When New York was settled by the Dutch West India Company as a Dutch colony in 1621, the territory was known as the New Netherlands. Favored by its founders for its geography and natural resources, an outpost was chosen at the bottom tip of the island of Manhattan; the Dutch christened their Manhattan colony New Amsterdam. Its location was ideal for settlement in a new and largely unexplored nation. Dutch settlers desired the island for its natural defenses and its potential as a major port. However, much work had to be done in order to turn New Amsterdam into a livable and profitable colony.

 

Slaves were an important asset to Dutch settlers in establishing the infrastructure of New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam’s first slaves would arrive in 1627, just six years after its founding and by the late 1630s slaves accounted for one-third of the colony’s population. Slaves took on some of the most physically exhausting and mentally debilitating work so that Dutch colonists could focus on establishing trade relations and businesses. Slaves cleared the forested land and helped create the foundation for what would become the city of New York; they chopped trees, carried stones, paved roads and built canals. Similarly, their hard work became manifest in the colony’s Northern defense wall, later referred to simply as Wall Street. Starting in the 1640s, slaves also played an active role in defending the city when the Dutch West India Company began granting more freedom to slaves. The policy of half-freedom, allowed slaves many freedoms including the right to own homes, farm, sell their goods and keep profits. However, the land offered to half-free slaves came with a price; only land North of Wall Street was offered to the half-free. Here they could serve as a natural barrier from foreign invaders, in particular hostile Native American tribes, during any violent attacks. Similar costs came with half-freedom, including steep annual taxes, continued rigorous work demands at the whim of the colony and the denial of any freedom (neither half, nor total) to their half-free progeny.

 

New Amsterdam surrendered to a fleet of British ships in 1664, and as the colony grew under the new name of New York, all of the freedoms and considerations granted to slaves under the Dutch were gradually stripped away in an effort to control slaves and capitalize on buying, selling and owning slaves as a commodity. Slaveholders in British New York passed laws that severely restricted the rights of enslaved individuals while affording slaveholders increased rights over what they perceived to be property. Slaves were considered to be a significant financial investment and a runaway or missing slave was the equivalent of a lost car; in hopes of recapturing valuable runaway slaves, owners posted want ads with detailed physical descriptions and offered rewards that inspired bounty hunts. Laws also passed that allowed slaveholders to punish their slaves physically however they saw fit, short of taking life or limb so as not to destroy the potential value of a working slave. Similarly, limitations were placed on the interactions slaves were allowed to have with each other; many laws were passed to regulate the size of gathering groups of slaves to prevent plotting, rebellion and riots.

 

During this period leading up to the American Revolution, the population of New York grew substantially and the slave population grew accordingly. At one point, twenty percent of the city’s residents were enslaved making the slave population in New York the highest in the United States, second only to Charleston, South Carolina. As the American Revolution beckoned the call of all working hands, slaves were encouraged to join both the Patriots and the British. While many patriot slave-owners forced slaves into Patriot troops, many slaves escaped their owners to join the British who promised all enslaved men and women that any service to the British would earn them freedom with the war’s end. Although the British would lose the war, they kept their promise to the enslaved, carrying them to free territory in Nova Scotia.

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The American Revolution was a turning point for enslaved men and women in America, and New Yorkers were no exception. Free black men and women, those who earned their freedom through the benevolence of their owners or by purchase, created networks to aid and assist others escape slavery by raising money to purchase freedom, harboring escaped slaves and working towards a political and societal sea change. Societies and interest groups in support of black freedom and emancipation became more public; white groups like the Manumission Society of New York counted some of New York’s most influential leaders and businessmen as members who sought legal rights and eventual freedom for all enslaved. Yet, the controversial subject was far from resolution as even many Manumission Society members continued to own slaves. New York’s first Gradual Emancipation law was passed in 1799. Although that law and a similar law passed in 1817 shortened a black man or woman’s period of enslavement to 28 or 25 years, respectively, New York was still far from the resolutions established in other major Northern cities like Boston and Philadelphia, where slavery was practically abolished by 1800. By 1820, ninety-five percent of the black population of New York was free, but slavery in New York wouldn’t officially be over until July 4, 1827.

 

Slavery ended in New York City in 1827. Yet, the city would remain complicit in the act of enslavement for decades to come. As a port city, New York became the most prominent exporter of the nation’s most important raw goods of the period, in particular Southern cotton. New York’s fortunes were supported by the cotton trade in the 1800s; slave-owning Southern plantations produced bales of cotton that were sent to New York and shipped to Europe and in return yards of beautiful cloth was shipped back to New York.

