The Interpretation at New York's Historic Philipsburg Manor Focuses on the Powerful Story of Slavery in the North

Over three hundred years ago, Frederick Philipse, a successful businessman, politician, gentleman, and head of one of the wealthiest families in the colony of New York, began building Philipsburg Manor at the confluence of the Pocantico and Hudson Rivers. He created Philipsburg Manor to serve as a provisioning plantation for the Atlantic sea trade and as a headquarters for a world-wide shipping operation.

At about the same time, he also became involved in another aspect of the Atlantic economy - the slave trade. For more than thirty years, Frederick and his son Adolph shipped hundreds of African men, women, and children across the Atlantic. Some came to New York, but most were sent to the Sugar Islands of Barbados, Curacao and Jamaica. By 1750, more than 11,000 people were enslaved in the colony of New York.

By the mid 18th century, the Philipse family held over 52,000 acres of land in Westchester County and had one of the largest slave-holdings in the colonial north. Although the institution of slavery was legal in all thirteen of England's north American colonies, rarely did northern slaveholders claim more than two or three individuals. In 1750, twenty-three enslaved men, women, and children lived and worked at Philipsburg Manor, Upper Mills; here the community of enslaved individuals (people like Caesar, Diamond, Sue, and Massy) provided the skilled labor necessary to operate a milling complex, bake house, farm, and dairy, and they possessed the expertise to pilot sloops up and down the Hudson River. At the Yonkers portion of the Manor known as the Lower Mills, and at their New York City residences, the Philipses held similarly large numbers of captives.

Legal codes that bound slaves were the same throughout the English colonies in their attempt to dehumanize enslaved workers. However, at the period of Philipsburg Manor's greatest activity, between 1720 and 1750, there were significant differences between slavery in the north and its various manifestations in the South. First, due to climatic differences between the two regions, the north depended upon a more diversified agriculture than the South and evolved a correspondingly more varied seasonal work routine. The distinctive nature of northern agriculture combined with the growth of commercial enterprises such as Philipsburg Manor gave rise to a work force that included black artisans highly skilled in different trades. This strengthened the negotiating power of individual slaves with those who held control. Second, although most northern slaves lived and worked in the countryside, they were influenced by their proximity to large port cities, such as Boston, New York,. Philadelphia, and Newport. Some enslaved northerners worked in the provisioning trade; others were mariners and had access to the Atlantic world. Still others used river travel to seek the cultural ties and personal anonymity afforded by the cities' sizable black populations. Up until the mid 18th century, New York City had the largest urban slave population in the north American colonies. (Charleston, South Carolina, surpassed New York in the second half of the century.)

Philipsburg Manor, a National Historic landmark and a property of Historic Hudson Valley in present day Sleepy Hollow, New York, is now a major tourist destination, welcoming 55,000 visitors a year for tours, weekend special events, and school programs.

Since the 1960s, the Philipsburg Manor staff has shared with visitors the story of the Philipse family and their European tenants and taught colonial history through demonstrations of period agricultural activities such as grain farming and animal husbandry, commercial endeavors such as milling, and early Euro-American cultural expressions such as clothing styles, decorative arts, food ways, and social customs. In recent years the staff has expanded its perspective to include all the residents of the Manor from the Philipses to the bound laborers of African descent. The response of colleagues and the community has been immediate and overwhelming.

We now recognize that Philipsburg Manor offers a more powerful story and a unique opportunity to contribute to our national understanding of slavery in the north. An ambitious and concentrated initiative to create an expanded interpretation at Philipsburg Manor began in 1997, with a National Endowment for the Humanities planning grant. The Reinterpretation Project, generously funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities implementation grant in 2000, has produced a narrative for the site that links the themes of slavery, cultural diversity, and commerce in 18th-century New York.

The Reinterpretation Project has two overarching goals. First, as a living history museum, Philipsburg Manor will set the standard for interpreting enslavement in the northern colonies. With a thought-provoking and hands-on approach, the site and its collections will enable visitors to understand better the varied individual relationships among slave, owner, and tenant, and the inseparable institutional relationships among enslavement, commerce, and culture. Secondly, as a resource, Historic Hudson Valley will provide research materials necessary to academics, educators, and students of history for public discourse on the history and legacy of enslavement. Through educational and community outreach, programs, and special events, Historic Hudson Valley will spark interest in public history, provide an open environment for scholarly debate, and encourage new interpretive methods for presenting these and related issues to our visitors.

