Thomas Trigg, the first African American teacher in Arrow Rock born a free man, who taught from 1890 until around 1926, though the location of his grave is unknown; James C. Van Buren, the last person buried here in 2012, a jazz and blues musician born in Arrow Rock in 1935 who performed widely in America and Europe with artists including Lou Rawls; and members of Emmanuel Banks's extended family, including Ruth Banks, a historian for Arrow Rock's Black churches, and Robert Banks, known locally for crafting corn shuck rope chairs. African Americans also constructed several buildings and features in and around Arrow Rock, including the stone gutters on Main St. in the 1850s, Brown's Free Will Baptist Church in 1869, and the Masonic Lodge No. 22 of A.F. & A.M., also known as the Brown Lodge, in 1881.