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)
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