Enslaved & In Service II: A New Nation

If you're just joining us, consider going to the Introduction for Enslaved & In Service: here! Missed the last post? Find "Part I: Colonial New York" here.

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim."

- Frederick Douglass,

"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"
(1852)

John Trumbull. Declaration of Independence. 1826. Oil on canvas.
12' x 18'. United States Capitol Rotunda. 
Edited by Arlen Parsa and Zachary Veith to highlight enslavers depicted.
Courtesy of PolitiFact.

            At the conclusion of the War for Independence, Benjamin Rush stated “The American War is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the great drama is closed.”[i] Benjamin Rush and others expected great social change on the horizon. Indeed the revolutionary rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence – that all men are created equal – had a resounding impact on every aspect of society, especially the growing discussion around enslavement.[ii] The words and actions of the Revolutionary generation demonstrate a paradox between owning humans and espousing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Of the forty-seven men depicted in John Trumbull's painting, "Declaration of Independence" (above), thirty-four enslaved people. Among those thirty-four men, indicated with red dots over their faces by documentarian Arlen Parsa, are Morgan Lewis' father, Francis Lewis (indicated by a yellow diamond) and his brother-in-law, Robert Livingston (indicated by a blue square). Despite how Benjamin Rush and others saw the American Revolution as a social revolution, the conditions for enslaved Black people in the early republic barely improved.[iii] The same men who declared "all men are created equal" enforced a racial hierarchy that denied basic human rights to Black and other non-White people.

Gilbert Stuart. John Jay. 1794. Oil on canvas.
51" x 40". National Gallery of Art.

            A wealthy, landowning enslaver class in colonial New York remained a wealthy, landowning enslaver class in New York State. The social hierarchy of pedigree and profession that Morgan Lewis was born into survived into the new nation. Upper-class New Yorkers like John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Chancellor Robert Livingston, and Morgan Lewis all benefited from enslaved labor in their households, farms, and businesses. Historian William Freehling stated the Founding Fathers were “profoundly ambivalent” on how to handle slavery. Many of these elite White men in the late 18th Century did not view slavery as the absolutely morally corrupt institution modern citizens understand it as today. Most New York leaders, same as their Southern counterparts, failed to see the hypocrisy between their conservative views on property and race and their reform-minded ideals declared in 1776.[iv].

            Surrounded by a population held in bondage, White Americans were fearful of Black revolt. The infamous New York Slave Revolt of 1721 led to the torture and mass killings of enslaved Black residents by a fearful White citizenry, while the successful 1804 revolution of enslaved people in Haiti instilled fear of a large-scale Black revolt on American soil. At the same time, America’s upper class developed a sense of paternalism towards those enslaved. Despite revolts and abolitionist movements, many wealthy White men in Morgan Lewis' social sphere saw Black people as without agency over their own actions and in need of White rescue. Sometimes called the White Savior Complex today, elite Whites in the late 18^th Century understood this condescension as philanthropy towards enslaved Black people.[v] While the wider Founding generation of American leaders failed to outright end slavery in the new nation, smaller actions such as diminishing the institution in the North, halting its expansion west, and outlawing the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 resulted in a weaker institutional strong-hold for the next generation.[vi] While simultaneously profiting from slavery, these men saw themselves as essential to the fight for abolition. John Jay and Morgan Lewis used their powerful positions, acting as, what John L. Rury called, “moral custodians for urban black communities,” to push for abolition while maintaining control over Black communities - both enslaved and free.[vii]  The contradictions between their rhetoric and actual practices is clear. If abolition was inevitable, these paternalistic men would control the post-emancipation world for Black Americans while benefiting from enslavement as long as possible. Abolition had to be on the White man’s terms.

Record book for the inaugural meetings of
the "Manumission Society of New York"
containing the signatures of Morgan Lewis and John Jay.
Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.

