Volume I Part 18 (1/2)

[200] Ibid., vol. vi, p. 112.

[201] Hening, vol. iii. pp. 87, 88.

[202] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 267.

[203] Ibid., vol. iv. pp. 133, 134.

[204] Ibid., vol. iv, p. 133.

[205] Ibid., vol. vii. p. 95; and vol. vi. p. 533.

[206] Ibid., vol. iv. p. 131.

[207] Ibid., vol. iii. p. 87.

[208] Campbell, p. 529.

[209] Burk, vol. ii. Appendix, p. xiii.

[210] Foot's Sketches, First Series, p. 291.

[211] Hening, vol. ii. p. 517.

[212] Hening, vol. ii. p. 518.

[213] Campbell, p. 383.

[214] Chalmers's American Colonies, vol. ii. p. 7.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE COLONY OF NEW YORK.

1628-1775.

SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK BY THE DUTCH IN 1609.--NEGROES INTRODUCED INTO THE COLONY, 1628.--THE TRADE IN NEGROES INCREASED.--TOBACCO EXCHANGED FOR SLAVES AND MERCHANDISE.

GOVERNMENT OF THE COLONY.--NEW NETHERLAND FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENGLISH, AUG. 27, 1664.--VARIOUS CHANGES.--NEW LAWS ADOPTED.--LEGISLATION.--FIRST REPRESENTATIVES ELECTED IN 1683.--IN 1702 QUEEN ANNE INSTRUCTS THE ROYAL GOVERNOR IN REGARD TO THE IMPORTATION OF SLAVES.--SLAVERY RESTRICTIONS.--EXPEDITION TO EFFECT THE CONQUEST OF CANADA UNSUCCESSFUL.--NEGRO RIOT.--SUPPRESSED BY THE EFFICIENT AID OF TROOPS.--FEARS OF THE COLONISTS.--NEGRO PLOT OF 1741.--THE ROBBERY OF HOGG'S HOUSE.--DISCOVERY OF A PORTION OF THE GOODS.--THE ARREST OF HUGHSON, HIS WIFE, AND IRISH PEGGY.--CRIMINATION AND RECRIMINATION.--THE BREAKING-OUT OF NUMEROUS FIRES.--THE ARREST OF SPANISH NEGROES.--THE TRIAL OF HUGHSON.--TESTIMONY OF MARY BURTON.--HUGHSON HANGED.--THE ARREST OF MANY OTHERS IMPLICATED IN THE PLOT.--THE HANGING OF CaeSAR AND PRINCE.--QUACK AND CUFFEE BURNED AT THE STAKE.--THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR'S PROCLAMATION.--MANY WHITE PERSONS ACCUSED OF BEING CONSPIRATORS.--DESCRIPTION OF HUGHSON'S MANNER OF SWEARING THOSE HAVING KNOWLEDGE OF THE PLOT.--CONVICTION AND HANGING OF THE CATHOLIC PRIEST URY.--THE SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED TERMINATION OF THE TRIAL.--NEW LAWS MORE STRINGENT TOWARD SLAVES ADOPTED.

From the settlement of New York by the Dutch in 1609, down to its conquest by the English in 1664, there is no reliable record of slavery in that colony. That the inst.i.tution was coeval with the Holland government, there can be no historical doubt. During the half-century that the Holland flag waved over the New Netherlands, slavery grew to such proportions as to be regarded as a necessary evil. As early as 1628 the irascible slaves from Angola,[215] Africa, were the fruitful source of wide-spread public alarm. A newly settled country demanded a hardy and energetic laboring cla.s.s. Money was scarce, the colonists poor, and servants few. The numerous physical obstructions across the path of material civilization suggested cheap but efficient labor. White servants were few, and the cost of securing them from abroad was a great hinderance to their increase. The Dutch had possessions on the coast of Guinea and in Brazil, and hence they found it cheap and convenient to import slaves to perform the labor of the colony.[216]

The early slaves went into the pastoral communities, worked on the public highways, and served as valets in private families. Their increase was stealthy, their conduct insubordinate, and their presence a distressing nightmare to the apprehensive and conscientious.

The West India Company had offered many inducements to its patroons.[217] And its pledge to furnish the colonists with ”as many blacks as they conveniently could,” was scrupulously performed.[218]

In addition to the slaves furnished by the vessels plying between Brazil and the coast of Guinea, many Spanish and Portuguese prizes were brought into the Netherlands, where the slaves were made the chattel property of the company. An urgent and extraordinary demand for labor, rather than the cruel desire to traffic in human beings, led the Dutch to encourage the bringing of Negro slaves. Scattered widely among the whites, treated often with the humanity that characterized the treatment bestowed upon the white servants, there was little said about slaves in this period. The majority of them were employed upon the farms, and led quiet and sober lives. The largest farm owned by the company was ”_cultivated by the blacks_;”[219] and this fact was recorded as early as the 19th of April, 1638, by ”Sir William Kieft, Director-General of New Netherland.” And, although the references to slaves and slavery in the records of Amsterdam are incidental, yet it is plainly to be seen that the inst.i.tution was purely patriarchal during nearly all the period the Hollanders held the Netherlands.

Manumission of slaves was not an infrequent event.[220] Sometimes it was done as a reward for meritorious services, and sometimes it was prompted by the holy impulses of humanity and justice. The most cruel thing done, however, in this period, was to hold as slaves in the service of the company the children of Negroes who were lawfully manumitted. ”All their children already born, or yet to be born, remained obligated to serve the company as slaves.” In cases of emergency the liberated fathers of these bond children were required to serve ”by water or by land” in the defence of the Holland government.[221] It is gratifying, however, to find the recorded indignation of some of the best citizens of the New Netherlands against the enslaving of the children of free Negroes. It was severely denounced, as contrary to justice and in ”violation of the law of nature.” ”How any one born of a free Christian mother” could, notwithstanding, be a slave, and be obliged to remain such, pa.s.sed their comprehension.[222] It was impossible for them to explain it.”

And, although ”they were treated just like Christians,” the moral sense of the people could not excuse such a flagrant crime against humanity.[223]

Director-General Sir William Kieft's unnecessary war, ”without the knowledge, and much less the order, of the XIX., and against the will of the Commonality there,” had thrown the Province into great confusion. Property was depreciating, and a feeling of insecurity seized upon the people. Instead of being a source of revenue, New Netherlands, as shown by the books of the Amsterdam Chamber, had cost the company, from 1626 to 1644, inclusive, ”over five hundred and fifty thousand guilders, deducting the returns received from there.”

It was to be expected that the slaves would share the general feeling of uneasiness and expectancy. Something had to be done to stay the panic so imminent among both cla.s.ses of the colonists, bond and free.

The Bureau of Accounts made certain propositions to the company calculated to act as a tonic upon the languis.h.i.+ng hopes of the people.