Slavery in New York

15 RE-EXAMINING Slavery in New York BY A.J. WILLIAMS-MYERS he South was not the only area of the Under both Dutch (ca. 1609–1664) and English (1664–1776) rule, and even into the early decades United States complicit in slavery. Two of American independence (1783–1808), wealthy hundred years before the Civil War, the New York gentry participated in all aspects of the T slavery spectrum: from the Atlantic shipping trade North, particularly New York, was also a will- of transporting Africans for future enslavement, ing participant in the buying, selling, and to buying and selling slaves, to owning slaves on enslavement of Africans during slavery’s family land in New York. The Frederick Philipse most active era (late 1600s through 1700s). family of Westchester and New York City, for example, ran ships directly to coastal Africa and the island African labor contributed not only to the of Madagascar. A story has it that one of those enormous wealth New York State had accu- ships attempted to avoid import duties by disem- barking a number of Africans at Rye, New York mulated at the start of the Revolutionary and then marching them overland to the family’s War, but also to the prosperity that New York upper mill at Tarrytown. merchants and the landed aristocracy Not every free New Yorker owned slaves, but those that did held, on average, between one and enjoyed from business, including slaving. three (see tables, based on 1790 Census figures, Some of the state’s most reputable and polit- showing a comparison of selected New York and South Carolina counties and the percentages of ically influential citizens—the Rensselaers, slaveholding families). Although the numbers of Philipses, Schuylers, Beekmans, Livingstons, slaves never reached those of the South on large and van Cortlands—owned slaves. These plantations, a few of the manor lords owned a significant number. On a trip through the Hudson families, possessing huge manor lands, River Valley in the early 1790s, an English visitor benefited from slave labor for genera- remarked that “many of the old Dutch farmers…have tions—their own and their slaves’. 20 to 30 slaves [and] to their care and management every thing is left.” New York in 1771 had the largest percentage of slaves in the North, about 10–12% of the population. In that year, the total population Background: Philipse of the Province of New York was 168,007, of whom Manor Hall, Yonkers, NY, by Benson J. 19,873 were slaves. By 1790, the total enslaved Lossing, ca. 1860. population in New York was over 21,000. www.nysarchives.org 16 FENIMORE ART MUSEUM, COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK. – PHOTOGRAPH: RICHARD WALKER ut who were those histori- century a significant number “My wife desires her chiefly to Bcally silent ones transported were arriving directly from keep the children and to across the Atlantic on the Africa. The ship Oswego out of sow…[preferably] one that infamous “Middle Passage,” who Jamaica, upon arrival in New appears to be good natured.” were chained in subhuman York in August of 1741, carried In both urban and rural conditions in the holds of ships a consignment of twelve cultures, a division of labor and who faced a lifetime of enslaved Africans for Philip existed between male and servitude at their destinations? Livingston. Two later slavers, female, although there were In the chilling words of one of the Rhode Island and the chores that both could do. the discoverers of the sunken Revenge,both sailed directly Women were often cooks, slaver Henrietta Marie (see from Africa in 1749 and 1751 housecleaners, washerwomen, sidebar on page 18),“One pair and carried consignments of and nannies for their owners’ thirty-eight and fifty-two children, as well as integral African captives respectively producers of linens and wool- for buyers in New York—the lens for home consumption NEW YORK IN 1771 HAD THE LARGEST latter for William Beekman. and the colonial markets. Men Along the river wharves in were waiters, butlers, coachmen, PERCENTAGE OF SLAVES IN THE NORTH, New York and up the Hudson and skilled craftsmen such ABOUT 10 –12% OF THE POPULATION. to Albany, Africans were bought as carpenters, masons, and and sold out of taverns and wheelwrights. Children were a grog houses or at designated vital link in this work chain. An markets. One of the most English visitor to the homes of of shackles was extremely notorious open-air markets Chancellor Robert Livingston small, suitable for a child or was along the East River at the and his mother, Margaret perhaps a young woman.”The end of Wall Street. In Albany in Beekman Livingston, in Dutchess captured were men, women, 1682, an African male was sold County in the early 1790s children of all ages, and very for “the sum of 50 good, whole observed children at work often whole families. Those deliverable beaver skins, but alongside adults: who, during