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Education: African Americans in pre-Civil War New York

The first European settlers arrived in modern-day New York in 1614. Twelve years later, the Dutch West India Company brought over eleven enslaved people from Africa. From the settlement of New Netherland, African Americans have played a critical role in the development of New York. In the early portion of New Netherland's history, the Dutch divided Black people into two groups: those who were enslaved, and those who were not. This division persisted until the Civil War in 1861. To southerners, a portion of this period from the 18th century to the start of the Civil War was called the "Antebellum" which means the pre-Civil War era. In the south, these years were marked by economic growth due to the reliance on slavery in the region. This period also marked the beginning of a divide between two schools of thought, those who were against slavery, the abolitionists, and those in support of slavery.

This story teaches us about what that period was like for Black people in the North and specifically, in New York City.

NYS Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 4.7, 7.7, & 11.3.

For Teachers: African American in Antebellum New York Lesson Plan

ByUrban Archive logoUrban Archive
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Washington Square Park icon

Washington Square Park

The Dutch practiced slavery in its colonies but did not maintain as strict of a racial hierarchy as the English did in their colonies, meaning slavery in New Netherlands was not as rigid as it would be once the English colonized New York. However, both the Dutch and the English treated Black people as property rather than individuals with rights. Enslaved African people who were brought to New Amsterdam were able to purchase their freedom, but this freedom was not absolute. Dutch referred to them as only "Half-Free," which meant that while they would be able to own land, their children would not be automatically free, and their freedom would need to be purchased separately. While certainly imperfect, the Dutch system did allow for one of America's earliest free Black communities to develop in and around Washington Square Park. This community was known as the "Land of the Blacks."
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Foley Square icon

Foley Square

In 1741, mysterious fires broke out across the city. One even consumed the governor's house. In the following days, disgruntled white residents of the city formulated a wild conspiracy theory that placed the blame for the fires on a group of enslaved people. The anxiety among white New Yorkers, who had long feared uprisings in the past, caused city officials to act quickly to punish the supposed perpetrators. Trials and accusations around the fires quickly snowballed into a "witch-hunt" that mirrored the hysteria and violence of Salem Massachusetts decades before. When it all was over, about 30 enslaved African people and some white people had been executed. They were hanged and left in present-day Foley Square to warn others against insurrection, or rebellion. Dozens more city residents, both Black and white, were exiled from the city.
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Van Cortlandt House Museum icon

Van Cortlandt House Museum

While Kings County may have had the highest concentration of enslaved people in the city, the Peculiar Institution, as the system of slavery was referred to in the 19th century, existed throughout all five of the modern boroughs. As early as the late 17th century, enslaved African people appear in census records for what is now the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. One of the most prominent families in the area was the Van Cortlandt family. Their home still stands today in Van Cortlandt Park near 242nd Street and Broadway. Those enslaved by the Van Cortlandt family worked the fields and were used as domestic help in the home. By the turn of the 19th century, slavery was a dying institution in New York. A 1799 law outlined the gradual emancipation of enslaved people and by the 1820s, free Black people replaced those who were enslaved by the Van Cortlandt family and others.
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535 Bloomingdale Road icon

535 Bloomingdale Road

Sandy Ground While gradual emancipation was enacted in 1799 in New York, the state completely abolished slavery in 1827. When this law was passed, it made New York the first state in the union to pass a law that stipulated the complete abolition of slavery. However, even before this event, free Black communities developed throughout modern-day New York City. The oldest continuously inhabited free Black settlement in the United States was first settled a year after New York officially abolished slavery. The community, known as Sandy Ground, was created by Black oyster farmers from Maryland, who left that state after it passed a series of discriminatory laws. The waters surrounding New York offered plenty of opportunity for oyster farming and Staten Island's remoteness allowed the community of Sandy Ground to establish a thriving community.
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Hunterfly Road Houses at Weeksville icon

Hunterfly Road Houses at Weeksville

Similar to the Black communities which sprung up in Staten Island and Manhattan, the community of Weeksville developed following the abolition of slavery in New York. It grew to be the second-largest community of Free Blacks in the United States by the 1850s. The community helped some Black men gain the right to vote and was a hotbed for the abolition movement. The community published the nation's first African American newspaper, The Freedmen's Torchlight. Following the Civil War, the community's school, P.S. 68, became the nation's first integrated school. Weeksville continued to be a center in the fight for equality and opportunity for African Americans after the Civil War. One notable product of the neighborhood was Susan Smith McKinney Steward, who became New York State's first female African American doctor. The community continued to thrive during the 19th century, but ultimately was consumed by the growing city of Brooklyn, and its distinct identity faded away.
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Flushing Town Hall icon

Flushing Town Hall

Like the other boroughs of New York City, Queens maintained a substantial population of enslaved people in the colonial period. When the first US Census was taken in 1790, roughly twenty percent of the county's population was enslaved. During the first half of the 19th century, the push to abolish slavery grew throughout New York. Towards the end of the Civil War the famed abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, delivered a speech at the newly constructed Flushing Town Hall. In it, he described the important role of African Americans in the Antebellum, or pre-Civil War, United States. Even with the end of slavery achieved in the 1860s, Douglass, and others, continued their fight for equality. While many Americans could rally behind ending the institution of slavery, they were much less likely to accept African Americans as equal partners. It would take another hundred years for significant progress to be made in the fight for true equality.
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