The Freedmen ter R. Chris Slavery on Manhattan Not least of the slave’s prerogatives was the right of litigation. On December 9,1638, a slave known as An- ew Amsterdam was settled in 1626 by a population thony the Portuguese sued a white merchant, Anthony whose ethnic diversity foreshadoweda permanentchar- Jansen from &lee, and was awarded reparations for acteristic of New York City. The largest and most damagescaused to his hog by the defendant’s dog. In the cohesive of the original groups of settlerswere the Dutch, following year Pedro Negretto successfully sued an the Walloons, and the blacks. Little has been written Englishman, John Seales, for wages due for tending about New Amsterdam’s black people, and most of that hogs. Manuel de Reus, a servant of Director General has been concerned with either the morality or the Willem Kieft, granted a power of attorney to the commis economics of slaveholding. Yet a remarkablenumber of at Fort Grange to collect fifteen guilders in back wages slaves were freed during the West India Company’s for him from Hendrick Fredricksz. Also in 1639 a white administration of the colony, and a considerablebody of merchant,Jan JansenDamen, suedLittle Manuel (some- information concerning some seventy individual freed- times called Manuel Minuit) and was in turn sued by men appearsin the surviving documentsof colony, city Manuel de Reus; both caseswere settled out of court. By and church? 1643 Little Manuel was having trouble with the aforementioned John &ales, whom he took to court on Initially there were few slavesin New Amsterdam,all November 19 and 26; Manuel de Reus and Big Manuel of them the property of the West India Company. Most testified that Seales had “cut the cow of little Manuel bore Iberian names? Originally captured by the Por- with a chopping knife, producing a large wound, and that tuguese along the West African coast and on the islands old Jan [Scales] drove many cows and horses into the in the Gulf of Guinea, they were being transportedto the swamp.” Seales was sentenced to pay a fine of 25 West Indies on Spanish slave ships when the company’s guilders and court costs and to pay Little Manuel for navy had taken them as prizes. Their early quarters on damagesto the cow. These casesillustrate the rights of Manhattan were situated five miles north of town; later a slave to own property, to work for wages, to sue or be they were housed in a large building on the south end of sued, and to give testimony in court.’ William Street near the fort.4 The men were employed as field handsby the Company, as well asin building and Criminal chargeswere seldom brought against slaves. road construction and other public works projects. The Minor infractions were undoubtedly punished by the women worked as domestic servants of company offi- owner or overseer and simply not reported to the courts. cials.’ Between I638 and 1664 there were only three trials of slaves recorded, all for capital offenses. In 1646 Jan Their servitude was involuntary and unremunerated, Creoly was convicted of committing sodomy upon ten but that is not to say that the slaves had no legal rights, year old Manuel Congo, for which Jan was executed by Their privileges (and responsibilities) were comparable strangling and his body burned. This is the only recorded to those of other non-citizens, such as resident aliens. instance of a slave execution at Manhattan and was due They could marry; the upkeep of the children was their to the particular senseof horror this crime evoked among own responsibility. When they were not at work for the the Dutch. Under the law any participant in sodomy,even Company they could hire themselves out for wages an unwilling one, could be put to death and it was only elsewhere.They could not own real property, but move- Manuel’s youth that saved him; nonethelesshe was tied able property was allowed and they were permitted to to a stake and wood piled around him as a warning, he raise their own crops and animals on Company land. was forced to witness thedeath of Jan Creoly, and finally They could bring suit in court and their testimony would he was caned.* Similarly Lysbeth Antonissen in 1664 convict free whites. Each of these rights and duties is was sentencedto death for deliberately burning down the important to our study.6 house of her master, Marten Cregier; the sentencewas 157 158 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS immediately suspendedwith the provision that Lysbeth Pieter Santomeand Jan Francisco. The reasonsgiven by be put through the preparations for an actual execution: Director General Kieft and the Council include service she was chained to a stakeand subjectedto the rest of the to the Company for eighteen or nineteen years, a long- preliminary procedure for strangulation and burning. standing promise of freedom, “also, that they are bur- Afterward shewas sold at auction.g Yet it is worth noting dened with many children, so that it will be impossible that in both thesecases mercy was granted to a slave who for them to support their wives and children as they have by law could have been put to death. been accustomedto in the past if they must continue in the honorable Company’s service.