Slavery

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 Additional aspects of this incident can be gleaned from historical documents.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

Drapetomania: Medicalizing Escaping Slaves Before The Civil War

November 3, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

In 1851, Dr. Samuel Adolphus Cartwright invented “Drapetomania” to describe the “psychological disorder” that caused enslaved people to run away from bondage before the Civil War. He spent enormous energy to research, diagnose, and suggest corrective treatments to mitigate this “deviant” tendency to escape slavery. [Read more…] about Drapetomania: Medicalizing Escaping Slaves Before The Civil War

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

The First Slave Traders in New York

September 28, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The first direct shipment of enslaved Africans arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1655. The voyage of the White Horse came in the wake of significant changes in the Dutch Atlantic. In this eessay, American historian Dennis Maika outlines how family and business connections shaped the development of a slave-trading center in Manhattan.

New Amsterdam’s residents would have immediately noticed something different about the arrival of the Witte Paert (White Horse) in the early summer of 1655. The stench of human excrement and illness emanating from the newly arrived “scheepgen” (small ship), left little doubt that a slaver had arrived after a long voyage. [Read more…] about The First Slave Traders in New York

NY-CT Border Disputes & The Kidnapping of Freedom-Seeker Peter John Lee

September 27, 2022 by Alan J. Singer 3 Comments

If you’ve driven on U.S. 684 or Byram Road in Greenwich, CT you see signs notifying you that you are crisscrossing back and forth between New York and Connecticut. The border has been a sore point since the British colonies were founded in the 17th century.

In the 1680s Bedford and Rye were shifted from Connecticut to New York leading to a local taxpayers revolt. In 1857, a report by the New York State Senate noted, “Along the whole distance the greatest uncertainty existed, and a distrust and want of confidence in all the supposed lines.” The border was not finally clarified until 1879. [Read more…] about NY-CT Border Disputes & The Kidnapping of Freedom-Seeker Peter John Lee

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