            The 1790s signaled the beginning of the end for slavery in New York – yet not without a lengthy fight. Historians Ira Berlin and Leslie Harris described emancipation as moving at a “glacial” pace in the Empire State.[viii] Demonstrating the economic importance of slavery, New York was one of the last northern states to enact any measure of abolition. In 1785, the “New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May Be Liberated” was founded on the paternalistic notions of 'gradualism.' Through petitions and lobbying, the Society advocated for the gradual abolition of slavery in New York State. While seemingly pushing a progressive agenda, members of the New York Manumission Society were "social conservatives," according to historian Patrick Rael, when it came to emancipation.[ix] 'Gradualism' became the foundation for New York emancipation measures to come. Membership in the society included powerful New Yorkers such as John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Chancellor Robert Livingston, and Morgan Lewis. Gradual abolition was economically self-serving for these wealthy men at the top of the social and political hierarchies in New York. Their adherence to gradualism maintained a sense of the status quo for decades. The names of enslavers among the Society’s prominent members exemplifies a core contradiction of their character. One out of every five members - 20% - enslaved human beings. That number rose to 30% of members by 1800, implying several members actively purchased human beings.[x] While the prestige of the Society’s members carried its message up to the state's capitol in Albany, there was limited support for rapid action against an institution that benefited elite statesmen.

"A Map of the Town of Rhinebeck in the County of Dutchess" surveyed in 1798, shortly after Morgan Lewis' residence in the town.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

            Prior to the completion of Staatsburgh, Morgan Lewis resided nearby in Rhinebeck. This is where we find Lewis and his household listed in the first Federal Census in 1790. In that year, Lewis was one of the largest enslavers in the town; with eight enslaved people living among himself, his wife and only daughter.[xi] Eighty-two percent of the 2,149 Black people living in Dutchess County were enslaved. River-side towns, including Rhinebeck and Clinton (containing modern-day Hyde Park/Staatsburg), counted the highest numbers in 1790.[xii] “Slaves” was simply a category in the Census, which only listed the name of the head of the household, so nothing, not even name or sex, is known of these eight individuals held in Rhinebeck. This document is powerful nonetheless in connecting Morgan Lewis directly to enslavement at this point in his life.

Letter from John Jay to Morgan Lewis
detailing the sale of Peter Williams, 1790.
(ML.2013.3).

            Peter “Peet” Williams is the earliest recorded name of someone enslaved by Lewis. On May 5, 1790, Peter Jay Munro wrote in a letter to his uncle, John Jay, that he had received a letter from Morgan Lewis discussing the sale of an enslaved person named “Peet.” The younger Jay writes: “I think ought to induce us to buy him” based on "the character he [Lewis] gives of Peet."[xiii] Evidently, Peter Williams had a glowing review. On May 24 of that year, John Jay wrote to Morgan Lewis discussing the terms of Peter Williams’ enslavement.[1] Jay begins the letter stating that Munro had informed him of Lewis’ earlier letter regarding Peter Williams. The Chief Justice goes on to dictate that “Peter should be free, if he serves faithfully seven years” in the Jay household. It is unclear if Lewis held Peter’s wife and child, as Jay wrote that Williams would like the terms of his enslavement to John Jay mentioned to his wife. Jay added “I shall shortly permit him [Williams] to make her a visit.” Their son, unnamed in the letter, Williams “speaks [of] with much tenderness and affection.”[xiv] It is unknown if any of the eight “slaves” listed as being in the Lewis home, in the 1790 Rhinebeck census, were the Williams family. Four years later, Jay brought Peter Williams with him to England. Free English servants mistreated Williams while Jay networked with British abolitionists.[xv] Although enslaved people brought over from America were able to remain as free people in England, Williams returned with his enslaver to New York where his wife and child resided.[xvi] The May 24, 1790 letter from John Jay is the one piece of physical evidence to enslavement remaining here at Staatsburgh. This short letter touches on several aspects of enslavement, including term limits, private sales between enslavers, and family separations. The objective matter-of-fact style of Jay’s writing, especially his details regarding Williams’ separated family, underscore the harsh reality of slavery in New York.

