Africans — enslaved and free — helped form New York Metropolis within the 18th century.
That reality was introduced dwelling to New Yorkers in 1991, when the literal bones of town’s pioneer Black residents resurfaced because the African Burial Floor was uncovered in decrease Manhattan.
The next decades-long struggle to keep up the sanctity of the 6-acre African Burial Floor centered on the significance of highlighting the extent of Black slavery in colonial New York — a incontrovertible fact that had lengthy been forgotten — and the free communities that had fashioned right here.
That struggle has been a wrestle to inform the tales of Black folks in New York which can be usually forgotten as a result of a lot of town’s Black inhabitants got here in the course of the Nice Migration or within the waves of immigrants who arrived within the twentieth century.
Since 2024, nonetheless, New York State’s Reparations Fee has taken on the duty of documenting Black New Yorkers’ previous and current by amassing public feedback, holding hearings, and conducting analysis. Questions of justice, acknowledgment, and historic restore are the primary points underneath debate.
“We’re nonetheless gathering knowledge and listening to communities throughout the state,” defined Dr. Seanelle Hawkins, chair of the fee. “The trauma of historical past remains to be evident at the moment, and the method of redress should tackle not simply compensation but in addition coverage change and applications that create actual alternative.”
The fee, signed into regulation by Gov. Kathy Hochul on December 19, 2023, is scheduled to ship its suggestions to the governor and the legislature by early 2027. It’ll chronicle centuries of racial injustice in New York and join that historical past to actionable steps for justice at the moment.
Black life and labor in 18th-century New York
The roots of New York’s present racial and financial divides stretch again 250 years, to when the labors of Black New Yorkers — these held in slavery and people who have been free — helped form town’s growth.
Historian Dr. Leslie M. Harris described 18th-century New York as a “slave metropolis” in her guide, “Within the Shadow of Slavery” — it was second solely to Charleston, S.C., within the variety of enslaved residents dwelling there. Harris stated New York at the moment had all kinds of individuals of African descent. “Slaves dropped at Manhattan mirrored a wide range of backgrounds,” she wrote. “The Royal African Firm imported slaves from the British Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Barbados, and Antigua. Dutch retailers continued to import some slaves from the Caribbean island of Curaçao. Slaves immediately from Africa got here from the Gold Coast, the Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra, and the Congo.”
These Africans, made up of many ethnic teams and coming from many countries, have been the palms that constructed colonial New York when it was nonetheless referred to as New Amsterdam, and finally grew to become an necessary a part of constructing its financial system.
“Slavery was foundational to life in New York Metropolis,” Marquis Taylor, analysis assistant on the Tenement Museum, stated in an interview. “The labor of enslaved folks was central to town’s growth. Individuals have been doing every kind of labor — home service, constructing boats, engaged on the docks. It wasn’t the plantation mannequin of the South, nevertheless it was simply as pervasive.”
By the mid-1700s, greater than 20% of New York Metropolis’s inhabitants was enslaved. Town’s slave market, at Wall Road between Pearl and Water Streets, was in operation from 1711 to 1762; some 60% of all enslaved Africans in the USA entered via New York’s port. Brooklyn, then Kings County, had the very best share of slaveholding properties within the North, in keeping with genealogist Stacey G. Bell, president of the Afro-American Historic and Genealogical Society (AAHGS NY).
“Wall Road grew to become Wall Road due to this commerce in people,” Bell stated. “Trendy-day corporations like Brooks Brothers made their title by making clothes for — for the shortage of a greater phrase — home slaves. Their information are nonetheless on the market — a direct hyperlink to this historical past. They made clothes for the horse drivers, the carriage males; they made clothes for the butlers [who] labored within the homes, for the handmaids, for the seamstresses, for the individuals who have been involved with the Europeans, as a result of they couldn’t have them in rags manufactured from potatoes whereas working in the home and dealing in shut proximity to them. That’s how Brooks Brothers received began — they usually’re nonetheless an organization at the moment.”
Enslaved Black New Yorkers loaded and unloaded ships, constructed roads and fortifications, refined sugar, manufactured rum, and carried out expert trades, amongst different jobs important to creating what grew to become the nation’s largest metropolis.
“Individuals usually consider slavery as a Southern establishment, nevertheless it was woven into city life right here,” stated Taylor. “Many docks and shipyards we see at the moment have been constructed by enslaved folks, who have been generally ‘employed out’ to carry out important work throughout town’s rising waterfront.” Home service was additionally a relentless presence, with enslaved women and men cooking, cleansing, and caring for households in shut quarters with their enslavers.
But even throughout slavery, Black New Yorkers have been in a position to forge connections and commit acts of resistance. Early on, they created Black enclaves just like the Land of the Blacks, an space simply north of colonial New Amsterdam’s wall, the place free and “half-free” African settlers owned farms between 1643 and 1716. Later, after the U.S. Revolution, communities like Seneca Village, established in what would turn into Central Park, and Weeksville, the city based by James Weeks in what’s now Crown Heights, Brooklyn, have been established. “We now have to search for folks as property in information — like tax paperwork, insurance coverage papers, even slave tags,” Bell famous as she defined the detective work required to reconstruct the lives of Black New Yorkers when researching genealogies. “We get tales from household Bibles, oral histories, and the breadcrumbs left within the archives.”
