Africans — enslaved and free — helped shape New York City in the 18th century.
That fact was brought home to New Yorkers in 1991, when the literal bones of the city’s pioneer Black citizens resurfaced as the African Burial Ground was uncovered in lower Manhattan.
The subsequent decades-long fight to maintain the sanctity of the 6-acre African Burial Ground centered on the importance of highlighting the extent of Black slavery in colonial New York — a fact that had long been forgotten — and the free communities that had formed here. That fight has been a struggle to tell the stories of Black people in New York that are often forgotten because so much of the city’s Black population came during the Great Migration or in the waves of immigrants who arrived in the 20th century.
Since 2024, however, New York State’s Reparations Commission has taken on the task of documenting Black New Yorkers’ past and present by collecting public comments, holding hearings, and conducting research. Questions of justice, acknowledgment, and historical repair are the main issues under debate.
“We’re still gathering data and listening to communities across the state,” explained Dr. Seanelle Hawkins, chair of the commission. “The trauma of history is still evident today, and the process of redress must address not just compensation but also policy change and programs that create real opportunity.”
The commission, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on December 19, 2023, is scheduled to deliver its recommendations to the governor and the legislature by early 2027. It will chronicle centuries of racial injustice in New York and connect that history to actionable steps for justice today.
Sale in New York. (Photo credit: Courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)
Black life and labor in 18th-century New York
The roots of New York’s current racial and economic divides stretch back 250 years, to when the labors of Black New Yorkers — those held in slavery and those who were free — helped shape the city’s development.
Historian Dr. Leslie M. Harris described 18th-century New York as a “slave city” in her book, “In the Shadow of Slavery” — it was second only to Charleston, S.C., in the number of enslaved residents living there. Harris said New York at that time had a wide variety of people of African descent. “Slaves brought to Manhattan reflected a variety of backgrounds,” she wrote. “The Royal African Company imported slaves from the British Caribbean islands of Jamaica, Barbados, and Antigua. Dutch merchants continued to import some slaves from the Caribbean island of Curaçao. Slaves directly from Africa came from the Gold Coast, the Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra, and the Congo.” These Africans, made up of many ethnic groups and coming from many nations, were the hands that built colonial New York when it was still called New Amsterdam, and ultimately became an important part of building its economy.
“Slavery was foundational to life in New York City,” Marquis Taylor, research assistant at the Tenement Museum, said in an interview. “The labor of enslaved people was central to the city’s development. People were doing all kinds of work — domestic service, building boats, working on the docks. It wasn’t the plantation model of the South, but it was just as pervasive.”
By the mid-1700s, more than 20% of New York City’s population was enslaved. The city’s slave market, at Wall Street between Pearl and Water Streets, was in operation from 1711 to 1762; some 60% of all enslaved Africans in the United States entered through New York’s port. Brooklyn, then Kings County, had the highest percentage of slaveholding homes in the North, according to genealogist Stacey G. Bell, president of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS NY).
“Wall Street became Wall Street because of this trade in humans,” Bell said. “Modern-day companies like Brooks Brothers made their name by making clothing for — for the lack of a better word — house slaves. Their records are still out there — a direct link to this history. They made clothing for the horse drivers, the carriage men; they made clothing for the butlers [who] worked in the houses, for the handmaids, for the seamstresses, for the people who were in contact with the Europeans, because they couldn’t have them in rags made of potatoes while working in the house and working in close proximity to them. That’s how Brooks Brothers got started — and they’re still a company today.”
Enslaved Black New Yorkers loaded and unloaded ships, built roads and fortifications, refined sugar, manufactured rum, and performed skilled trades, among other jobs essential to creating what became the nation’s largest city.
“People often think of slavery as a Southern institution, but it was woven into urban life here,” said Taylor. “Many docks and shipyards we see today were built by enslaved people, who were sometimes ‘hired out’ to perform vital work across the city’s growing waterfront.” Domestic service was also a constant presence, with enslaved men and women cooking, cleaning, and caring for households in close quarters with their enslavers.
Yet even during slavery, Black New Yorkers were able to forge connections and commit acts of resistance. Early on, they created Black enclaves like the Land of the Blacks, an area just north of colonial New Amsterdam’s wall, where free and “half-free” African settlers owned farms between 1643 and 1716. Later, after the U.S. Revolution, communities like Seneca Village, established in what would become Central Park, and Weeksville, the town founded by James Weeks in what is now Crown Heights, Brooklyn, were established. “We have to look for people as property in records — like tax documents, insurance papers, even slave tags,” Bell noted as she explained the detective work required to reconstruct the lives of Black New Yorkers when researching genealogies. “We get stories from family Bibles, oral histories, and the breadcrumbs left in the archives.”
Recalling the exhibit “Trace/s: Family History Research and the Legacy of Slavery,” on view at the Center for Brooklyn History last year, Bell added, “When you walk into these historical societies or museums, you see paintings of enslavers, but rarely of us. That’s why we centered our exhibition around the descendants of enslaved people — like Mildred Jones — so our story is finally told on our terms.” The diversity of Black experience was always present. “Every family had to do what was best for them, whether to flee with the British during the Revolution, stay and build new lives, or resist in ways large and small.”