Detail from ML.2013.3

Family separation was a common aspect of American slavery, as seen in "A Slave Father Sold Away From His Family"
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

            More than giving us the name of someone enslaved by Staatsburgh’s founder, the Peter Williams letters represent the wealth and power that New York enslavers held. Among other powerful political and military postings, Lewis and Jay would both serve as governors of New York. At the time of the quoted letter, Jay was serving as the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and would have known fellow New Yorker Morgan Lewis and his father, Francis, well. This transaction of enslavement between Jay and Morgan Lewis underscores the paradox introduced earlier in the New York Manumission Society. Jay was the Society’s first president and Lewis an early member. That they were not only enslaving individuals but actively trading in human beings between their ranks is counter to the mission of the Society. Scholar Shane White has noted that Jay’s membership in the Society (and by extension Lewis’ too) made them impervious to the moral attacks from abolitionists, while paradoxically benefitting from enslaved labor for as long as possible.[xvii] Yet, other historians have noted that Jay’s presidency of the Manumission Society played a part in his un-successful gubernatorial campaign in 1792.[xviii] Abolition was still a controversial topic for New Yorkers in the 1790s. Jay and Lewis navigated between opposing sides with ease.

            The same year Peter Williams traveled to England, Greenleaf’s New York Journal, and Patriotic Register printed the name of another person formerly enslaved by Lewis. In 1794, as an act of resistance, Plato self-emancipated himself. His name and description appeared in a run-away slave notice, noting Plato “lived some time with the honorable Morgan Lewis, Esq. of Rhinebeck, and may be lurking in [that] neighborhood.”[xix]

Ad for "Plato, Formerly of Dutchess County."
Stessin-Cohn and Hurlburt-Biagini, In Defiance (Delmar: Black Dome, 2016), 107.

A young Black servant aboard
the ship "Eurydice."
© New York Historical Society.

            Run-away notices were common to read in the Hudson Valley well into the 19^th Century. This attempt to hunt down Plato demonstrates the reliance on enslaved labor by wealthy land-owners in New York, going to great lengths to retrieve people they perceived as their property. While these advertisements can be read as dehumanizing within the larger context of enslavement, scholar A.J. Williams-Myers argued that these notices provide humanity to those enslaved by created a lasting record not only of their name, physical description, skills, characteristics, and identity, but also their acts of resistance.[xx] For example, Plato is described as 5’ 6”, roughly 31 years old, “of a black complexion, well set, and of an unpleasant couterance [sic]”[xxi] There are no other physical descriptions close to these details for others enslaved by Morgan Lewis. The “long corduroy coat, with green collar and cuffs, buckskin breeches, [and] a striped waistcoat” that Plato was last seen wearing imply he served inside the household. As we'll discuss later, domestic service was a common role for those enslaved in the Hudson Valley.

It took nearly 15 years for the New York Manumission Society’s ostensible goal to be achieved – with little immediate benefit to those enslaved. The 1799 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery passed by the New York State Legislature freed no-one instantly. The act stated that any child born to an enslaved woman after July 4, 1799 would eventually be freed after that child served their mother’s enslaver until the age of 28, if a male, or 25, if a female.[xxii] This meant that enslavers could still profit from the labors of those enslaved for decades. Those born before July 4, 1799 were not granted emancipation. Population statistics from Dutchess County demonstrate how reluctant enslavers were to emancipate those held in bondage. Over 63% of Black people (1,609 individuals) in Dutchess County were enslaved in 1800; just 17% less than a decade before.[xxiii] Yet, an examination of specific regions of the town of Clinton revealed the riverside Hyde Park neighborhood (incorporated in 1821) saw an increase in their enslaved population and a decrease in their enslaver population.[xxiv] Thus, the use of enslaved labor was growing among a consolidated population of White citizens along the Hudson River on estates and farms. Yet the county-wide decline demonstrates the gradual rate of abolition in New York following the 1799 act.

"An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery"
signed by New York Governor John Jay, 1799.
Courtesy of the New York State Archives.

            On a wealthy enslaver’s Hudson River estate there may be one dozen enslaved people laboring inside the house or outside on the farm. Staatsburgh and similar estates are one half of what historian William McDermott argues were “two Dutchess Counties” when it came to slavery in this period. The six eastern towns totaled 70% of the total population in 1790 with only 35% of the county's enslavers. The majority of these rural, inland enslavers held one or two people in bondage to assist with agricultural work or skilled trades. The “other Dutchess,” as McDermott demonstrated, comprises riverside towns of Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck, and the wealthy estates in Clinton, where 70% of the county's enslaved peoples resided.[xxv] The top 10% of wealthiest individuals in Dutchess County - just 95 households - owned 42% of the total enslaved population for the area. McDermott noted, “once a decision was made among the wealthy to own slaves they owned on average five or more.”[xxvi] As the wealth of an individual increased, the average number of enslaved people under their roof increased too. 

