Establishing Slavery in Colonial New York
by Ross W. Higgins, Laura J. Dickstein, and Margaret Vetare
In 1624, the Dutch West India Company (DWIC) began settling the colony of New Netherland which eventually came to encompass the areas now known as New York and New Jersey as well as parts of Delaware and Connecticut. The Dutch had acquired the land from Native Americans through purchase as well as through confiscation. This colony was set up as a business, and the main goal was for the DWIC to profit from trading beaver pelts and other goods from America with Europe. In 1625, the Dutch brought the first group of eleven enslaved male Africans to New Amsterdam (Manhattan Island) in order to build and support the infrastructure (e.g. roads, houses, forts) of the new colony. By the 1590s, the Dutch were involved in the slave trade, so their use of slave labor in developing this new enterprise was not unexpected.
So that the endeavor would be fruitful, the DWIC gave Dutch settlers large parcels of land (patroonships) on which they were required to establish homes, businesses, and farms. Patroons also were expected to lease portions of their land to tenants whom they supplied with equipment, buildings, and animals. In addition to the Dutch, these tenants included English, Germans, Irish, and Polish settlers, Walloons from Belgium, and a small number of Jews from the Netherlands and Brazil. Despite these efforts at settlement, the population of the colony did not grow enough to support a trading post outside of the Netherlands. Because of this labor shortage, the DWIC decided to bring more enslaved Africans to New Netherland. By the 1660s, the DWIC, rather than any individual, was the largest slaveholder in New Amsterdam.
Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland from 1647 to 1664, was hired by the DWIC to impose order on the loosely structured colony. When he assumed control of the colony there was little organized governance, and the infrastructure was so limited as to discourage more settlers from moving to the colony. Perhaps more importantly, the business was not as profitable as the company had anticipated. Under Stuyvesant's direction, enslaved Africans labored as caulkers, blacksmiths, bricklayers and masons to make improvements to the slow-growing colony. In some cases, the enslaved were given "half-freedom," meaning when their labor was not needed and in order to cut expenses for the company, they would be given their freedom. However, this freedom was contingent on the fact that they were bound to provide labor upon demand. (However, their children were not born free.)
Alongside enslaved Africans were free men and women of African descent -- individuals who had purchased or otherwise gained their freedom. Free blacks owned land, married in the Dutch Reformed Church, and passed along inheritances to their children. Though few in number, the free blacks formed a critical part of the black community, providing the enslaved population with support as well as proof that freedom was attainable.
The English seized control of New Netherland in 1664 and divided it into the two colonies of New York and New Jersey. Under English rule, slavery as an institution continued to grow and became more regulated, with numerous laws being put in place to tighten control and to limit manumissions of enslaved Africans. The regulations were prompted by fear of insurgence and an increasing slave population.
By 1720, 5,740 enslaved individuals lived in the colony of New York (16% of the total population) and about half that number lived in New Jersey. By the mid-1700s slavery was deeply entrenched in New York. In 1750, the enslaved population of New York was 11,014 (14% of the total population), nearly double the figure of 1720. It would be another fifty years before the number of enslaved Africans began to decrease rather than increase.
In 1685 the Philipses, a wealthy, Dutch merchant family, began their involvement in the slave trade. It was then that Frederick Philipse's ship, the Charles, sailed from Amsterdam to Angola on the Congo River in West Africa to exchange weapons and other goods for Africans. A deposition made by two of the seamen who worked on the ship tells us that 146 Africans were taken from West Africa to Barbados, but only 105 arrived there. It can be assumed that the other 41 enslaved Africans died during the voyage 's typical mortality rate for the Middle Passage. Eight enslaved Africans who were too sick to be sold in Barbados were transported to Frederick's son Adolph near Rye, New York, and mostly likely became the first group of enslaved Africans at the Upper Mills at Philipsburg Manor. A ninth enslaved African (with one eye) was sent to New York City, perhaps to Frederick's Manhattan home. The earliest slaves at the Upper Mills would have cleared the land for farming, and probably built structures including the manor house, mill barn, church, and wharf.
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