History of slavery in New York (state)
The trafficking of enslaved Africans to what became New York began as part of the Dutch slave trade. The Dutch West India Company trafficked eleven enslaved Africans to New Amsterdam in 1626, with the first slave auction held in New Amsterdam in 1655.[1] With the second-highest proportion of any city in the colonies (after Charleston, South Carolina), more than 42% of New York City households enslaved African people by 1703, often as domestic servants and laborers.[2] Others worked as artisans or in shipping and various trades in the city. Enslaved Africans were also used in farming on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, as well as the Mohawk Valley region.
During the American Revolutionary War, the British troops occupied New York City in 1776. The Philipsburg Proclamation promised freedom to enslaved persons who left rebel masters, and thousands moved to the city for refuge with the British. By 1780, 10,000 Black people lived in New York. Many had escaped from their enslavers who lived in both northern and southern colonies. After the war, the British evacuated about 3,000 enslaved people from New York, taking most of them to resettle as free people in Nova Scotia, where they are known as Black Loyalists.
Of the Northern states, New York was next to last in abolishing slavery. (In New Jersey, mandatory, unpaid "apprenticeships" did not end until the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery, in 1865.)[3]: 44
After the American Revolution, the New York Manumission Society was founded in 1785 to work for the abolition of slavery and to aid free Black people. The state passed a 1799 law for gradual abolition, a law which freed no living slave. After that date, children born to enslaved mothers were required to work for the mother's enslaver as indentured servants until age 28 (men) and 25 (women). The last enslaved persons were freed of this obligation on July 4, 1827 (28 years after 1799).[1] African Americans celebrated with a parade.
Upstate New York, in contrast with New York City, was an anti-slavery leader. The first meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society opened in Utica, although local hostility caused the meeting to be moved to the home of Gerrit Smith, in nearby Peterboro. The Oneida Institute, near Utica, briefly the center of American abolitionism, accepted both Black and white male enrollees on an equal basis, as did for women the Young Ladies' Domestic Seminary in nearby Clinton. New-York Central College, near Cortland, was an abolitionist institution of higher learning founded by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor, that accepted all students without prejudice: male and female, white, Black, and Native American, the first college in the United States to do so from the day its doors opened. It was also the first college to have Black professors teaching white students. However, when a Black male faculty member, William G. Allen, married a white student, they had to flee the country for England, never to return.
Gradual abolition[edit]
In 1781, the state legislature voted to free those slaves who had fought for three years with the rebels or were regularly discharged during the Revolution.[20] The New York Manumission Society was founded in 1785, and worked to prohibit the international slave trade and to achieve abolition. It established the African Free School in New York City, the first formal educational institution for blacks in North America. It served both free and slave children. The school expanded to seven locations and produced some of its students advanced to higher education and careers. These included James McCune Smith, who gained his medical degree with honors at the University of Glasgow after being denied admittance to two New York colleges. He returned to practice in New York and also published numerous articles in medical and other journals.[9]
In 1785, Aaron Burr introduced a bill in the state legislature for immediate emancipation that was defeated 33–13 . A more limited bill was soon introduced, providing for gradual emancipation, but restricting voting, prohibiting intermarriage and black testimony against whites. It was also defeated, 27–17.[21][22]
By 1790, one in three blacks in New York state were free. Especially in areas of concentrated population, such as New York City, they organized as an independent community, with their own churches, benevolent and civic organizations, and businesses that catered to their interests.[9]
In 1804, Captain William Helm, a Virginian, settled first in Sodus Bay and then in Bath with about 40 slaves, in an unsuccessful attempt to implant the plantation system in New York State.[23]
Starting in the 1830s, and particularly between 1850 and 1860, following passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, professional bounty hunters, vigilance committees, and the Underground Railroad could be found in New York. Abolitionist leaders such as David Ruggles, black and white, helped fugitive slaves escape to Canada or safer locations. One famous abolitionist leader and writer who was helped by Ruggles was Frederick Douglass. The cause was aided by white abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Sydney Howard Gay. Harriet Tubman made at least two trips to New York as a "captain" of the Underground Railroad.[24]
Right to vote[edit]
New York residents were less willing to give blacks equal voting rights. By the constitution of 1777, voting was restricted to free men who could satisfy certain property requirements for value of real estate. This property requirement disfranchised poor men among both blacks and whites. The reformed Constitution of 1821 eliminated the property requirement for white men, but set a prohibitive requirement of $250 (equivalent to $6,000 in 2023), about the price of a modest house,[32] for black men.[25] In the 1826 election, only 16 blacks voted in New York City.[3]: 47 In 1846, a referendum to repeal this property requirement was roundly defeated.[33] "As late as 1869, a majority of the state's voters cast ballots in favor of retaining property qualifications that kept New York's polls closed to many blacks. African-American men did not obtain equal voting rights in New York until ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in 1870."[25]
African Burial Ground[edit]
In 1991, a construction project required an archaeological and cultural study of 290 Broadway in Lower Manhattan to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 before construction could begin. During the excavation and study, human remains were found in a former six-acre burial ground for African Americans that dated from the mid-1630s to 1795. It is believed that there are more than 15,000 skeletal remains of colonial New York's free and enslaved blacks. It is the country's largest and earliest burial ground for African-Americans.[41]
This discovery demonstrated the large-scale importance of slavery and African Americans to New York and national history and economy. The African Burial Ground has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and a National Monument for its significance. A memorial and interpretive center for the African Burial Ground have been created to honor those buried and to explore the many contributions of African Americans and their descendants to New York and the nation.[42]
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