Map of Morgan Lewis' land, 1793.
Hanging in Staatsburgh's Main Hall.
(ML.1974.87)

            By 1792, construction had begun on Morgan Lewis’ riverside estate. When the second Federal Census was taken, three generations of the Lewis/Livingston family were living in the mansion among nine enslaved people (and one free person).[xxvii] A large population of nine enslaved people would have been expected of such a prominent, Livingston family estate. Before Hyde Park was established in 1821, Staatsburgh was located in the town of Clinton. Descriptions of the historic town reveal not much changed in the area. William Benson Jr. described Clinton as a “grand mixture of estates along the Hudson, farmers in-land, and tradesmen everywhere.”[xxviii] The combination of wealthy landowners and the agrarian setting defined the hamlet of Staatsburg in Morgan Lewis' era, and continued to long after Ruth Mills' era. Yet, a wealthy estate meant something different to Morgan Lewis than it did his great-granddaughter. Long before the rolling hills of a European-inspired landscape were designed during the Gilded Age, the Staatsburgh estate of Morgan Lewis' day comprised a working farm, mills, and other income-producing enterprises. The original “Staatsburgh House” was an imposing brick mansion two stories high. Several outbuildings nearby attest to the agrarian industry of the era, including barns, stables, a carpenter-shop, and cider mill. [xxix] This combination of wealth, a portion derived from agriculture, allowed Morgan Lewis to establish himself as a powerful force in the Hudson Valley.  

The original Staatsburgh, c. 1806.
P. Lodet, 1806 drawing from the Hudson River Sketchbook.
Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY.

            In 1800, Clinton had the third highest enslaved population in Dutchess County, with 74.3% of its Black population enslaved.[xxx] Wealthy families such as the Lewises and Livingstons capitalized on this large enslaved labor force for their own benefit. As mentioned in A New Beginning, the focus of this series of essays is the enslaved domestic servants at Staatsburgh. Of the surviving names and records associated with the enslaved people at Staatsburgh (see Part III: The Early Republic), only those who seem to be associated with domestic service are documented. However, among those nine people, it is more-than-likely a portion of them were used as farm laborers and production workers - two common categories of work for enslaved people on Hudson River farms and estates. The barns, cider mill, and carpenter-shop surrounding "Staatsburgh House" may have been sites for enslaved labor, producing more and more wealth for Lewis.[xxxi] At this point, we just don't have to records to begin telling their stories.

A white-washed image of
"Slave Quarters in the Cellar of the Old Knickerbocker Mansion"
 presenting a positive view of enslavement to White audiences.
Courtesy of the Knickerbocker Family.

            Areas of the house associated with storage – cramped attics and dark basements – were the enslaved peoples’ domestic quarters.[xxxii] These are likely the areas in Staatsburgh House where the enslaved people resided. As no plans for the original mansion survive, it is impossible to speculate where these quarters would have been. In Part III, "The Early Republic," we’ll move into the interior of the mansion, and discuss the men, women, and children who labored inside for the Lewis family, and what life for an enslaved person was really like on a Hudson River estate.

 

Further Reading:

• Slavery in New York, eds. Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris (New York: The New Press, 2005).

• David N. Gellman, Liberty's Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022).

• 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).

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[1] A full transcript of the letter is reprinted here.

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[i] Richard B. Morris, “Class Struggle and the American Revolution,” The William and Mary Quarterly 19, no. 1 (January 1962): 29; Frederick B. Tolles, “The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement: A Re-Evaluation,” The American Historical Review 60, no. 1 (October 1954): 2.

[ii] Tolles, “The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement,” 2.

[iii] William Freehling, The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 13.

[iv] William Freehling, “The Founding Fathers and Slavery,” The American Historical Review 7, no. 1 (February 1972): 84; Freehling, The Reintegration of American History, 13.

[v] Callie Rosenberg, “False Pearl Mounted in Gilt Copper: Paternalism and Colonization in the New York Manumission Society, The American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews, and Columbia College,” Columbia University & Slavery, accessed April 23, 2021.

