Tag Archives: Slavery

New York Slave Revolt ► Throwback Thursday

We have to go all the way back to 1712, before this country was even a country, for this week’s Throwback Thursday.

At the time New York City was merely a small town, in a province of Britain, on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. The crown colony known as New York (as opposed to old York, of course) was much larger than the current state. It included “all of the present U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont, along with inland portions of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine, as well as eastern Pennsylvania“, as the WikiWackyWoo tells us.

Slavery, on the other hand, had been around forever. According to the Smithsonian Institute:

Life was wretched for the slaves brought to New York. Many of the city’s early landmarks, from City Hall to the eponymous wall of Wall Street were built using slave labor. The city even constructed an official slave market in 1711, Jim O’Grady reported for WNYC News in 2015.

“It was a city-run slave market because they wanted to collect tax revenue on every person who was bought and sold there,” historian Chris Cobb told O’Grady. “And the city hired slaves to do work like building roads.”

It is generally agreed that the New York Slave Revolt probably could not have happened elsewhere.

In the bustling town of New York, with its population at about 6,000 people, it’s estimated that about 10-15% were slaves owned by others. These slaves worked and lived in close proximity to one another, unlike the plantations of the south where there might be great distances between small groups of slaves. That immediacy allowed the slaves to talk to each other, to make plans, to foment rebellion.


Further reading at Not Now Silly

Is Toussaint L’Overture Packing Heat? Again?

The Great Slave Auction

Nat Turner Sentenced To Be Hanged

Frederick Douglass Escapes

Official Stamp of Approval

No Skin In The Game
Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four

Where The Sidewalk Ends, Racism Begins
Part One; Part Two; Part Three


Rebellion or Revolt?

On the night of April 6, 1712, resentment reached a flashpoint. It began in, what was then, the middle of town, on Maiden Lane. There about 23 slaves met and began their rebellion. I’ll let Colonial New York’s Governor Robert Hunter pick up the story:

I must now give your Lordships an account of a bloody conspiracy of some of the slaves of this place, to destroy as many of the inhabitants as they could….when they had resolved to revenge themselves, for some hard usage they apprehended to have received from their masters (for I can find no other cause) they agreed to meet in the orchard of Mr. Crook in the middle of the town, some provided with fire arms, some with swords and others with knives and hatchets. This was the sixth day of April, the time of the meeting was about twelve or one clock in the night, when about three and twenty of them were got together. One…slave to one Vantilburgh set fire to [a shed] of his masters, and then repairing to his place where the rest were, they all sallyed out together with their arms and marched to the fire. By this time, the noise of the fire spreading through the town, the people began to flock to it. Upon the approach of several, the slaves fired and killed them. The noise of the guns gave the alarm, and some escaping, their shot soon published the cause of the fire, which was the reason that nine Christians were killed, and about five or six wounded. Upon the first notice, which was very against them, but the slaves made their retreat into the woods, by the favour of the night. Having ordered the day following, the militia of this town and the country of West Chester to drive [to] the Island, and by this means and strict searches in the town, we found all that put the design in execution, six of these having first laid violent hands upon themselves [committed suicide], the rest were forthwith brought to their tryal before ye Justices of this place….In that court were twenty seven condemned, whereof twenty one were executed, one being a woman with a child, her execution by than means suspended. Some were burnt, others hanged, one broke on the wheel, and one hung alive in chains in the town, so that there has been the most exemplary punishment inflicted that could be possibily [sic] thought of.

Not surprisingly conditions for slaves became worse following the rebellion. Laws were quickly passed that prevented slaves from gathering in groups of 4 or more. They could not carry firearms, nor could they gamble. Punishment for those crimes was a whipping. However, the new laws also demanded the Death Penalty for property crimes, rape, and conspiracy to kill. In addition, owners who wanted to set their slaves free would be required to pay a tax of £200, which was far more than they could get by selling the slave to someone else.

It wasn’t until 1799 that New York outlawed slavery, but “it remained an intrinsic part of city life until after the Civil War, as businessmen continued to profit off of the products of the slave trade like sugar and molasses imported from the Caribbean” not to mention the products from the south.