In 2003, students from Brooklyn’s Susan McKinney school marched to push for re-naming of 290 Broadway as African Burial Ground building. Credit: Karen Juanita Carrillo photo
Resistance, revolution, and the path to freedom
Two and a half centuries ago, the American Revolution transformed the city’s Black population. When British forces occupied New York in 1776, thousands of enslaved people took the opportunity to escape, encouraged by British promises of freedom.
“Life was hazardous,” said Taylor. “The September 1776 fire destroyed much of the city. Food and clean water were scarce, and disease was rampant. But the upheaval gave Black people a chance to negotiate for freedom — whether by working for the British, joining the Patriots, or seeking new lives elsewhere.”
The city’s Black residents were never a monolith. “Some joined the Loyalists, hoping for emancipation, while others cast their lot with the Continental Army or simply tried to survive,” said Taylor. “The era was complex: Everyone was searching for the best path to freedom and stability.” After the war, Black Loyalists accepted British offers to move to places like Nova Scotia.
The end of British rule did not bring immediate freedom — those who remained in the new United States remained enslaved. In this area, they were still forced into both urban and rural slavery: In Manhattan, enslaved people tended to do both domestic and urban labor, and lived close to their enslavers; in the other boroughs, plantation-style slavery meant a higher percentage of white households held slaves. “There were free people of color communities, and the legacy is still present in places like Van Cortlandt Park, which was once a plantation,” Bell said.
New York’s Gradual Emancipation Act of 1799 only freed those born after July 4 of that year, leaving many still in slavery for decades until final emancipation in the state on July 4, 1827. To commemorate this final end of slavery in New York, Abolition Commemoration Day is observed annually on the third Tuesday of July.
Historical records rarely tell the complete story of Black New Yorkers. “We have to look for people as property in banking records, tax documents, insurance policies — places where people were listed as taxable or mortgaged,” Bell observed. “We rely on oral histories, family Bibles, and the fragments left behind.” Despite these obstacles, ongoing research and family stories continue to reveal the rich tapestry of Black life and resistance.
Historical memory and the push for reparations
For generations, the story of slavery in New York was overlooked or minimized in public memory. The discovery of the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan in 1991 and the “Slavery in New York” exhibition at the New-York Historical Society (2005–2006) forced a citywide reckoning, displaying artifacts — slave tags, shackles, legal records — that testified to two centuries of forced labor and the enduring impact of slavery on the city’s prosperity and identity.
“The only thing we have in common as Brooklynites is the story we tell ourselves about what it means to be here,” said Dominique Jean-Louis, chief historian at the Center for Brooklyn History. “We owe it to the communities of the past to truly acknowledge their contributions — voluntary or otherwise.” The African Burial Ground, Seneca Village, and other sites are now recognized as essential to the city’s narrative, today’s fight for reparations seeks to connect historical injustice with present-day disparities.
“We’ve heard that reparations means more than just compensation — it could be policy change or programs, like free college tuition or economic advancement,” Hawkins said of the Reparation Commission’s ongoing hearings. “New Yorkers are saying there has to be a process of redress, but it hasn’t yet been spelled out in every community.” The commission’s work is a chance to empower those whose ancestors built the city but rarely reaped its rewards.
Historians and community leaders agree that uncovering the full story of Black New Yorkers — enslaved and free — is essential to informing policy. “History has plenty to tell us about who was allowed to reap the benefits of the Brooklyn we have built, and who was left out,” said Jean-Louis. “There are quantifiable, empirical pieces of evidence that can guide conversations about reparations and reinvestment. The question is not just general; it’s specific. When was the wealth generated? Who benefited? Who was denied?” By linking the 18th-century slave market to modern policy, the New York State Reparations Commission is trying to ensure that the contributions of Black New Yorkers are finally met with justice.
The final report from the commission could suggest a way to bridge this violent history with a more hopeful future. Hawkins said the hearings have shown that for many, reparation means more than just compensation: “We’re learning about what Black New Yorkers want, and what we’re hearing from a variety of New Yorkers is that they’d like to see not just compensation. I think when we talk about reparations, people think, ‘Cut me the check.’ Now, we’ve certainly heard many times, ‘Cut the check and don’t tell us how to spend our money.’
“But we’ve also heard that reparations mean more than compensation. It could be a policy change, or it could be programs. We’ve heard a variety of programs that people talked about, whether it is free college tuition or opportunities to make sure that there is economic advancement for Black New Yorkers. We’ve heard a variety of things, and we’re still listening.”
I am not sure what additional steps could be taken at the local, state, or federal level to improve the well-being of African-Americans in NYC that have not been tried over the last six decades.
Such a wonderful article highlighting the pertinent history of slavery in New York, especially NYC. This rich history is still new to me and I’m a college HBCU graduate. Loved the experts from Dr. Marquis Taylor, enlightening.
Wonderful and timely article. We will be covering similar history with a focus on women’s experiences in the New York Historical’s upcoming exhibition, Revolutionary Women, opening May 29th.