This Day in Labor History: April 6, 1712. New York City slaves revolt, burning buildings and killing 9 whites. Let's talk about this little known incident in American history.
First, we have to remember that we cannot understand slavery without thinking of it as labor history. That was the point of slavery. This so often drops away from our national discussion of slavery. The point wasn't racism. The point was forced labor by a permanent underclass.
Of course, racism justified slavery and slavery justified racism. Class not race people are wrong in discussing the past and present. Race not class people are just as wrong.
Now to the 1712 slave revolt.
The Dutch had brought African slaves to New Amsterdam, but day-to-day, those slaves had a relatively high amount of freedom, at least compared to other slaves in the Americas.
In fact, under the Dutch, slaves had some legal rights, including the right to marry and the right to own property.
When the English took the small colony over in 1664, those rights started to disappear. Slavery became a bigger part of the city under the English, with the Royal African Company importing enough slaves that the city built a slave market near what is today Wall Street.
By 1700, about 20 percent of New York was made up of slaves. Slavery was absolutely central to life in New York, something that is largely unknown today.
Northerners like to think that slavery was a southern thing. But northern ship owners and sailors largely responsible for bringing slaves to the American colonies and then the United States and they got rich on it.
A lot of old money in the North today--both in terms of families and institutions--comes from the slave trade. There's tons of dirty horrible filthy money in the North with roots in ripping Africans from their homes.
And while a lot more of those slaves ended up in the southern colonies or the Caribbean than in the North, New York especially had a lot of slaves. Slaves did the brute force labor in NYC, such as working on the docks.
Given this reliance on slaves and thus the growth in slavery, whites became nervous.The colony began restricting slave rights.
Slaves began to need a pass if they were more than a mile from their master’s home. Marriage rights were stripped. Gatherings of more than three people were banned. Segregation was created for church services.
Most of the slaves at this time were African and many spoke little to no English. Many were desperate, outraged, ready to do anything. Obviously, going through the process of enslavement is something that we cannot even begin to relate to today.
We don’t know all that much about the details of this rebellion. The total number of participants could be up to 50 or as few as 20. There were probably some Native American slaves involved as there were lots of indigenous slaves in 1712.
After they set fire to the building, they started attacking the whites who came to fight it. Probably 9 whites were either shot, stabbed, or beaten to death. Another 6 were wounded. To my knowledge, no reliable information exists on the motivations of the slaves involved.
What we do know is that in the aftermath, New York authorities arrested about 70 slaves. Of those, six committed suicide in prison, although precisely what was considered suicide and what was outright murder isn’t something we can really figure out today.
I see different numbers on how many were put on trial, but most have numbers around 45. In any case, 21 were found guilty and executed. One was unlucky enough to die on a breaking wheel, the others were burned to death.
The breaking wheel had been banned for punishing whites by this time, but was brought back to demonstrate to all how brutal whites could be to slaves who revolted. Another was pregnant. They waited until she had the baby. Property after all. Then they executed her.
Greater restrictions on slave life followed as well, including new laws limiting slave gatherings, the banning of gambling, and making carrying guns illegal. New capital crimes were established for slaves, including rape, property damage, and conspiracy to murder.
Moreover, the city made slave manumission a pricey hobby for whites who would do so, taxing the owners £200 for each slave freed, a price much higher than the cost of a slave.
New York’s governor Robert Hunter defended this policy in 1715 while appearing in London before the Lords of Trade by arguing that slaves needed the “opportunity” to inherit their master’s wealth and that freeing them would drive them into poverty. That’s, uh, interesting logic.
Yet Hunter was a pretty odd guy. A friend of Jonathan Swift, he was outraged by the brutality of the executions and saved 5 men while writing to the Lords of Trade how poorly this compared to the relative mildness with which the Spanish dealt with slave rebellions.
This would not be the last slave revolt in New York. In 1741, slaves engaged in a very similar revolt, with similar results and brutality. Everyone remembered 1712. I will cover the 1741 revolt on its anniversary.
Slavery in New York did not end until 1827.
Back tomorrow with a discussion of the Workers Rights Consortium's founding in 2000. If you are at #LaborNotes this weekend, come find me!
