Monday, February 19, 2018

New York's Slave Past Unearthed

Database of documents details state's era of bondage

The story of slavery is embedded in the story of Albany. But it isn't always told — not the way stories of the Dutch traders in Fort Orange are told, of the old patroons and their sprawling families who settled and thrived in the bustling northern tangle of New Netherland.

Yet it's there. They enslaved people. The commerce of New Netherland benefited from the forced migration of millions in the global slave trade. Dutch merchants, paradoxically known for their religious tolerance, profited from their sale. So did New York banks. "New York state was, in fact a slave state," said L. Lloyd Stewart, author of a 2005 book on the subject.

Slave ships landed at the port in New York City, and their cargo was then brought south. Individuals sold at New York City's slave market ended up everywhere, including Albany County — then a wide swath that encompassed much of what's now considered the broader Capital Region. According to Oscar Williams, who heads the Africana studies department at the University at Albany, as many as 5,000 enslaved people lived in Albany County around the Colonial period.

In a new, searchable, statewide database compiled by professors at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, slavery records tell bits and pieces of some of those stories — through census records, manumission documents, ads for runaways, fugitive records. 

Click here for the full article.

Source: timesunion.com (via Empire Report New York) 

No comments: