The North's Convenient Amnesia About Slavery

Americans typically grow up believing that slavery was confined to the cotton fields of the South and that the North was always made up of free states. The fact that slavery was practiced all over the early United States often comes as a shock to people in places like New York, where the myth of the free North has been surprisingly durable. The truth is that New York was at one time a center of the slave trade, with more black people enslaved than any other city in the country, with the possible exception of Charleston, S.C.

The New-York Historical Society in Manhattan has set out to make all this clear in its pathbreaking "Slavery in New York," which ends in March. It is being described as the first exhibition by a major museum that focuses on the long-neglected issue of slavery in the North.

New York's central position in the slave trade was partially exposed back in 1991, when workers excavating for an office tower in Lower Manhattan uncovered a long-forgotten burial ground that may have originally spread for as much as a mile. It served as the final resting place for thousands of enslaved New Yorkers.

Among the bodies exhumed and examined, about 40 percent were of children under the age of 15; the most common cause of death was malnutrition. Some enslaved mothers appear to have committed infanticide, rather than bringing their children into what was clearly a hellish environment. Adults typically died of hard labor, dumped into their graves by owners who simply went out and bought more slaves.

Slavery was no less brutal in New York than in the South - and just as pervasive. At one point, about four in 10 New York households owned human beings. The free human labor that ran the city's most gracious homes also helped to build its early infrastructure and supplied the muscle needed by the beef, grain and shipping interests, which forestalled emancipation until 1827 - making New York among the last Northern states to abolish slavery....

To The Editor (12-19-05):

Like Brent Staples, I hope that collective"amnesia" about slavery in New York will be cured by the present exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, which is, as he says, pathbreaking ("A Convenient Amnesia About Slavery," The City Life, editorial, Dec. 15). I have to take issue, however, with some of his comments about the African Burial Ground.

There is no archaeological evidence of infanticide, though a mother's awareness that her child would likely be sold away by age 4 into a life of drudgery and abuse, the hellish environment Mr. Staples speaks of, may have driven some to this grim act. Nor is there any evidence that either adults or children were ever"dumped into their graves" by owners.

On the contrary, those whose graves were excavated and studied had all been laid to rest with care, in coffins and shrouded or clothed, with their heads placed toward the west. Infants and young children were typically placed in or near the graves of adults, both men and women. Some of the youngest were buried adorned with strings of beads or other jewelry, and had their winding cloths fastened with rows of brass pins, suggesting the loving and protective care of the adults who mourned them. Kin, friends and fellow captive Africans would have seen to the funerals, not"owners."

In the face of unspeakable hardship, enslaved New Yorkers who buried their dead in this cemetery forged a community that, to the extent possible, took care of its own.

Jean Howson
New York, Dec. 15, 2005
The writer is associate director for archaeology, African Burial Ground Project, Howard University.