page_title: History of slavery in New York (state)
section_title: English rule
hierarchical_section_title: History of slavery in New York (state) / English rule
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Gezicht op Nieuw Amsterdam. Novum Amsterodamum. Midden op de afbeelding is een man gezien die aan zijn middel is opgehangen. Deze activiteit is te vergelijken met wat er in Zuid-Amerika [Suriname] met weggelopen of opstandige slaven gebeurde: de gestrafte werd met een haak aan zijn ribben opgehangen en rondgezwierd. Dit zogenaamde 'hook swinging' vond ook in India plaats. English: View of Nieuw Amsterdam. Novum Amsterodamum. In the centre of the picture a man is depicted hanging by his middle. This activity is comparable to the punishment meted out to runaway or recalcitrant slaves in South America (Surinam). The slave being punished was suspended by a hook in his ribs and swung to and fro. This so-called 'hook swinging' was also practiced in India.
context_page_description: The systematic enslavement of African people in the United States began in New York as part of the Dutch slave trade. The Dutch West India Company imported eleven African slaves to New Amsterdam in 1626, with the first slave auction held in New Amsterdam in 1655. With the second-highest proportion of any city in the colonies, more than 42% of New York City households held slaves by 1703, often as domestic servants and laborers. Others worked as artisans or in shipping and various trades in the city. Slaves were also used in farming on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, as well as the Mohawk Valley region.
  During the American Revolutionary War, the British troops occupied New York City in 1776. The Crown promised freedom to slaves who left rebel masters, and thousands moved to the city for refuge with the British. By 1780, 10,000 black people lived in New York. Many were slaves who had escaped from their slaveholders in both northern and southern colonies. After the war, the British evacuated about 3,000 slaves from New York, taking most of them to resettle as free people in Nova Scotia, where they are known as Black Loyalists.
context_section_description: In 1664, the English took over New Amsterdam and the colony. They continued to import slaves to support the work needed. Enslaved Africans performed a wide variety of skilled and unskilled jobs, mostly in the burgeoning port city and surrounding agricultural areas. In 1703, more than 42% of New York City's households held slaves, a percentage higher than in the cities of Boston and Philadelphia, and second only to Charleston in the South.
  In 1708, the New York Colonial Assembly passed a law entitled "Act for Preventing the Conspiracy of Slaves" which prescribed a death sentence for any slave who murdered or attempted to murder his or her master. This law, one of the first of its kind in Colonial America, was in part a reaction to the murder of William Hallet III and his family in Newtown (Queens).
  In 1711, a formal slave market was established at the end of Wall Street on the East River, and it operated until 1762.
  An act of the New York General Assembly, passed in 1730, provided that:
  Forasmuch as the number of slaves in the cities of New York and Albany, as also within the several counties, towns and manors within this colony, doth daily increase, and that they have oftentimes been guilty of confederating together in running away, and of other ill and dangerous practices, be it therefore unlawful for above three slaves to meet together at any time, nor at any other place, than when it shall happen they meet in some servile employment for their masters' or mistresses' profit, and by their masters' or mistresses' consent, upon penalty of being whipped upon the naked back, at the discretion of any one justice of the peace, not exceeding forty lashes for each offense.
  Manors and towns could appoint a common whipper at no more than three shillings per person. Blacks were given the lowest status jobs, the ones the Dutch did not want to perform, like meting out corporal punishment and executions.
  As in other slaveholding societies, the city was swept by periodic fears of slave revolt. Incidents were misinterpreted under such conditions. In what was called the New York Conspiracy of 1741, city officials believed a revolt had started. Over weeks, they arrested more than 150 slaves and 20 white men, trying and executing several, in the belief they had planned a revolt. Historian Jill Lepore believes whites unjustly accused and executed many blacks in this event.
  In 1753, the Assembly provided there should be paid "for every negro, mulatto or other slave, of four years old and upwards, imported directly from Africa, five ounces of Sevil[le] Pillar or Mexico plate [silver], or forty shillings in bills of credit made current in this colony."
caption: Jacob van Meurs, Novum Amsterodamum [New Amsterdam], 1671. In the centre of the picture a man is depicted hanging by his middle, suspended by a hook in his ribs and swung to and fro.
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