Enslaved & In Service I: Colonial New York

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"Anyone who calls themselves an explorer is an invader to someone else - someone is always paying for the gilding"

- Alice Proctor, 
The Whole Picture [i]

A slave auction in Dutch New York.
"Slave Auction, 1655" Howard Pyle, 1895.

Sojourner Truth - a contemporary
to Staatsburgh - has introduced slavery
in the Hudson Valley to generations
of Americans.

            Slavery in the Hudson Valley has been an overshadowed aspect of our local history. To better understand Staatsburgh founder Morgan Lewis’ connection to enslavement, it is important to start with how central slavery was to New Yorkers for generations. The entire system of Northern enslavement, from the international slave trade to the local manor houses, operated in parallel with American slavery elsewhere. Yet our contemporary ideas of American slavery fail to acknowledge the scope of bondage in the North. The Hudson Valley offers a window into a world beyond southern plantations to underscore how ubiquitous slavery was for New York colonists and early Republic citizens.[ii] Our collective image of slavery must include people of African descent enslaved in northern states, such as Sojourner Truth and countless others, and not just southern plantations.

             In Part I, "Colonial New York," we will explore Morgan Lewis' wider connections to slavery. His family, the Lewises, and his wife's family, the Livingstons, shed light on the wider normalcy of slavery in New York. Morgan Lewis’ marriage, business, and political connections underscore the connectedness of, not only, the Livingstons in New York but indeed the whole elite class in early America. Slavery was not a sporadic occurrence, but a network of White families connected through marriage and politics that operated as an enslaver society to build generational wealth that is still benefitted from today. The story of enslavement in New York is inherently entangled within power and wealth.

Location of Pawling's Patent (red).
Courtesy of DCHS.

Nearly as long as Europeans have been on the shores of the Hudson River, enslaved people have been held in bondage here.[iii] Not only is enslavement embedded in our local history, but also within the names we give the occupied spaces around us. The names of enslavers are still prominent across New York today. Staatsburgh (or Staatsburg, as the village was styled after the 1890s) is named for two major landowners in the early 18^th century – Dr. Samuel Staats and Dirck Vanderburgh. In May, 1701 Neiltie Pawling sold “Pawling’s Purchase” in Dutchess County to Staats and Vanderburgh for £130.[iv] Born into a prominent merchant family of Beverwyck (modern-day Albany), Samuel Staats was educated in Holland as a surgeon and returned there several times until settling in British occupied New York in 1688 and entering politics.[v] While Staats’ own connections to slavery are unclear, his immediate family and closest associates in Albany were documented enslavers.[vi] Born of humbler origins, Vanderburgh, through massive building contracts and social connections, went from being a simple bricklayer to becoming a property developer and city alderman. A 1698 court case details an unnamed man enslaved by Vanderburgh who is spared from the death sentence for burglary.[vii] As a major overseer of construction in New York City, it can be assumed Vanderburgh was profiting from enslaved labor across his projects. The family of Dr. Staats included enslavers, while his business partner Dirck Vanderburgh actively profited from enslaved labor. 

1776 map depicting "Staatsboro" (Staatsburg), south of "Rynbeck" (Rhinebeck).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

What began as an increased desire for labor by the Dutch settlers, and later the British landowners, eventually penetrated every aspect of society in the Hudson Valley. Racial divisions, coupled with unforeseen wealth, laid the foundations for slavery's growth throughout the state, and indeed the new nation, for generations to come.[viii] Within this context, Morgan Lewis began cementing his position of power in Dutchess County in the 1790s. Examining the Lewis family’s involvement with slavery, and the close and wide-ranging connections of New York with the Atlantic slave trade, provides a clearer context for Morgan Lewis and enslavement in the Hudson Valley.

Historical marker for Francis Lewis,
Queens, New York, date unknown.
Courtesy of TheHistoryList.com.

Francis Lewis,
Morgan Lewis' father.