 

However, New York was not just dependent on the cotton production of slave-owning plantations as the middle man between raw cotton production in the South and cloth manufacturing in Europe; it was a city that depended on fortunes of slave-owning tourists. New York City became a Southern slave-owner’s luxury marketplace. New York merchants crafted furniture, created art and even published literature for Southern buyers. The city was intent on pleasing Southern slave-owners and maintaining ties with them in order to ensure successful business relations for years to come. In the summers, Southerners vacationed in New York to escape the oppressive heat at home; in New York they found a city fashioned largely for their pleasure. Stores, cultural attractions, musical reviews and even newspapers were created with Southern beliefs and values in mind; the creators sought to comfort Southern visitors and ensure them that their business needs could be met in the Southern city of New York.

 

Among the most popular Southern tourist attractions in New York were those that upheld Southern ideologies, particularly those that insisted blacks were neither as human as whites, nor as deserving of respect. Many New York attractions put blacks on display as if they were freaks. Visitors could take tours of black and interracial neighborhoods like the Five Points and stare in wonder and awe at the sight of free blacks in society. Public fascination in the lives of blacks was often focused towards black debauchery and freakishness. Blacks were often the main attractions at circuses and carnivals, wonders to behold for visitors that thought of blacks as being closer to animals than the human race. The pseudo-science of phrenology was developed and devoted to proving that the black race was closer to the animal race than the white human race. The shape, size and features of a black skull were examined by so-called experts who bolstered white supremacy by insisting science had proof that blacks were intrinsically less human than whites and would suggest, therefore, that blacks be treated accordingly. Similarly, blacks were the subject of much laughter and cultural skewering in the form of minstrel shows, widely held to be the most popular form of American entertainment throughout the period up to the end of the Second World War.

 

Nevertheless, free black society made significant strides toward equality as the Civil War era approached. Although blacks were overwhelmingly relegated to service and low-level jobs as newspaper vendors, washerwomen and boot-blackers, jobs requiring little skill and offering paltry pay, there were some shining exceptions to this rule who made efforts to disprove so-called racial sciences and inspire oppressed blacks with a display of black intelligence and ability. In the mid-1800s, influential black New Yorkers like newspaper editors Charles Ray and Samuel Cornish, political leader David Ruggles and physician/intellectual James McCune Smith established black equality by practice, demonstrating inherent talent and crafted skill that rivaled that of white peers. Perhaps McCune Smith is the most compelling figure for this argument as his credentials are astonishing. Described as a genius from an early age, McCune Smith became America’s first accredited black doctor, graduating within five years from the University of Glasgow with a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a medical degree; he finished at the top of his class each time.

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On the eve of the Civil War, new concentrations of black intellectual power and influence coupled with white sympathy and support contributed to a second wave of anti-slavery and pro-black equality movements that mirrored the movements following the American Revolution. However, the development of white anti-slavery organizations like William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society in addition to black and female backed anti-slavery organizations spawned outrage and violent riots in July of 1834 from pro-Southern, pro-slavery advocates who feared economic instability and social demise with the complete end of American slavery. Although the rioting scared many white supporters away from the cause and fragmented some of the stronger anti-slavery and pro-equality unions, some advocates of black equality ramped up their efforts and continued to work towards black citizenship and equality of rights, even creating new organizations like the New York Committee of Vigilance to prevent free blacks and fugitives from being captured, arrested and sent to the South as slaves.

 

New York grew tense as the city was faced with the task of choosing sides in the impending Civil War. New York’s fortunes were closely tied to the cotton production of slave-owning Southern plantations and the politics of New York had become more sympathetic to Southern demands; many feared that in opposing Southern slavery, New York would be supporting its own demise. Similarly, New Yorkers, seeking to please their visiting Southern business partners, fostered a culture steeped so strongly in Southern values that as the city and country faced a Civil War, some suggested New York should secede with the South. Yet, the unflinching and growing anti-slavery forces were too invested in their cause and couldn’t risk the loss of further rights for blacks; in short, pro-equality advocates refused to back down. Thankfully, New York’s decision was made simple by the Southern attack on South Carolina’s Fort Sumpter; the Southern attack was broadly deemed despicable by New Yorkers.

 

Although New Yorkers began to galvanize around the decision to back the Union forces in the Civil War, particularly as the city realized its economy would be bolstered by the demands of the war, racial tensions did not disappear as the city began drafting men to fight a war many still did not support. After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the focus of the war took a decidedly anti-slavery slant, a cause that many impoverished, white New Yorkers did not support. In July 1863, pro-slavery advocates, particularly white men, new immigrants and those with economic interests in the future of the Southern economy, led deadly draft riots and crippled the city once again; they rebelled against blacks, the war and Republican President Lincoln.

 

The 1863 draft riots marked the end of a bloody era in New York City’s history. Black soldiers gained respect from New Yorkers, black and white, for their service in defense of their country as free men. Similarly, Americans acknowledged the efforts of all black Americans who acted in defense of the country as soldiers and civilians. Consequently the United States recognized them as citizens with rights equal to their white peers with the passing of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Although racism and oppression certainly didn’t end in New York with the end of the Civil War, like the American Revolution period, the events leading up to and following the Civil War marked a significant sea change in the dominant culture that elevated the role of blacks in free society.