The first census by the British in 1668 listed 917 whites and 146 “Negroes” in Westchester County. When Caleb Heathcote, a wealthy merchant from England, founded the manor of Scarsdale in 1701, a small population of enslaved men and women were already living and laboring throughout Westchester. In 1646, the Director General of New Netherlands instructed, “for the promotion of agriculture there, it is deemed proper to permit at the request of the patroons, colonists, and other farmers, the conveyance thither of as many negroes as they are willing to purchase at a fair price.” Thomas Scharf, in his History of Westchester County, New York. “Slavery existed in Westchester County almost from its first white settlement.” wrote J. Under English rule slavery would become even more entrenched and central to New York's economy. He explains that Dutch Governor Stuyvesant blamed the quick surrender to the English partly on a food shortage caused by feeding a shipload of “300 to 400 half-starved Negroes and Negresses” who had been captured two weeks earlier. Judd Northrup described the surrender of New Netherland to the English in his essay, “Slavery in New York: a Historical Sketch” published in 1900. When the British invaded New Netherland in 1664 they renamed it New York in honor of the Duke of York, who later became King James II. Other ran away and found refuge living among Native Americans. Some Blacks were able to bargain for their freedom in exchange for loyalty to the Dutch. Peter Stuyvesant, who was the Dutch West Indies Company Director, wrote to Vice Director Matthias Beck in a 1661 letter: “In regard to the negroes, which the hon’ble directors ordered to be sent hither, they ought to be stout and strong fellows, fit for immediate employment on this fortress and other works also, if required, in war against the wild barbarians.” Slaves were also used to defend the fur traders and settlers in skirmishes with Native Americans. Harris, in her book, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863, explains that: “European colonists used slaves to clear the land, plant grains, take care of livestock, and in New Amsterdam wealthy merchants, artisans and business owners used slaves and trained them to work in their businesses.”
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Most of the company’s ships brought slaves to sugar plantations in the Caribbean, but they also supplied slaves to New Netherland where enslaved Africans would become the dominant labor force. The First Slaves in New Amsterdamīy 1660, the Dutch West India Company was the principal slave trader in North America. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, ended slavery in the United States, but the struggle for equality continues today.
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It became a crime to protect fugitives and free Blacks lived in fear of being kidnapped and sold back into slavery. The laws allowed the capture and return of runaway slaves from other states. The Fugitive Slave Acts, passed by the United States Congress in 17, protected the interests of the slave states. New York shared many economic interests with industries in the South, notably cotton and sugar, and this influenced political and social divisions that encouraged pro-slavery sentiments and legislation up through the Civil War. The first emancipation law was passed in 1799 and in 1817, Scarsdale-born Governor Daniel Tompkins convinced the New York legislature to gradually end slavery by July 4th, 1827. New York was one of the last Northern states to abolish slavery and the process was long and restrictive. Over forty percent of households in New York City had one or more slaves, and twenty percent of the colonial population in New York were enslaved Africans. Farmers and early settlers in Westchester depended on the labor of enslaved Africans. Over 7,000 slaves were imported into New York between 17, and most of them went to the surrounding rural areas.
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Although New York had fewer enslaved Africans than the Southern states, it had the largest enslaved population of any of the Northern states. Slavery lasted in New York for over 200 years from 1626 to 1827. New York relied heavily on slaveholding from its earliest days as a Dutch colony, later as an English colony and then as a new state. The history of slavery in New York is a brutal and shameful reality, the details of which are still being discovered.