            All merchants in 18^th Century New York were connected in some manner to enslaved labor or human trafficking. People Not Property, an interactive documentary from Historic Hudson Valley, notes “colonists … who were not enslavers, still benefited as a result of slavery: everything from their bread to their bricks was made by enslaved labor.”[ix] Slavery was an inescapable force that benefitted not only those directly involved with the institution but everyone in the New World colony. Morgan Lewis’ Welsh father, Francis Lewis, best remembered as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, established himself as a successful merchant in the British province of New York. The only direct connection between Lewis and the Atlantic slave trade is a 1741 document listing the sloop Speedwell, owned by “Richard Annely and Fran’s Lewis” of New York, carrying one enslaved person from the island of “Coracoa” (Curaçao).[x] No further information is recorded on that enslaved individual, yet Lewis almost surely profited from their transportation to New York.  The slave trade was central to the growing wealth of New York during the century of Dutch and British occupation. Wealth in New York, indeed the wealth of the northern United States, cannot be explored without acknowledging its roots in the slave trade.

New York City's slave market,
located on modern-day Wall Street.
Courtesy of NYPL.

Seal of the City of New York.
Courtesy of NYC.gov.

Wheat was a central aspect to Francis Lewis’ international mercantile business and a key connection between the Hudson Valley and the Atlantic slave trade.[xi] The once prosperous beaver fur trade of New York was diminishing by the 18^th Century, with a simultaneous rise in the demand for food in the colonized West Indies to feed the growing population of enslaved people on Caribbean sugar plantations. This shift in markets brought about the “scramble for wheat” and the manorial empires it sustained for generations. British lands that could grow this much-needed wheat – such as the Hudson Valley – were acquired by some of the wealthiest landowners, including the Van Cortlandts, the Philipse, and the Livingstons.[xii] New York’s "provisioning plantations" (estates growing goods and shipping them off) grew the raw materials that were refined on-site and shipped to market - the same model as a southern rice plantation, just on a smaller scale.[xiii] 

"Rent Book of his Excellency Morgan Lewis Esquire"
(ML.2013.6)

            No records exist of Lewis shipping wheat to Caribbean plantations. As a New York merchant, Francis Lewis shipped milled wheat and other staple crops throughout the Atlantic world - Philadelphia, the British Isles, even as far as Russian ports.[xiv] The earlier mention of his sloop Speedwell sailing in the Caribbean connects Lewis and that market only to an extent. Among his social peers in the Hudson Valley, such as the Philipses in Westchester, were documented wheat merchants fueling the enslaved labor forces of the sugar plantations - some owned by members of the extended Livingston family. This is the wider Atlantic empire of New York merchants. To this day, the seal of New York City displays flour barrels as references to its Atlantic trade routes with the West Indies.

Tenant farmers leased hundreds of thousands of agricultural acres from landlords like the Livingstons and Philipses, paying their rent in harvested wheat. In the 19th Century, Morgan Lewis served as landlord to several tenants over hundreds of acres. His rent book (right) survives in Staatsburgh’s archives showing over four decades of tenants paying Lewis in wheat and barley.[xv] While it is not clear if any of the names in this record book are those of enslaved people working for Lewis' tenants, it is certainly possible: for example, at the Clermont estate, tenants John and Godlop enslaved two unnamed men to work the land and mills they rented from Morgan Lewis' mother-in-law Margaret Beekman Livingston (who, herself, enslaved 15 people).[xvi] The provisions grown here would be processed in Lewis’ own grist mills before being sent to market in New York City, and perhaps even onto the Caribbean, aboard ships docked in the Hudson.  

The west coast of Africa, 1743.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

         
            In the biography of Lewis and his son, The Biographies of Francis Lewis and Morgan Lewis, written by his great-granddaughter Julia Delafield, she highlights a business venture to the coast of Africa. Delafield describes Francis Lewis’ global adventures in terms of sailing around the world in search of wealth. While the slave trade is never mentioned by Delafield, it is likely that a White trader on the west coast of Africa would be profiting from, if not engaging in, the sale of enslaved humans. Delafield recounts an idyllic story of the rescue of three Black children by Lewis. They are presented as the "children of an inland chief" kidnapped then "abandoned by their captors" before being 'rescued' by an un-named sea captain. Lewis welcomed them to his New York home where a young Morgan still resided. Much of Delafield’s anecdote comes from her grandfather’s recollections, including the habits of the three individuals (unnamed in the narrative). According to Delafield, Lewis returned them to their native continent, and in return the well-connected Africans sent the Welshman a ship “laden with gold-dust, ivory, and other products of the tropics.”[xvii] Delafield is proud of her ancestor’s accomplishments and presents a positive image of their lives and careers. This fantastical story is questionable, at best, and the specifics of Lewis’ trade across the Atlantic are left vague. Altogether, this story, with the earlier story of the enslaved man aboard Lewis' ship Speedwell, cast doubt onto the true nature of the career lauded by Delafield.

