At one point, New York City was second only to Charleston in the number of slaves. When Wall Street was actually a defensive wall, half-freed blacks formed a community north of it, outside the wall. They were denied, by law, from burying in the city so had their own burial ground. What happened to it?

1. The African Burial Ground
National Monument
and the history of slavery
in New York City.

2. Slavery in New York City
We tend to think of the south when we discuss slavery
in America.
In 1703, New York City had the second highest
percentage of slaves in the colonies.
After Charleston, South Carolina.
More than 42% of households in the city had slaves.

3. Ongoing slavery began in New York City in 1626,
when eleven Africans were unloaded from a Dutch
ship.
In 1644, these eleven petitioned the director general
of the colony for their freedom.
The colony was skirmishing with Native Americans
and the fear was that the slaves might run away and
fight with them.
So they were granted partial freedom.
They could purchase land and earn a wage from a
master, and eventually earn full freedom.
However, their children would be born into slavery.
By 1644, those eleven, and others attained half-
freedom.

4. They lived north of Wall Street.
Which was named thus because there was a wall
there.
The defensive barrier for New Amsterdam.
They were settled outside it to be a further barrier
against Native American attacks.

5. They settled
near Fresh
Water Pond,
also known as
Collect Pond.
You can see
precursors to
present day
streets in lower
Manhattan.

6. Later, this area became infamous as Five Points.
Anthony Street veers off to the left. Orange to the
right.
Cross Street is across the foreground.

7. More slaves were being brought into New Amsterdam
as the need for labor increased.
These came from both Africa, primarily Angola, and
the Dutch West Indies.
In 1642, a French privateer, the La Grace, off-loaded
‘Spanish Negroes’ that had been captured from a
Spanish ship.
The men claimed to be freemen, but because they
were black, they were sold as slaves.

8. In 1644, the English gained control of New
Amsterdam.
They continued to import slaves to New York City.
In 1708, the New York Assembly passed the Act For
Preventing The Conspiracy of Slaves.
This prescribed capital punishment for any slave who
attempted to, or did murder, their master.
This was partly in response to the murder of
William Hallet III and his family in Queens.

9. In 1711, a formal slave market was established on
Wall Street, where it meets the East River. It was
active for 51 years, until 1762.

10. In 1730, in fear of slave insurrection, the New York
Assembly banned the gathering of more than three
slaves unless under the direct supervision of their
masters.
Punishment for violating this was whipping, not to
exceed forty lashes for each offense.

11. The Conspiracy of 1741:
This was a supposed plot by poor whites and slaves
to revolt.
The city’s population at the time was 10,000.
2,000 of those were slaves.
The War of Jenkins Ear, between England and Spain
had begun in 1739 and last until 1748. This reduced
the number of troops in New York City and the gentry
felt threatened. Rumors of insurrection was rampant.

12. The Conspiracy of 1741:
Much like the Salem Witch Trials, a wave of paranoia
swept the city after several fires. A white indentured
servant, Mary Burton, testified there was a cabal.
Slaves and poor whites were arrested. They often
implicated others to save themselves.
17 blacks and 4 whites were hanged.
13 blacks were burned at the stake.
Many more were deported.
Executions occurred at the then north end of the city
near Chambers Street.
With her reward, Mary Burton was able to buy her
freedom from indenture.

13. During the Revolution, African-Americans fought on
both sides, but predominantly for the British, because
they were promised freedom for their service.
Since the British occupied New York City for the
duration of the war, blacks fled to it and their
population grew to over 10,000 and it was a hub of
free blacks.
Two of them were escapees from George
Washington’s plantation in Virginia.

14. The Treaty of Paris required all property, including
slaves, be left in place and returned to their owners.
The British commander in New York City refused to
comply. He had over 3,000 black loyalists transported
to Nova Scotia.
A group of those then went from Canada to Africa to
found Sierra Leone.

15. In 1781 the New York State legislature promised
freedom to slaves who had fought for three years for
the colonists.
The African Free School was founded; the first formal
education for blacks in North America.
By 1790, one-third of blacks in New York were free.
In 1799, the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery
was passed.
It didn’t free any current slave.
However, any slave child born after 4 July 1799 was
free (18 years in the future); except they had to serve
an indenture (males to age 28 and females to age 25).