Slavery is ‘Merka’s original sin. The sin of Racism continues to this very day.

The Great Slave Auction ► Throwback Thursday

One of the largest slave auctions before the Civil War — alternately called The Great Slave Auction or The Weeping Time — took place 158 years ago today.

Pierce M. Butler inherited the slaves from his grandfather and namesake, Major Pierce Butler. The elder Butler no longer spoke to his son, so he willed his property to his 2 grandsons, one of which was Pierce.

The younger Pierce was a bad businessman and a worse gambler. Eventually creditors forced him to sell off his assets. When the land wasn’t enough to settle his extensive gambling debts, Butler agreed to sell his human chattel.

The sale lasted 2 days because there were 436 men, women, and children to be sold. From Unearthing the Weeping Time: Savannah’s Ten Broeck Race Course and 1859 Slave Sale:

Advertisement for The Great Slave Auction

The “Weeping Time” brought much anguish to the enslaved. Families, who had been together for all of their lives on Butler’s Island or Hampton, were torn apart and dispersed; many of them never saw each other again. The Butler slaves were dispersed all over the southern states. The heavens seemed to weep in empathy as the four dry days during which buyers inspected the enslaved gave way to a brooding storm; it rained “violently,” and the “wind howled” for the two days of sale, letting up only after the last person had been sold.26 Outside the advertisements, the Savannah newspapers offered cursory mention that the sale had taken place as planned. Slavery and slave sales were a way of life and livelihood in Savannah, and much of the US South. After Mortimer Thomson’s Tribune article was published in the North, Savannah Morning News editor, William T. Thompson (1812–1882) castigated Doesticks as a spy, intimating that next time he came South, he would not get away.27

Detailing the callousness and heartlessness of slavery, Doesticks’ published exposé was a political blow to the South, at a time of escalating sectional animosity. Like the arrival of the slave ship Wanderer—which in November 1858 landed the last shipment of African slaves brought to Georgia, on Jekyll Island near Savannah, the Ten Broeck slave sale exacerbated tensions between northern and southern states.28

Who was Doesticks? The WikiWacyWoo answers that question:

Pierce M. Butler (far left) next to his wife Frances

Mortimer Thomson, a popular journalist during the time who wrote under the pseudonym “Q. K. Philander Doesticks” memorialized the event.[3] Initially, Thomson traveled to Savannah infiltrating the buyers by pretending to be interested in purchasing slaves. After the sale, he wrote a long and scathing article describing the auction in the New York Tribune titled, “What Became of the Slaves on a Georgia Plantation.”[4]

Slavery is the country’s original sin.

Slavery is also a permanent stain on the flag of this nation, which will never wash out.

While the Founding Fathers wrote a Bill of Rights and Constitution filled with lofty words, it was an empty promise even before the ink dried. These Founders owned people — bought and sold people — and enshrined in these documents that a Black person was only worth 3/5ths of a White one.

Additionally, the institution of slavery is what allowed the fledgling nation to become so prosperous so quickly. Free labour allowed some families to amass great fortunes, which have been passed down from generation to generation.

Just as important is how — after Reconstruction was abandoned — the attitude of White folk towards their Black brothers and sisters barely changed. There would be no #BlackLivesMatter movement today if people were treated equally in the ensuing 15 decades.


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Nat Turner Sentenced To Be Hanged ► Throwback Thursday

Benjamin Phipps, a local farmer, accidentally
discovers Nat Turner almost 2 months after the revolt

On this day in 1831, Nat Turner was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged as leader of the slave revolt of two months earlier.

Turner believed his revolt was ordained by God. According to History:

He was born on the Virginia plantation of Benjamin Turner, who allowed him to be instructed in reading, writing, and religion. Sold three times in his childhood and hired out to John Travis (1820s), he became a fiery preacher and leader of African-American slaves on Benjamin Turner’s plantation and in his Southampton County neighbourhood, claiming that he was chosen by God to lead them from bondage.

