Slavery in New Netherland

Date: 1613 [unknown]
Location: New York Colony
Surnames/tags: US Black Heritage African American History New Netherland

Sources pertaining to the history of slavery in New York and New Jersey

The history of settlement in northern New Jersey begins with settlement of New Netherland, which was originally based in what is now Manhattan. The first non-indigenous settler in 1613 is a man of African descent --Jan Rodrigues ^[1] The number of settlers grew rapidly after the Dutch West India Company was contracted to build a settlement on Manhattan 1621. Five years later, in 1626, the Company purchased sixteen black people from Portuguese pirates. These men and women were the first enslaved Africans in New Netherland ^[2]

• By 1664, a tax list for New Amsterdam showed that approximately one out of eight citizens of the colony owned enslaved Africans.

When the British seized the colony in 1664, New Amsterdam had a population of around 1,500, including 375 slaves.

New York Colony

Emancipations in 1644

The Dutch Colonial Council decided to partially emancipate 11 people from servitude. The record of their decision in 1644 states that the have served the Company for 18 or 19 years. This means that their servitude began in 1625 or 1626.

“We, Willem Kieft, director general, and the council of New Netherland, having considered the petition of the Negroes named Paulo Angolo, Big Manuel, Little Manuel, Manuel de Gerrit de Reus, Simon Congo, Antony Portuguese, Gracia, Piter Santomee, Jan Francisco, Little Antony and Jan Fort Orange, who have served the Company for 18 or 19 years, that they may be released from their servitude and be made free, especially as they have been many years in the service of the honorable Company here and long since have been promised their freedom; also, that they are burdened with many children, so that it will be impossible for them to support their wives and children as they have been accustomed to in the past if they must continue in the honorable Company’s service; Therefore, we, the director and council, do release the aforesaid Negroes and their wives from their bondage for the term of their natural lives, hereby setting them free and at liberty on the same footing as other free people here in New Netherland, where they shall be permitted to earn their livelihood by agriculture on the land shown and granted to them, on condition that they, the above mentioned Negroes, in return for their granted freedom, shall, each man for himself, be bound to pay annually, as long as he lives, to the West India Company or their agent here, 30 schepels of maize, or wheat, pease, or beans, and one fat hog valued at 20 guilders, which 30 schepels and hog they, the Negroes, each for himself, promise to pay annually, beginning from the date hereof, on pain, if any one shall fail to pay the annual recognition, of forfeiting his freedom and again going back into the servitude of the said Company. With the express condition that their children, at present born or yet to be born, shall remain bound and obligated to serve the honorable West India Company as slaves. Likewise, that the above mentioned men shall be bound to serve the honorable West India Company here on land or water, wherever their services are required, on condition of receiving fair wages from the Company. Thus done, the 25th of February 1644, in Fort Amsterdam in New Netherland”.

Fugitives: Fugitive slaves would be captured and be formally adjudicated by New York courts, under federal and state law, for return to the state the fled from. Agents representing southern plantations search for black persons resembling fugitives. They would take them south furtively, or, take them to NYC’s Court of Special Sessions, presided over by former slave holder Richard Riker ^[3] and his associates known as the “Kidnapping Club.” We have assigned the tag “RIKER” to records of such cases.

New York did not abolish slavery fully until 1827

• https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/the-forgotten-history-of-slavery-in-new-york/

New Jersey Colony

The first settlement in New Jersey was at Pavonia, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan in what is today Jersey City and Hoboken.

Pavonia was a patroonship, or land grant, under the absentee ownership of Michael Pauw, who in September 1630 instructed a company official in Pernambuco to send the “20 men and 30 women, negroes, who were captured in the last prize…[and] convey the said blacks to Pavonia.”

^[4]

• https://www.montclair.edu/anthropology/research/slavery-in-nj/part-3/

People

Jan Rodrigues--1613 first non-indigenous settler and a man of African descent

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.abhmuseum.org/jan-rodrigues-the-first-black-man-on-the-island-of-manhattan/#:~:text=In%201613%2C%20seven%20years%20before,what%20is%20now%20Manhattan%20Island.
2. ↑ https://www.montclair.edu/anthropology/research/slavery-in-nj/part-1/
3. ↑ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Riker
4. ↑ https://www.montclair.edu/anthropology/research/slavery-in-nj/part-1/