Changes to the interpretation of Philipsburg Manor are evident in four categories:

1. CHANGES IN CONTENT

From the site's opening as Philipse Castle Restoration in 1943 through the late 1950s, the primary focus was on the political, economic, and social influence of the Philipse family in the 17th and 18th centuries. A strong message of a glorious colonial past was in keeping with the nationalistic concerns of many Americans in the first half of the 20th century.

To facilitate more extensive research and restoration, the property closed for ten years between 1959 and 1969. The museum conducted a comprehensive archeological dig as well as archival research in Europe and America. Curators acquired an outstanding collection of early New York and related furnishings and household objects for the manor house. The reinstalled interiors were the setting for discussing the estate's absentee landlord Adolph Philipse and for focusing on life in the mid-18th century.

Social history, which saw the value and necessity of interpreting the history of the common person and everyday life, made its mark on the interpretation of the site. When the site reopened in 1969 as Philipsburg Manor, Upper Mills, a revised interpretation exploring the daily life of the tenant farmers was added to the story of the Philipses themselves. Demonstrations of the activities of daily life in early New York became an important component of the site's interpretation. This second phase served as a model of its kind for thirty years.

In the early 1990s, Historic Hudson Valley's staff identified a particular area in need of programmatic change. The presence of enslaved Africans on the manor from the late 1600s through 1750 had been recognized but never adequately interpreted, although special programming such as the annual Pinkster Festival and school programs addressed the issue. In 1997 Historic Hudson Valley created a plan and made application to the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand these efforts.

With the implementation of the new interpretive plan, Historic Hudson Valley entered a third phase in the history of the site. This phase builds on the existing interpretive strengths at Philipsburg Manor incorporating current history scholarship and the interests of the visiting public. While each of the previous phases of Philipsburg's interpretive history was in line with popular ideological and museological trends of their day, this third phase carries the strongest intent to match chosen themes with contemporary social issues and to link demonstrations and activities to the larger themes.

The adoption of the three themes, cultural pluralism, slavery, and commerce in 18th-century New York represents a new interpretive phase in the history of the museum.

Cultural Pluralism

New York was culturally diverse long before it was New York, or even New Netherland. Several different Indian nations inhabited the region in not always peaceful co-existence before the arrival of the Europeans. Diverse Europeans inhabited the region in an often uneasy co-existence, and Africans from different nations were brought here against their will in decidedly "unpeaceful" co-existence with their enslavers. New Yorkers of the colonial era lived in a pluralistic society, notable even in its time, and it was a powerful commercial motive that encouraged disparate people to tolerate one another. Metropolitan New Yorkers live today in a similarly pluralistic society, and the issues surrounding the relationships among culturally distinct groups are of critical social importance.

In the past Historic Hudson Valley focused heavily on the Dutch and the English in relating the story of the Philipses and on the political history that brought them to Philipsburg. Now, a discussion of the manor (and the larger region of New York) takes a more complex view of the diversity of its residents. Greater specificity is now given to the diversity of ethnic origins of enslaved Africans and tenant farmers (referring, for example, to the Congo, Madagascar, Angola, or the Senegambia rather than just "Africa," or to France, England, Belgium, or The Netherlands, rather than just "Europe"); religious diversity; and the diversity of languages spoken in colonial New York.

Slavery in the North

By providing a missing piece of the story - slavery in the colonial north - Philipsburg's new interpretation plays a crucial role in the public's understanding of the history of race relations in this country. By providing the missing people of the story - Caesar, Abigail, Flip, Betty, and the other African captives at Philipsburg Manor, Upper Mills - the new interpretation works toward public understanding of the African presence in colonial New York.

Although interpreters at Philipsburg have been discussing the presence of the enslaved community for over a decade, they now talk not just of the labor performed by the people who lived here, but of the people as individuals. Visitors hear stories of people like Diamond, Sue, Tom and Venture, individuals who pushed to improve the circumstances of themselves and their families. Visitors will hear about men and women with a rich and diverse cultural heritage who responded in a variety of ways to their enslaved condition, from work slow-downs, to running away, to open rebellion.

Interpreters discuss responses to slavery in a more multidimensional way, acknowledging that slaves had certain negotiating powers, albeit in vastly unequal proportion to those held by tenants and landlord, based on their skills and sometimes their numbers. In the past, interpreters addressed the issue of how the Philipses' slaves were treated by suggesting that taking care of one's "investments" made good business sense. The new interpretation stresses the system of enslavement as egregious to the enslaved - legally, psychologically, and socially - and dispels the misconceived but popular notion of northern slavery as benign.

