The remains of 95 people discovered in Texas belong to black people forced to work on plantations, it has been reported.

An unmarked cemetery was discovered on land where a new career and technical centre is being built for the Fort Bend Independent School District.

It is believed the bodies, found in Sugar Land, southwest of Houston, were buried between 1878 and 1910.

At that time, the area comprised prison camps and sugar cane plantations.

Each body was buried in an individual wooden casket, CNN reported, and all but one was a man. The ages of the buried people are believed to range between 14 and 70.


It is believed the men were heavily built and had been doing hard manual labour.

Artifacts including chains have also also been recovered, which may have been used in chain gangs.

Image: Archaeologists have been examining the area. Pic: Twitter/@FortBendISD

The people are likely to have been African-American prison inmates forced to work under the state's convict leasing system, which provided prisoner labour to private parties such as plantations and corporations.

The person hiring the prisoners was responsible for feeding, clothing, and housing them.

Despite the fact that slavery had been outlawed by the time they were buried, many black people were still less than free.

Exhuming a body takes about two days, followed by eight hours of cleaning and up to 15 hours of analysis.

Since the initial discovery was made in February, 48 sets of remains have been exhumed.

Analysing all 95 is expected set to take around nine months.