[vi] Freehling, “The Founding Fathers and Slavery,” 86-91

[vii] John L. Rury, “Philanthropy, Self Help, and Social Control: The New York Manumission Society and Free Blacks, 1785-1810,” Phylon 46, no. 3 (1985): 231.

[viii] Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris, “Uncovering, Discovering, and Recovering: Digging in New York’s Slave Past Beyond the African Burial Ground,” in Slavery in New York, eds. Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris (New York: The New Press, 2005), 4.

[ix] Patrick Rael, “The Long Death of Slavery,” in Slavery in New York, eds. Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris (New York: The New Press, 2005), 121-122.

[x] The New York Manumission Society passed a resolution in 1809 requiring members to manumit their enslaved people and barred any enslavers from joining. New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been,or May Be Liberated, New-York Manumission Society records, 1785-1849, Volume 6, Minutes of the Manumission Society of New-York, January 25, 1785-November 21, 1797, from New York Historical Society, Records of the New-York Manumission Society, 1785-1849, Mss Collection - BV Manumission Society - Volume 6; Shane White, Somewhere More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770-1810 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), 81-82.

[xi] "United States Census, 1790," FamilySearch, New York, Dutchess County, Rhinebeck, p. 153 (NARA microfilm publication M637, roll 6; FHL microfilm 568,146).

[xii] Dutchess County Historical Society, "Slavery in Dutchess County," Dutchess County Historical Society, accessed July 29, 2021.

[xiii] John Jay, Peter Jay Munro to John Jay, May 5, 1790 [letter] from Museum of the City of New York, The Papers of John Jay, accessed April 4, 2021; Simon Newman, “Founders’ Fondness for Slavery,” HistoryNet, August 2019.

[xiv] Letter from John Jay to Morgan Lewis, May 24 1790, ML.2013.3, Room 218, Staatsburgh State Historic Site, Staatsburg, New York.

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

[xvi] It is unclear who enslaved Peter Williams' wife and child, and thus what household they lived in during William's trip to England. No name or mention of them appears after the 1794 voyage. Gellman, “Mastering Paradox;” Landa M. Freeman, Louise V. North, and Janet M. Wedge, ed., Selected Letters of John Jay and Sarah Livingston Jay: Correspondence by or to the First Chief Justice of the United States and His Wife (Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc., 2005), 299; David N. Gellman, Liberty's Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022), 96-97.

[xvii] White, Somewhere More Independent, 82.

[xviii] Daniel Littlefield, “John Jay, the Revolutionary Generation, and Slavery,” New York History 81, no. 1 (January 2000): 95-97; Gellman, “Mastering Paradox."

[xix] Susan Stessin-Cohn and Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini, In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley, 1735-1831 (Delmar: Black Dome, 2016), 107.

[xx] A.J. Williams-Myers, “Foreword,” in In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley, Susan Stessin-Cohn and Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini (Delmar: Black Dome, 2016), 1-14.

[xxi] Stessin-Cohn, In Defiance, 107.

[xxii] New York State Legislature., An Act for the Graduation Abolition of Slavery, 1799, from New York State Archives, Enrolled acts of the State Legislature, Series 13036-78, Laws of 1799, Chapter 62.

[xxiii] 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), 51.

[xxiv] William P. McDermott, "The Federal Census - A Research Instrument," Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book 66 (1981): 136.

[xxv] William P. McDermott, "Slaves and Slaveowners in Dutchess County," Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 19, no. 1 (January 1995), 20-22.

[xxvi] McDermott, "Slaves and Slaveowners in Dutchess County," 25-26.

[xxvii] "United States Census, 1800," FamilySearch, New York, Dutchess County, Clinton, p. 108 (NARA microfilm publication M32, roll 21; FHL microfilm 193,709).

[xxviii] William H. Benson Jr., “Late Eighteenth Century Clinton (including Hyde Park and Pleasant Valley),” Dutchess County Historical Society Year Book 73 (1988): 47.

[xxix] H.W. Reynold, Dutchess County Doorways, 1730-1830 (New York: W.F. Payson, 1931), 140-141.

[xxx] Benson, “Late Eighteenth Century Clinton,” 49; Groth, Slavery and Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley, 51.

[xxxi] Reynold, Dutchess County Doorways, 140-141.

[xxxii] Groth, Slavery and Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley, 12.