Commerce

Not much has interfered with the juggernaut of commerce driving New York since its European settlement in the 17th century. New York's significance as a world financial center today, and the current fascination with the kind of business genius and economic climate that yields so many millionaires, gives the theme of international commerce in colonial New York a contemporary relevance. Knowledge of the commercial interests of colonial New Yorkers is crucial to understanding the presence of enslavement and cultural pluralism in the region, because all three factors - commerce, slavery, and cultural pluralism - are inseparably related.

The working, water-powered grist mill has always been the interpretive exhibit at Philipsburg that most clearly evokes the commercial purpose of the manor. With its massive gearing, rapid production, and position by a navigable river and wharf, the mill suggests an industrial function producing flour on a scale not likely to be confused with production for home consumption. The mill has most effectively suggested the flow of raw and processed materials out of the manor. The message of that market orientation is reinforced by additional physical elements, such as the placement of numerous flour barrels, for example, and increased activity in the cooperage. Crates of manufactured goods on the wharf represent the flow of manufactured goods into the manor from the Atlantic world and beyond.

The dairy, with sufficient quantities of butter-making equipment including firkins, milk pans, large-capacity churns, and other vessels, indicates production and packing for shipment. Barrels of pickled pork or dried peas also take their place in the dairy and kitchen to suggest the processing of other agricultural products for the provisioning trade. The office, the foreroom, and the warehouse rooms are installed with reproduction objects that communicate the commercial nature of the manor. Objects of trade in the warehouse rooms represent the copious quantities of manufactured goods that made their way to the manor to local consumers.

2. CHANGES IN THE MANOR HOUSE

Historically the room displays in the manor house gave the impression that the house was a full-time home for the Philipse family instead of the occasional residence and important business center that it truly was. The newly installed manor house stresses the commercial nature of the manor. Of the four chambers on the second floor, reflecting both the absentee Philipses and the commercial nature of the property, two are interpreted as warehouse space. The trade goods that were coming to the manor by the boatload are represented in the warehouse rooms. The manor house is furnished to represent its critical function as an administrative center for manor business rather than its less significant role as a home. A second change is the shift from the use of artifacts to reproductions in some of the rooms. Philipsburg offers two routes of access to material culture by maintaining some rooms intact as artifact spaces (so visitors can see "the real thing") and installing some rooms as reproduction spaces (so visitors can touch and handle objects).

3. CHANGES IN THE GUIDED TOUR

With the reinterpretation in place, guides provide visitors with a 6 - 8 minute introduction presenting the three themes and ensure that visitors are aware, in particular, that the site deals with enslavement as a major theme. The interpretation relies on site-specific documentation and also looks beyond the manor of Philipsburg for regional trends, with the interpreters adopting a broader view to help create understanding about the regional and national significance of the site's history.

Third-person interpretation (guides tell the story from the perspective of the present) is Historic Hudson Valley's primary method of communicating about living history sites with visitors. Now, as part of the reinterpretation initiative, scripted vignettes have been introduced to the roster of interpretive techniques. Vignettes (a form of "museum theater") help make abstract issues more concrete by making them personal and give the sense that the past was made up of individuals. Afterwards visitors can ask questions and process what they have seen in conversation with the interpreters.

Historic Hudson Valley believes that the educational value of a historic demonstration is increased many fold once it becomes participatory for the visitor. A greater emphasis on interactivity now plays out in the reproduction rooms of the manor house, on the wharf with its boxes of trade goods, in the garden, and in the activity center.

4. INTENT

In the first phase of interpretation the intention was to save the manor property from demolition and development. In the second phase the intent was to provide a more accurate rendering of the historic property. In phase three, too, Historic Hudson Valley aims to present a more accurate rendering of the property, its residents, its commercial orientation, and the exploitative labor terms under which that commerce functioned.

But the notion of a more "accurate" site can be misleading. After all, interpreters are using the same documents, newspaper ads, lease agreements, shipping records, and probate inventory that have always been used, and they are retaining many of the artifacts and demonstrations of colonial life from phase two. In some ways what is more "accurate" is simply looking at and expressing the history of the site from multiple perspectives-the perspective of the enslaved Africans, the perspective of the tenant farmers, and the perspective of the Philipse family members. The intent is that visitors will use what they learn at Philipsburg Manor, Upper Mills to put current issues of race and diversity in America into historical perspective; the intent is for visitors to leave Philipsburg knowing exactly why their visit mattered.

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