“Slavery in New York” is a multimedia exhibition that opened here October 7. It reveals through displays of “Negroes to Be Sold” ads, like the one pictured on this page, wanted posters for runaway slaves, ledgers of slave ships, and other objects from the lives of enslaved Africans, how integral the institution of slavery was in the development of New York City.

The Dutch, and later British merchants, amassed great profits from manufacturing and insuring the vessels used in the slave trade. They transported sugar, tobacco, indigo, and cotton grown by slave labor in the Americas to Europe, and supplied the British plantation economies in the Caribbean. New York became one of the main ports of international commerce in the Western Hemisphere, centered on the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which brought 12 million Africans to the Americas over 400 years.

Part of the exhibition shows the work of Blacks in constructing the city. Enslaved Africans cleared forests and built roads, docks, and most of the infrastructure of the early Dutch colony, including the wall after which Wall Street was named and the first city hall.

“Slavery in New York” originated in the discovery in 1991 of an African burial ground, which covered six acres of lower Manhattan. Up to 20,000 people were reportedly buried there before the ground was closed in 1794. The remains of more than 400 bodies were unearthed in the excavation. On February 28, President George Bush declared the site a national monument.

These skeletons are testaments to the brutal conditions Black slaves faced. A study on the unearthed bones conducted by the African Burial Ground Project in 1994 found signs of hard labor—fractured bones and skulls, and indications of torn muscle ligaments from lifting, carrying, and pulling heavy loads. The study showed these slaves had a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years.

Many Africans in New York in the mid-1600s could obtain freedom after years of enslavement, the exhibit shows. Groot Manuel de Gerrit, for example, petitioned the Dutch West India Company for his freedom in 1644 and was given a parcel in the area known as the “Land of Blacks,” now Greenwich Village. “Freedom” for these Africans, however, was limited. They were forced to pay an annual tax to the colonial government or donate a portion of their crops to the market. Their children remained slaves.

By the mid-1600s, repressive laws codified slavery, making black skin a permanent sign of servitude. Blacks were prohibited from gathering in groups larger than four, later reduced to three. Slaves could not meet together, bear arms, or pass property onto their children. Blacks could not testify against whites in court.

In 1712, a group of Africans armed with guns and hatchets revolted, killing nine whites. Twenty-seven slaves were captured and 21 of them were executed, some “burnt, others hanged, one was broke on the wheel, and one hung alive in chains in town,” says a letter by Governor Robert Hunter displayed in the exhibit.

In 1703, 43 percent of New York households had slaves, compared with 6 percent in Philadelphia and 2 percent in Boston, the exhibit shows. Black slaves made up 20 percent of colonial New York’s population in 1746. The numbers of free wage laborers who were Black grew in the 1800s. Some 10 percent of free Blacks worked as seamen, with a sixth of the ships leaving New York docks having all-Black crews. Free Blacks fought for basic rights, and won the right for free Black males to vote in 1813. Eight years later, however, the second state constitution restricted suffrage for Blacks, requiring $250 in property for Black men to vote. Similar restrictions were lifted for white males.

The “gradual emancipation” law of 1799 granted freedom to any child born to a slave mother after July 4, but required them to remain servants until boys were 28 and girls 25. It was not until 1827 that slavery was abolished in New York—50 years after the first American revolution brought its end in several northern states. The Civil War against the southern slavocracy dealt the deathblow to the decaying institution and ushered in the era of free wage labor across color lines.

“Slavery in New York,” which closes March 26, shows a hidden chapter of this city’s history. I recommend it.  
 
 
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