African Burial Ground National Monument - Africans and African Americans in New York City

Africans and African Americans in New York City

Slavery in the New York City area was introduced by the Dutch West India Company in New Netherland about 1626 with the arrival of Paul D'Angola, Simon Congo, Lewis Guinea, Jan Guinea, and Ascento Angola and six other men—their names denote their place of origin: Angola, the Congo and Guinea. Two years after their arrival three female Angolan slaves arrived. These two groups heralded the beginning of the institution of slavery in what would become New York City that would continue for two hundred years. The first slave auction in the city took place in 1655 at Pearl and Wall Street-then on the East River. Although the Dutch imported Africans as slaves, it was possible for some to gain freedom or "half-freedom" under Dutch rule. Paul D'Angola and his companions petitioned the Dutch West India Company for their freedom in 1643. Their petition was granted and they were given grants of land on which to build their own houses and farm. In the mid-17th century farms of free blacks covered 130 acres where Washington Square Park later developed. Even slaves in full bondage were granted certain rights and afforded protections such as the prohibition against arbitrary physical punishment - such as a whipping - without the written approval of the Common Council.

After the English took over New Amsterdam in 1664, they changed the name to New York (after the Duke of York) and changed the rules governing slavery in the colony in which 40 percent of the small population was in bondage. The new slavery rules were more harsh and restrictive than those of the Dutch, and rescinded many of the former rights and protections of slaves - such as the prohibition against random physical punishment. In 1697 Trinity Church gained control of the burial grounds in the city and passed an ordinance excluding Africans from being buried in churchyards. Upon taking control of the municipal burial ground - now the north graveyard of Trinity - they were barred from intrenment within the bounds of the city. Through much of the 18th century, the African burying ground was beyond the northern boundary of the city just beyond what is today Chambers Street.

As the city population increased, so did the number of residents who held slaves. "In 1703, 42 percent of New York's households had slaves, much more than Philadelphia and Boston combined." Most slaveholding households had only a few slaves, used primarily for domestic work. By the 1740s, 20 percent of the population of New York were slaves, totaling about 2500 people. Slaves also worked as skilled artisans and craftsmen associated with shipping, construction, and other trades, as well as laborers. "On the eve of the American Revolution, New York City had the largest number of enslaved Africans of any English colonial settlement except Charleston, South Carolina, and it had the highest proportion of slaves to Europeans of any northern settlement." They had become essential to the development of New York.

During the Revolutionary War, the British occupied New York City in the summer of 1776 and the city would remain in British control until Evacuation Day on November 25, 1783. As in the other rebellious American colonies, they offered freedom to slaves who left rebel masters; this was done in part to cause economic damage to the rebel Americans. This promise of freedom attracted thousands of slaves to the city who escaped to British lines. In 1781 the New York legislature offered a financial incentive to slaveholders who assigned their slaves to military service, and promised freedom at war's end for the slaves.

By 1780 the African and African-descendant community swelled to about 10,000 in British-occupied New York City, which became the center of free blacks in North America. Among those who escaped to New York were Deborah Squash and her husband Harvey, who fled from George Washington's plantation in Virginia. After the end of the war, according to provisions concerning property in the Treaty of Paris, the Americans demanded the return of all former slaves under British control. The British refused the American request and evacuated three thousand freedmen with their troops in 1783 for resettlement in Nova Scotia, other British colonies and England. Other freedmen scattered from the city to evade slave catchers.

Aided by individual manumissions after war's end, by 1790, about one-third of the blacks in the city were free. The total city population was 33,131, according to the first national census.

In 1799 the state legislature passed "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery" with little opposition. Similar to Pennsylvania's law, it provided for gradual manumission of slaves. Children born to slave mothers after July 4, 1799 were considered legally free, but had to serve as indentured servants to their mother's master, until age 28 for men and 25 for women, before gaining social freedom. Until reaching age 21, they were considered the property of the mother's master. All slaves already in bondage before July 4, 1799, remained slaves for life, although they were reclassified as "indentured servants."

In 1817, the New York legislature granted freedom to all children born to slaves after July 4, 1799, with total abolition of slavery to take effect on July 4, 1827. On this date, known as Emancipation Day, more than 10,000 slaves were freed in New York State with no financial compensation to their former owners. Blacks paraded in New York City to celebrate.

Under the 1777 New York constitution, all free men had to satisfy a property requirement to vote, which eliminated poorer men from voting, both blacks and whites. A new constitution in 1821 eliminated the property requirement for white men, but kept it for blacks, effectively continuing to disfranchise them. This lasted until passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1870.

The early history of free blacks and slaves in New York City became overshadowed by the waves of mid- to late nineteenth century immigration from Europe, which dramatically expanded the population and added to the ethnic diversity. In addition, most of the ancestors of today's African-American population in the city arrived from the South in the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth century. In a rapidly changing city, the early history was lost.