Daughters of the American Revolution medal
depicting Elizabeth Lewis' imprisonment and
her enslaved servant suppling her with goods.

            Despite our speculation about Francis Lewis's involvement with the Atlantic slave trade, there is no doubt he enslaved people. The names of two individuals, King and Phebe Henry, are listed in New York manumission records alongside their enslaver “Lewis, Francis, Gentleman.” King is granted freedom upon the death of Lewis, noting “the fidelity, integrity and sobriety ever manifested … in the course of a long service.” Phebe’s manumission is listed as 1811; nine years after Lewis’ death.[xviii] Further anecdotes from the Delafield biography demonstrate the presence of enslaved peoples in the Lewis household. For example, during the Revolutionary War, British troops captured Elizabeth Annesley Lewis, Francis’ spouse and sister of his business-partner, Edward Annesley. As the wife of a signer to the Declaration of Independence, her imprisonment was a potent political symbol and tool for the British cause. As troops carried Elizabeth away, an unnamed enslaved man followed her and supplied her with clothes and food.[xix] From the sparse details in the Delafield biography it is unclear how many people the Lewis family enslaved. 

Detail of manumission records for King and Phebe Henry from Yoshpe's "Record of Slave Manumissions in New York During the Colonial and Early National Periods" The Journal of Negro History 26, no. 1 (1941).

"Morgan Lewis"
by John Trumbull, 1808.

            The members of New York’s elite landowning class, among them Francis Lewis and his son Morgan, were connected through marriage, business, and their role as enslavers. After graduating from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), Morgan Lewis studied law under John Jay before volunteering for the Continental Army and serving as Quartermaster General of New York. Shortly afterwards, Morgan Lewis was admitted to the bar and married Gertrude Livingston, sister to Robert “The Chancellor” Livingston. These two events cemented Lewis’ place in the early American aristocracy alongside Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and the Livingston family. Over the following two decades, Lewis rose through various New York State positions – New York Assemblyman, State Attorney General, Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court – before being elected Governor in 1804. His illustrious political career concluded with a brief State Senator position. Lewis’ military career ended as U.S. Quartermaster General during the War of 1812.[xx] As Morgan Lewis increased his wealth – through tenant farmers and wool production – he increased his political power in Albany. Money was necessary for him to rise into the social strata of the American elites. A symbol of their collective wealth was enslaved people. Until slavery is abolished in New York, the more wealth Morgan Lewis earned the more people he enslaved to demonstrate that affluence. Employing his upper-class background, Morgan Lewis built a close circle of peers - Chancellor Robert Livingston, John Jay, and other powerful New Yorkers - which both legitimized his social standing and reinforced the practice of slavery at home.

Chancellor Robert Livingston, Morgan Lewis' brother-in-law

Alexander Hamilton, political ally of Morgan Lewis

So far in Enslaved & In Service, we can see the origins of slavery in the Hudson Valley and the comfortable position of Morgan Lewis that allowed him to build the estate and enslave a number of people within it. The career and personal life of Francis Lewis, Morgan's father, underscores both the ubiquity of slavery in colonial New York and its continuation after the American Revolution. A close network of enslavers developed in the Hudson Valley - through business, marriage, and the accumulation of wealth - that will birth a unique culture around slavery during the early years of the United States. In Part II, "A New Nation," we will dive deeper into the names and stories of those within this culture of slavery established by elite men in early America – drawing from their colonial heritage and suiting their own needs along the Hudson River.  However, we will soon see these wealthy landowners unite in the cause of gradual abolition while maintaining their enslaver status. 