“’ ’ Before proceeding With this for a background we can examine a third to the terms of freedom, which were not absolute, it is case, involving several persons who will be of further worth examining the reasonsfor the grant. interest. A slave named Jan Premero had been killed on January 6,164 1, by nine other Company slaves,Included Rather than the concept of lifetime servitude, the idea among the accusedwere four persons previously men- expressedhere is that the longer one has served,the more tioned, Big Manuel, Little Manuel Minuit, Manuel de deserving he is of freedom. There were no regulations to Reus, and Anthony Fernando Portuguese.The namesof that effect, so that other records contain examples of the others were Little Anthony, Paolo d’Angola, Gracia slaves being freed after widely divergent terms of ser- Angola, Simon Congo, and Jan from Fort Orange. Ac- vice, but the implicit sense of the document is that cording to the court records the defendants, without faithful slaves earned the right to be free. The statement being tortured, freely confessed that they had jointly that theseparticular eleven had long been Ipromisedtheir committed the murder. Further interrogation failed to freedom shows that this was not a sudden whim of the indicate that anyone had acted as their leader, nor did administration, but rather a policy whose intention was they know which of them had struck the blow that known to both master and slave. actually caused the death of Jan Premero. The Director General and Council were undoubtedly perplexed. They The other reason given for the granting of freedom- found the idea of a massexecution unthinkable (certainly that these men must be able to earn wages in order to both for humanitarian reasonsand for the attendant loss maintain their families at their accustomedstandard of of experienced laborers). Yet all nine could hardly be let living-implies that the maintenance of the family was off Scot-free;the chief malefactor, whoever that might of greater importance than the perpetuation of the state be, should be punished. The court resolved to have the of slavery. Kieft and the Council did not realize that was prisoners draw lots, thereby leaving it to “Almighty God, what they had in effect said: the point would be brought maker of heaven and earth, to designatethe culprit.” The to their attention. lot fell to Manuel de Reus who was thereupon sentenced to death. Two nooses were placed around his neck and Under the terms of the grant, the men and their wives he was pushedoff a ladder. Both ropesbroke, whereupon were freed “to earn their livelihood by a,griculture” on the bystanders called for mercy. Faced with this bizarre land to be granted them. There were, however, condi- turn of events the court reconvened,and after extracting tions. First, the men were required to serve the West India promisesof good behavior and willing service, pardoned Company in New Netherland “on land or water, Manuel and all his accomplices.” wherever their services are required, on condition of receiving fair wages from the Company,‘*and they were It is worth noting that in a criminal proceeding slaves guaranteed that they would not be required to work in were given full rights of citizens including the right to any of the Company’s other colonies. They were not free trial and the opportunity to testify. They were not tor- from Company service, but they would be paid for it. tured, although testimony so extracted was admissable. Finally, although Manuel had been sentencedto hang, A secondstipulation was that each man had to pay the Dutch compassion spared him from facing the ordeal West India Company annually thirty schepels of grain twice. and a fat hog worth twenty guilders, or forfeit his freedom.‘2 In essence the eleven were given lifetime Freedmen and Landowners leases to themselves. This requires some explanation, The nine pardonedmurderers apparently fulfilled their since we must differentiate between two degrees of promises of good behavior and three years later were freedmen in New Netherland. Those such as we have granted partial freedom, along with two men named here were often called “half-free” or “half-slave” in the THE FREEDMEN OF NEW AMSTERDAM 159 records. Others were granted absolute freedom extend- ance with a promise heretofore made by our predeces- ing to their descendants.’ 3 sors,” freed Jan Francisco the Younger becauseof his long and faithful service, provided that he pay an annual The third condition of the grant, certainly the most acknowledgementof ten schepels of wheat.t7 It is worth controversial even at the time, decreedthat any children, noting how long it took the government to move on a “ .