Watch a conversation between Eric Foner and Leslie Harris.Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery The text was written by the Parks Department and the Landmarks Preservation Commission in collaboration with former Schomburg Center curator and historian Christopher Moore. The marker, the brainchild of writer and artist Christopher Cobb, took years and the advocacy of City Council member Jumaane Williams to become reality. We need many more markers to tell their heroic story. The slave market on Wall Street closed in 1762 but men, women, and children continued to be bought and sold throughout the city.īut through it all, from running away and launching revolts to establishing progressive churches, schools, abolition and mutual aid societies, black New Yorkers, enslaved and free, resisted and fought back. The enslaved population-which ranged between 15 and 20 percent of the total-literally built the city and was the engine that made its economy run. By 1730, 42 percent of the population owned slaves, a higher percentage than in any other city in the country except Charleston, South Carolina. With the aggressive increase in the slave trade and the expansion of the city, an official slave market opened in 1711 by the East River on Wall Street between Pearl and Water Streets. Of the close to 4,000 people whose origins are known, 1,271 came from Madagascar, 998 from Congo, 757 from Senegambia, 504 from the Gold Coast (Ghana), 239 from Sierra Leone, and 217 from non-identified areas of the continent. Whereas during the Dutch period, 70 percent of the Africans came from the Caribbean under British rule-which started in 1664-most arrived directly from Africa. Their wives were freed too, but not their children. Their freedom was conditional, though they had to deliver one “fat hog” and 22.5 bushels of corn, wheat, peas, or beans to the WIC every year or be re-enslaved. Their collective 300 acres stretched from the Bowery Road to 5th Avenue and 39th Street. Eighteen years later, the men, who had petitioned the local Dutch authorities to get their freedom, were liberated. In 1626, 11 Africans from Congo, Angola, and the island of Sao Tome were transported to the small town.
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