Further Reading:

• “People not Property: Exploring the Legacy of Slavery in New York’s Hudson Valley,” Humanities New York, website (2020)

• David N. Gellman, “Mastering Paradox: John Jay as a Slaveholding Abolitionist,” Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History (March 18, 2021).

• Ana Lucia Araujo, Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021).

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[i] Alice Proctor, The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in our Museums & Why We Need to Talk About It (London: Cassell, 2020), 14.

[ii] Joseph Murphy, “People not Property: Exploring the Legacy of Slavery in NewYork’s Hudson Valley,” Humanities   New York, accessed June 24, 2021.

[iii] Luciano Valdivia, “The Missing Chapter: Untold Stories of the African AmericanPresence in the Hudson Valley,” Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, accessed December 2, 2020.

[iv] Edward M. Smith, Documentary History of Rhinebeck, in Dutchess Country, N.Y. (Rhinebeck: Self-published, 1881), 233.

[v] Harold Staats, Genealogy of the Staats Family (Ripley: Self-published, 1921), 189-190; George W. Schuyler, Colonial New York: Philip Schuyler and His Family. Volume Second (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1885), 172-173.

[vi] Notably, Colonial Governor Jacob Leisler, whom Staats served faithfully as an advisor, was an active slave trader, see David William Voorhees, “The ‘Fervent Zeale’ of Jacob Leisler,” The William and Mary Quarterly 51, no. 3 Mid-Atlantic Perspectives (July 1994): 457; Leisler’s daughter, Francina, married Samuel Staats’ brother, Joachim. Together, Francina and Joachim Staats enslaved several individuals. Her 1728 will bequests eight enslaved people – Jef, Tob, Annihe, Floor, Diana and her son, Jenni, and Nanni – to her descendants, see Shirley Dunn, “Settlement Patterns in Rensselaerswijck: Tracing the Hooge Berg, a Seventeenth-Century Farm on the East Side of the Hudson,” de Halve Maen 68, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 19; The New-York Historical Society, ed., Abstracts of Unrecorded Wills Prior to 1790. Volume XI (New York: New York Historical Society, 1903), 34; Samuel Staats’ political connections are further underscored in the last names of his sons-in-law: including van Cortlandt and Schuyler, two of the most prominent families in Albany who profited off enslaved labor.

[vii] Simon Middleton, From Privileges to Rights: Work and Politics in Colonial New York City (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 117-118, 266.

[viii] Michael E. Groth, Slavery and Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley, SUNY Series, An American Region: Studies in the Hudson Valley (Albany: SUNY Press, 2017), xiii.

[ix] Historic Hudson Valley, “Who Benefits,” in People Not Property: Stories of Slavery in the Colonial North, accessed July 29, 2021.

[x] Elizabeth Donnan, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America. Volume III: New England and the Middle Colonies (Washington DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1932), 507.

[xi] Robert Waln Jr., Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence: Volume VI (Philadelphia: R.W. Pomeroy, 1824), 67.

[xii] Sung Bok Kim, Landlord and Tenant in Colonial New York: Manorial Society, 1664-1775 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 27-28, 158.

[xiii] Murphy, “People not Property;” Historic Hudson Valley, “Who Benefits.”

[xiv] Waln Jr., Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, 67

[xv] Morgan Lewis’s Rent Book, 1799-1836, ML.2013.6, Room 218, Staatsburgh State Historic Site, Staatsburg, New York.

[xvi] William P. McDermott, “Slaves and Slaveowners in Dutchess County,” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 19, no. 1 (January 1995), 32.

[xvii] Julia Delafield, Biographies of Francis Lewis and Morgan Lewis, By their Granddaughter Julia Delafield. Volume I (New York: Anson D.F. Randolph & Company, 1877), 17-18.

[xviii] Harry B. Yoshpe, “Record of Slave Manumissions in New York During the Colonial and Early National Periods,” The Journal of Negro History 26, no. 1 (January 1941): 86.

[xix] Delafield, Biographies of Francis Lewis and Morgan Lewis: Volume I, 42.

[xx] New York State, “Morgan Lewis,” Empire Plaza & New York State Capitol, accessed June 24, 2021.