Abolition

Pirates, Prostitution & The Livingston Family

January 15, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

From their early days on the North American continent, the Livingston family were a prominent sex-trade family. In a nutshell, they were landlords to brothel-operators from at least as early as the 1810s.

New York State Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, who reluctantly joined the patriot side of the American Revolution in 1776. Chancellor Robert was one of many Livingstons who profited from the sex trade in the aftermath of the unrest. [Read more…] about Pirates, Prostitution & The Livingston Family

Documents Reveal More About Peter John Lee Kidnapping Case

January 12, 2023 by David Fiske Leave a Comment

Information about the 1836 kidnapping of Peter John Lee was related in a recent article on the New York Almanack, “NY-CT Border Disputes & The Kidnapping of Freedom-Seeker Peter John Lee.”

Lee, an African American, was lured out of Connecticut, where he resided, to Rye in Westchester County, New York. Additional aspects of this incident can be gleaned from historical documents. [Read more…] about Documents Reveal More About Peter John Lee Kidnapping Case

Massacres & Migrants at Sea: Deadly Voyages To New York

January 11, 2023 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

The 1840s brought about a transformation in the nature of transatlantic shipping. With the development of European colonial empires, the forced transportation of African slaves had become big business.

Liverpool was the focus of the British slave trade. As a result of crusading abolitionist movements and subsequent legal intervention, the brutal practice declined there during that decade. But more or less simultaneously a new form of people trafficking took its place. [Read more…] about Massacres & Migrants at Sea: Deadly Voyages To New York

US, NYS Continues To Honor Slavers, Racists, Traitors and Scoundrels

January 10, 2023 by Alan J. Singer Leave a Comment

In 2023, the United States Military Academy will remove 13 Confederate symbols on its West Point campus. They include a portrait of Robert E. Lee dressed in a Confederate uniform, a stone bust of Lee, who was superintendent of West Point before the Civil War, and a bronze plaque with an image of a hooded figure and the words “Ku Klux Klan.”

Art displayed in the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC, still includes images of 141 enslavers and 13 Confederates who went to war against the country. A study by the Washington Post found that more than one-third of the statues and portraits in the Capitol building honor enslavers or Confederates and at least six more honor possible enslavers where evidence is disputed. [Read more…] about US, NYS Continues To Honor Slavers, Racists, Traitors and Scoundrels

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

December 11, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Sarah and Angelina Grimke are revered figures in American history, famous for rejecting their privileged lives on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand activists in the North. Yet retellings of their epic story have long obscured their Black relatives. [Read more…] about The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

Preview The New Sojourner Truth State Park in Kingston on Sunday

November 18, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Decades before she took her fabled name, abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth was born enslaved in Ulster County, NY under the name Isabella.

Covering more than 500 acres and a mile of Hudson River shoreline, the future Sojourner Truth State Park in Kingston, NY, was once an industrial site for production of cement, quarry stone, and ice harvesting. Sojourner Truth State Park will be first new State Park since 2019. [Read more…] about Preview The New Sojourner Truth State Park in Kingston on Sunday

Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life

October 18, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.

In her new biography, Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2022), Elizabeth D. Leonard chronicles Butler’s successful career in the law defending the rights of the Lowell Mill girls and other workers, his achievements as one of Abraham Lincoln’s premier civilian generals, and his role in developing wartime policy in support of fugitives from enslavement as the nation advanced toward emancipation. [Read more…] about Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life

Beaten & Burned Out: Welsh Anti-Slavery Hero Robert Everett

September 14, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Rev. Robert Everett was a Welsh-American who came to Oneida County, NY in 1823 from Wales. He very quickly became involved in the anti-slavery movement. In 1835, Utica was selected as the site for the first New York State Anti-Slavery Convention.

The meeting was broken up by an angry mob. From Utica Everett was forced to move several times as his church services were often interrupted by people who continued to support slavery. He was physically assaulted while preaching and had his horse injured and home burned down by pro-slavery activists. [Read more…] about Beaten & Burned Out: Welsh Anti-Slavery Hero Robert Everett

Stephen Myers of Albany: Abolitionist Writer, Advocate & Underground Railroad Activist

August 30, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Stephen Myers was a Black activist in connection with the Underground Railroad and African American rights in general. He was born and enslaved in Hoosick, Rensselaer County, New York State and raised when it was a slave state working on progressive abolition. He was the principal agent and a key writer for the Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate, he was also the editor of The Elevator and The Telegraph and Temperance Journal.

As early as 1831 he was assisting fugitives from enslavement making their way to Canada. He was also active in 1827 with a group of little-known significance called the Clarkson Anti-slavery Society. As time went on he was involved in organizing and serving as a delegate to many of the Colored Men’s Conventions of the 1830s to the 1860s, to secure African American rights. He was involved in voting rights campaigns through the NYS Suffrage Association, was involved in organizing a school, and sued Albany Schools over segregation. [Read more…] about Stephen Myers of Albany: Abolitionist Writer, Advocate & Underground Railroad Activist

Surviving Nat Turner’s Southampton Rebellion

August 24, 2022 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Vanessa Holden, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and the author of the award-winning book Surviving Southampton:African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community (2021), leads listeners through the events and circumstances of the 1831-Southampton Rebellion, a rebellion we tend to know today as Nat Turner’s Rebellion.

During this episode, Holden reveals when and why the Southampton Rebellion took place; The early history of Southampton, Virginia and why it experienced a slave rebellion; And, why we should look at the Southampton Rebellion as a community-wide event. [Read more…] about Surviving Nat Turner’s Southampton Rebellion