16. African-Americans fought in the War of 1812 and
defended New York.
In 1817, the state freed all slaves born before 4 July
1799 to become effective in 1827.
On 5 July 1827, African-Americans in New York
celebrated emancipation with a parade.
They chose the 5th because the 4th was not meant for
blacks, as Frederick Douglas would lately famously
say.

17. Despite freedom, African-Americans were mostly
disenfranchised from the vote until the passage of the
15th Amendment in 1870.

18. In the early days of New York City, the main burial
ground was the north graveyard of Trinity Church.
However, after Trinity purchased the land at Broadway
and Wall Street, they had a law enacted in 1697 that
no Negro could be buried on their property.
The “Negro Burial Ground” was established outside
the city limits near their community at Collect Pond.
(Note, this area, after the pond was filled in, became
the infamous Five Points neighborhood)
An image is on the next page. Note that it’s outside
the city stockade.

19. The African Burial Ground
National Monument

20. The African Burial Ground
National Monument
This cemetery was closed in 1794.
Eventually, the area was slated for development and
the burial ground covered with landfill.
Occasionally, bones would be found as new structures
were built, but this was more a matter for curiosity
seekers and souvenir collectors than any concern.

21. The African Burial Ground
National Monument
It wasn’t until 1991, when the federal Government
Services Administration (GSA) began construction of
a large federal office building at 290 Broadway,
between Reade and Chamber Streets, that the
situation changed.
The environmental impact statement had predicted no
remains would be found because of the long history of
development in the area.
They were wrong.

22. The African Burial Ground
National Monument
As the first remains were
uncovered during
construction, the African-
American community
raised concerns.
Excavation recovered 419
remains.
However, it became
apparent that the scope of
the burial ground was so
extensive that it couldn’t be
excavated.

23. The African Burial Ground
National Monument
After strong lobbying and protests by the African-
American community, Congress passed a law to
redesign the building, avoiding the area where the
remains had been found, and to build a memorial.

24. After gathering over 100,000 signatures on a petition,
the ground was designated a National Historic
Landmark in 1993.
An archeologist at the Smithsonian, Theresa Singleton
said: “The media exposure has created a larger,
national audience for this type of research. I've been
called by dozens of scholars and laypeople, all of
them interested in African-American archaeology, all
of them curious about why they don't know more
about the field. Until recently, even some black
scholars considered African-American archaeology a
waste of time. That's changed now.”

25. Of the remains recovered from the partial excavation,
over half were children. This is a result of short life
expectancy at the time. All were buried in separate
coffins.
It’s estimated at least 20,000 were buried in the old
cemetery.

26. A memorial was built and completed in 2007. It was
designated the 123rd National Monument.

27. The memorial features a map of the Atlantic area in
reference to the Middle Passage via which slaves
were transported from Africa to North America. It is
built of stone from South Africa and from North
America, to symbolize the two worlds coming
together. The Door of Return, refers to The Door of No
Return, a name given to slave ports set up on the
coast of West Africa, from which slaves were
transported, never to see their homeland again.

28. Below: The Door of
No Return at the
Monument. To the
right: The Door of No
Return in Senegal.

29. The Memorial is located at the corner of Duane and
Elk Street in Manhattan. The visitor center is in the
Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway.

30. The history of New York City is
an integral part of my new
series, which starts in 1977.
From the African Burial Ground,
to Hell Gate, to Hart Island, to
Ellis Island, to the Statue of
Liberty, to Robert Moses, to the
10,000 miles of tunnels under
the city.

31. New York City. 1970s.
Jack Reacher meets the Equalizer
by NY Times Bestselling Author,
West Point graduate
and former Green Beret
One of the top five new series of the year.
http://bobmayer.com/fiction/

32. Print
Book
Free downloadable Powerpoint
slideshows on survival, history
writing, and interesting information
are available HERE

33. www.bobmayer.com
About the author: Bob Mayer up in the Bronx, New York
City; graduated West Point, served in the Infantry
including leading a recon platoon in the First Cav
Division, and then Special Forces (Green Berets),
commanding an A-Team and other assignments. After
leaving active duty he studied martial arts in the Orient
and was brought back for numerous ADSW (Active Duty
Special Work) tours in Special Operations.
He’s lived on an island off the east coast, an island off
the west coast, in the Rocky Mountains, the hill country of
Texas, the hills of New England, the Appalachians and
other places.
They haven’t caught up to him yet.
He is the New York Times bestselling author of over 80
books.