Abolition

Staten Island Boxer Bill Richmond Delivered the Punches

July 12, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 3 Comments

Archaeologists in Central London are involved in a massive undertaking excavating St James’s Gardens, a graveyard close to Euston Station, before a terminus for the controversial High Speed 2 (HS2) railway project is built on the site. Among the 45,000 skeletons due to be dug up it is hoped that the remains of Bill Richmond will be identified.

By the end of the eighteenth century boxing was England’s dominant sport. Confirmation of its repute occurred at the coronation of George IV on 19 July 1821 when eighteen pugilists were invited to guard the entrance to Westminster Abbey. One of the ushers selected for the grand occasion was Bill Richmond, a formerly enslaved man who descended from Richmondtown, a colonial outpost on Staten Island, New York. [Read more…] about Staten Island Boxer Bill Richmond Delivered the Punches

The Origins of Juneteenth (Podcast)

June 16, 2021 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Juneteenth is a state holiday that commemorates June 19th, 1865, the day slavery ended in Texas. Over the last decade, a push to make Juneteenth a national holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States has gained momentum.

What do we know about Juneteenth and its origins?

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Annette Gordon-Reed, an award-winning historian at Harvard University and Harvard Law School, is a native Texan and she joins us to discuss the early history of Texas and the origins of the Juneteenth holiday with details from her book, On Juneteenth (Liveright, 2021).

New Book Considers The Last Slave Ships & New York

June 6, 2021 by Alan J. Singer Leave a Comment

The city of New York was at the center of the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade during the 1850s and early 1860 conveying kidnapped and enslaved Africans from the coast of West Africa primarily into Cuba where there was an expanding sugar industry.

In The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage (Yale Univ. Press, 2020), John Harris, a professor of history at Erskine College in South Carolina, estimates that between 1853 and 1867, 474 shipments carrying almost 200,000 men women and children were brought to Cuba. Most of this was brokered by transplanted Brazilians and Portuguese known as the Portuguese Company, who shifted their operation to New York because of the decline of the Angola to Brazil slave trade in the 1850s. Harris argues they were supported by the pro-slavery faction of the city’s Democratic Party and its chief financial institutions. [Read more…] about New Book Considers The Last Slave Ships & New York

New Novel Considers Role of Hesitant Utica Abolitionists

May 22, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

The new novel The Third Mrs. Galway (Kaylie Jones Books, 2021) by Deirdre Sinnott looks back at Utica in 1835, when newlywed Helen Galway discovers two people who have escaped enslavement are hiding in the shack behind her husband’s house. She must then decide if she should she be a “good wife” and report the fugitives, or if she will defy convention and come to their aid. [Read more…] about New Novel Considers Role of Hesitant Utica Abolitionists

John Brown Farm Celebrates 125 Years of State Ownership

May 4, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

In 2021, the state of New York will celebrate 125 years of being caretaker to the John Brown Farm in North Elba, just outside of Lake Placid in the Adirondack Park.

Brown came to the area to help recently freed slaves become farmers. At that time in New York State, black men (and only black men) needed to own $250 dollars worth of land to be eligible to vote. Brown immersed himself in this new community of black farmers and participated in a wide variety of organizing. [Read more…] about John Brown Farm Celebrates 125 Years of State Ownership

Tacky’s Revolt: Slave Insurgency in Jamaica

September 16, 2020 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

Between 1760 and 1761, Great Britain witnessed one of the largest slave insurrections in the history of its empire. Although the revolt took place on the island of Jamaica, the reverberations of this revolt stretched across the Atlantic Ocean and into the British North American colonies.

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, Vincent Brown, author of Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (Belknap Press, 2020), joins us to investigate Tacky’s Revolt and how that revolt served as an eddy within the larger current of Atlantic warfare.

Peterboro Emancipation Day Events Postponed to 2021

August 9, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The 2020 Peterboro Emancipation Day planned for August 1st, 2020 has been rescheduled for Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark.

The event will begin at 10 at The Barn on the Gerrit Smith Estate. After the morning assembly, songs, announcements, and the annual group photo, a processional to the Peterboro Cemetery will carry wreaths to lay on the grave of a person who was born enslaved, and died free. [Read more…] about Peterboro Emancipation Day Events Postponed to 2021

Anna Murray-Douglass: Frederick’s Most Important Ally

August 4, 2020 by Rose O'Keefe Leave a Comment

I offer the following tribute to Anna Douglass, first wife of Frederick Douglass and mother of their five children, on the anniversary of her death Aug. 4, 1882:

Both Frederick Bailey and Anna Murray were born in rural Maryland in the early 1800s and grew up under harsh racist customs that strictly defined roles for men and women by sex, race and class.

By the time Frederick and Anna met in the 1830s in Baltimore, his owner valued him as a slave who was a skilled caulker. Yet Anna, despite being a free woman skilled as a domestic and cook, was not well paid by her white employers. [Read more…] about Anna Murray-Douglass: Frederick’s Most Important Ally

Poughkeepsie’s Equality Trail Highlights History

July 17, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Poughkeepsie’s Equality Trail, part of the Dutchess County Equality Trails, features 21 stops that can be visited in person or virtually.

Each stop on the Trail features a person or event that helped in the fight for racial equality in Dutchess County. [Read more…] about Poughkeepsie’s Equality Trail Highlights History

Commemoration of Slavery’s End in NYS Being Planned

July 12, 2020 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Underground Railroad Consortium of New York State has announced the formation of a statewide committee to begin planning for the bicentennial of the legal abolition of slavery in New York, which finally took effect on July 4, 1827, following what was called “gradual emancipation” that began nearly 30 years before. [Read more…] about Commemoration of Slavery’s End in NYS Being Planned