Believing in signs and hearing divine voices, Turner was convinced by an eclipse of the Sun (1831) that the time to rise up had come, and he enlisted the help of four other slaves in the area. An insurrection was planned, aborted, and rescheduled for August 21,1831, when he and six other slaves killed the Travis family, managed to secure arms and horses, and enlisted about 75 other slaves in a disorganized insurrection that resulted in the murder of 51 white people.

Afterwards, Turner hid nearby successfully for six weeks until his discovery, conviction, and hanging at Jerusalem, Virginia, along with 16 of his followers. 

Racist cartoon depicting the revolt

If Nat Turner thought his revolt would lead to freedom for slaves, he was sadly mistaken. In fact, as the WikiWackyWoo tell us, it got worse for all Black folk, Free Black and slave alike.

In total, the state executed 56 blacks suspected of having been
involved in the uprising. But in the hysteria of aroused fears and anger
in the days after the revolt, white militias and mobs killed an
estimated 200 blacks, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion.[32]

[…]

The fear caused by Nat Turner’s insurrection and the concerns raised
in the emancipation debates that followed resulted in politicians and
writers responding by defining slavery as a “positive good”.[34] Such authors included Thomas Roderick Dew, a William and Mary College professor who published a pamphlet in 1832 opposing emancipation on economic and other grounds.[35]

Fears of uprisings polarized moderates and slave owners across the South. Municipalities across the region instituted repressive policies against
blacks. Rights were taken away from those who were free. The freedoms
of all black people in Virginia were tightly curtailed. Socially, the
uprising discouraged whites’ questioning the slave system from the
perspective that such discussion might encourage similar slave revolts. Manumissions
had decreased by 1810. The shift away from tobacco had made owning
slaves in the Upper South an excess to the planters’ needs, so they
started to hire out slaves. With the ending of the international slave
trade, the invention of the cotton gin, and opening up of new territories in the Deep South,
suddenly there was a growing market for the trading of slaves. Over the
next decades, more than a million slaves would be transported to the
Deep South in a forced migration as a result of the domestic slave
trade.

Nat Turner was hanged on November 11, 1831, just 6 days after he was tried, convicted, and sentenced.

Frederick Douglass Escapes ► Throwback Thursday

Born into slavery in what might have been 1818, Frederick Douglass eventually became an icon of the Abolitionist Movement.

Although it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, Sophia Auld, the wife of Douglass’ owner Hugh, taught him the alphabet around the age of 12. When Hugh Auld heard of this he forbade the lessons, but Douglass had already tasted education and couldn’t get enough of it. He continued to learn from the White children around him and read whatever he could get his hands on. According to Biography

It was through reading that Douglass’ ideological opposition to slavery began to take shape. He read newspapers avidly, and sought out political writing and literature as much as possible. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator with clarifying and defining his views on human rights. Douglass shared his newfound knowledge with other enslaved people. Hired out to William Freeland, he taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly church service. Interest was so great that in any week, more than 40 slaves would attend lessons. Although Freeland did not interfere with the lessons, other local slave owners were less understanding. Armed with clubs and stones, they dispersed the congregation permanently.

After 2 unsuccessful attempts to escape, Frederick Douglass finally freed himself from the shackles of slavery on this date in 1838. After his escape he married Anna Murray, a Free Black Woman, and they lived for a while under the assumed name of Johnston, eventually settling back on Douglass as their married name.

Douglass subscribed to the anti-slavery weekly The Liberator, published by William Lloyd Garrison. He started to tell his story of life as a slave in Abolitionist meetings in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which had a large free Black population. Eventually Garrison wrote about Douglass and urged him to write his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which was published in 1845.

The book, translated and sold around the world, was a best seller. However, there was a downside to fame. Douglass had to escape once again, this time to Ireland, where he lectured for 2 years until his supporters could purchase his freedom.

Douglass returned home and continued to fight for the end of slavery. He published several other books: My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), which was revised 11 years later. He died of a heart attack or stroke in 1895 after being honoured at a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. Thousands attended his funeral. He is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, where Susan B. Anthony is also buried.