Recalling the exhibit “Hint/s: Household Historical past Analysis and the Legacy of Slavery,” on view on the Middle for Brooklyn Historical past final yr, Bell added, “If you stroll into these historic societies or museums, you see work of enslavers, however not often of us. That’s why we centered our exhibition across the descendants of enslaved folks — like Mildred Jones — so our story is lastly informed on our phrases.” The variety of Black expertise was at all times current. “Each household needed to do what was finest for them, whether or not to flee with the British in the course of the Revolution, keep and construct new lives, or resist in methods massive and small.”
Resistance, revolution, and the trail to freedom
Two and a half centuries in the past, the American Revolution reworked town’s Black inhabitants. When British forces occupied New York in 1776, 1000’s of enslaved folks took the chance to flee, inspired by British guarantees of freedom.
“Life was hazardous,” stated Taylor. “The September 1776 hearth destroyed a lot of town. Meals and clear water have been scarce, and illness was rampant. However the upheaval gave Black folks an opportunity to barter for freedom — whether or not by working for the British, becoming a member of the Patriots, or searching for new lives elsewhere.”
Town’s Black residents have been by no means a monolith. “Some joined the Loyalists, hoping for emancipation, whereas others forged their lot with the Continental Military or just tried to outlive,” stated Taylor. “The period was advanced: Everybody was looking for the perfect path to freedom and stability.” After the conflict, Black Loyalists accepted British provides to maneuver to locations like Nova Scotia.
The tip of British rule didn’t carry quick freedom — those that remained within the new United States remained enslaved. On this space, they have been nonetheless pressured into each city and rural slavery: In Manhattan, enslaved folks tended to do each home and concrete labor, and lived near their enslavers; within the different boroughs, plantation-style slavery meant the next share of white households held slaves. “There have been free folks of coloration communities, and the legacy remains to be current in locations like Van Cortlandt Park, which was as soon as a plantation,” Bell stated.
New York’s Gradual Emancipation Act of 1799 solely freed these born after July 4 of that yr, leaving many nonetheless in slavery for many years till last emancipation within the state on July 4, 1827. To commemorate this last finish of slavery in New York, Abolition Commemoration Day is noticed yearly on the third Tuesday of July.
Historic information not often inform the whole story of Black New Yorkers. “We now have to search for folks as property in banking information, tax paperwork, insurance coverage insurance policies — locations the place folks have been listed as taxable or mortgaged,” Bell noticed. “We depend on oral histories, household Bibles, and the fragments left behind.” Regardless of these obstacles, ongoing analysis and household tales proceed to disclose the wealthy tapestry of Black life and resistance.
Historic reminiscence and the push for reparations
For generations, the story of slavery in New York was neglected or minimized in public reminiscence. The invention of the African Burial Floor in decrease Manhattan in 1991 and the “Slavery in New York” exhibition on the New-York Historic Society (2005–2006) pressured a citywide reckoning, displaying artifacts — slave tags, shackles, authorized information — that testified to 2 centuries of pressured labor and the enduring impression of slavery on town’s prosperity and identification.
“The one factor we now have in frequent as Brooklynites is the story we inform ourselves about what it means to be right here,” stated Dominique Jean-Louis, chief historian on the Middle for Brooklyn Historical past. “We owe it to the communities of the previous to really acknowledge their contributions — voluntary or in any other case.” The African Burial Floor, Seneca Village, and different websites at the moment are acknowledged as important to town’s narrative, at the moment’s struggle for reparations seeks to attach historic injustice with present-day disparities.
“We’ve heard that reparations means extra than simply compensation — it could possibly be coverage change or applications, like free school tuition or financial development,” Hawkins stated of the Reparation Fee’s ongoing hearings. “New Yorkers are saying there needs to be a means of redress, nevertheless it hasn’t but been spelled out in each group.” The fee’s work is an opportunity to empower these whose ancestors constructed town however not often reaped its rewards.
Historians and group leaders agree that uncovering the total story of Black New Yorkers — enslaved and free — is important to informing coverage. “Historical past has loads to inform us about who was allowed to reap the advantages of the Brooklyn we now have constructed, and who was neglected,” stated Jean-Louis. “There are quantifiable, empirical items of proof that may information conversations about reparations and reinvestment. The query is not only basic; it’s particular. When was the wealth generated? Who benefited? Who was denied?”
By linking the 18th-century slave market to trendy coverage, the New York State Reparations Fee is attempting to make sure that the contributions of Black New Yorkers are lastly met with justice.
The ultimate report from the fee may counsel a approach to bridge this violent historical past with a extra hopeful future. Hawkins stated the hearings have proven that for a lot of, reparation means extra than simply compensation: “We’re studying about what Black New Yorkers need, and what we’re listening to from a wide range of New Yorkers is that they’d prefer to see not simply compensation. I believe after we discuss reparations, folks assume, ‘Lower me the examine.’ Now, we’ve definitely heard many instances, ‘Lower the examine and don’t inform us the best way to spend our cash.’
“However we’ve additionally heard that reparations imply greater than compensation. It could possibly be a coverage change, or it could possibly be applications. We’ve heard a wide range of applications that individuals talked about, whether or not it’s free school tuition or alternatives to be sure that there may be financial development for Black New Yorkers. We’ve heard a wide range of issues, and we’re nonetheless listening.”
