Enslaved Peoples in the Hudson Valley

The Columbia County Historical Society has announced “Lived Experiences of Enslaved Peoples in the Hudson Valley,” a free virtual lecture with Dr. Andrea Mosterman exploring the history of slavery and resistance in Dutch New York, with special attention to Kinderhook and surroundings.

Through examination of Dutch American homes, Dutch Reformed churches and public spaces in these predominantly Dutch American communities, Mosterman shows how Dutch American enslavers increasingly used their dominance over these spaces to control the people they enslaved, while enslaved people resisted such control by escaping or modifying these spaces and expanding their mobility and activities within them.

Such close analysis of enslavement in these spaces reveals that by the mid-18th century, slavery in New York was an advanced system of violence and control that had much in common with that of slave societies in the plantation South.

Andrea C. Mosterman is Associate Professor of Atlantic History and Joseph Tregle Professor in Early American History at the University of New Orleans. Mosterman’s articles have appeared in, among others, The Journal of African History and Early American Studies.

Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York (Cornell University Press, 2021) by Mosterman explores the history of slavery and resistance in Dutch New York.

This program will be held both in-person, and virtually via Zoom. For more information or to register, click here.