the Middle Passage, failing of beavers…good, “Four black boys, eldest died, suffered from disease, or marketable winter wheat, or about 11 or 12, the youngest mutinied—in other words, the peas.” Gerard G. Beekman of about 5 or 6 years old, clean economically useless—were New York City wished, in 1748, and well dressed but barefooted thrown overboard. to purchase “…a young negro in a livery green turned up with Although the largest wench and child of 9 months. red, waited about the table number of enslaved Africans If she is likely brisk and no bad [during breakfast]…. Three imported into New York were quality the two will fetch fifty black men in livery waited at from Caribbean islands such pounds or more.” Cadwallader dinner and the boys before as Jamaica, Barbados, St. Colden of New York City and mentioned, their children. It is Christopher, and Antigua, by Newburgh sought to purchase not unusual for female blacks the middle of the eighteenth a thirteen-year-old female. to wait…”. NEW YORK archives • WINTER 2002 Van Bergen overmantel. African 17 Americans are part of this early New York farm scene, painted on a length of cherry wood by John Heaten between 1730 and 1745. Preliminary archeological African was the tenuousness thought to be part of another century by the enactment of findings from the African Burial of slave families, which at any such uprising. But after a New York’s slave code, the Ground in lower Manhattan time, given the nature of the preliminary hearing conducted Duke’s Laws, first published in show that over one-third of institution, could be broken up by Robert Livingston, Sr. and 1664 and amended periodically the African population during or dissolved. Cadwallader some county magistrates, it was beginning in 1674. These laws the eighteenth century Colden did exactly that in 1717. determined that the murder were a British attempt to undo, consisted of children under In a letter to a friend on the was the sole act of a heartbro- or at least undermine, an air of sixteen. Adulthood for the island of Barbados to whom ken, vengeful father: Dykeman liberalism that the British felt enslaved was usually defined he sent slaves, Colden wrote: had sold Ben’s daughter off the existed in the colonies and that as beginning at age ten; after “I send by this vessel, the manor to one of Livingston’s carried with it an enslaved 1746, it was sixteen. In 1712, Mary Sloope,Capt. Edward kin in New York City. status of “half-free,”at least under when the total African popula- Harely Commander, a negro The actions of Ben and of Dutch rule. Such laws moved tion of New York City was 975, woman and child…she is a others like him were part of a to tighten the parameters of 34% were children; in 1746, good house negro…. Were it continuum of African resistance slavery, making an African/black- with the African population at not for her allusive tongue, her to slavery. Such resistance skinned individual synonymous 2,610, 44% were children. By sullenness…I would not have was fueled in the eighteenth with a slave. A repercussion 1771, when the population parted with her…I have several was 3,137, 36% were children. of her children I value and I 1790 CENSUS One non-labor role that know if she would stay in this some enslaved children country she would spoil them.” NEW YORK SOUTH CAROLINA Percent Percent assumed was that of personal Since slavery was a violent Slaveholding Slaveholding companion to slaveowners’ act, and as long as one race County Families County Families children. An example of this held another in bondage factotum status is the life of against its consent, the institu- Albany 11.93% Abbeville 24.91% the enslaved African, Caesar, on tion remained highly volatile. Clinton 1.60% Beaufort 61.28% the Bethlehem estate of the Thus interpersonal relations Columbia 12.38% Charleston 70.23% Rensselaer Nicoll family, eight between masters and slaves Dutchess 10.06% Chester 22.12% miles below Albany. At his were unpredictable. One area Kings 61.14% Claremont 42.50% death in 1852 at the age of 115, where the differences remained Montgomery 6.10% Clarendon 23.94% Caesar had already outlived constant and obvious between New York 19.00% Edgefield 34.79% three masters in that family. masters and their slaves was Ontario 1.96% Fairfield 24.24% He lived longer than the first to in the legal relationship of Orange 14.47% Georgetown 46.31% whom he originally belonged; slave parents and their progeny. Queens 34.55% Greenville 16.82% longer than the second with On the Livingston Manor in Richmond 42.35% Lancaster 25.91% whom he grew to adulthood; upper Dutchess County, a Suffolk 17.68% Laurens 21.58% and longer than the third, the tenant farmer, John Dykeman, Ulster 20.22% Newberry 21.96% son of the second, to whom was murdered in 1715 by his Washington 0.96% Pendelton 17.52% he was a constant companion.

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