Slavery in the Lower Hudson Valley - The Journal News

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Questions & Answers. . . . . . . 12 A Newspaper-in-Education Supplement to The Journal News • LoHud.com 1 2 3 Four founding members of the Historic Hudson Valley African American Board were asked these three questions: Why is it essential for people to study and talk about slavery in general, and slavery in the north in particular? Why is Philipsburg Manor important to you? If there were one central idea or thought that you would want people to take with them after their visit to Phillipsburg Manor, what would it be? Interested in their answers? Read on! Helen Williams . Founding Member, Historic Hudson Valley African American Advisory Board . Educator . Member, American Women of African Heritage and Links, Greater Hudson Valley Chapter . Resident of Millwood 1Because the subject is so often not part of school curriculum except rather superficially during Black History Month. Also, because racism continues to exist in our society, knowing the history of how slavery evolved and was maintained in the north hopefully will give insight and understanding and result in changing negative attitudes towards African Americans. The staff of Philipsburg Manor, the administration of Historic Hudson Valley, and the African-American Advisory Board continue to exhibit a commitment to telling the accurate story about the enslaved families at this site. As a person of color this is a positive. That slavery in the north did exist and the enslaved people at this site had important and essential responsibilities that made this site profitable for the owners. Also, the way in which the site’s buildings, gardens, animals, and costumed interpreters depict, as accurately as possible, life as it existed at Philipsburg Manor during the colonial era. 1 2 3 2 3 Lynda Jones . Founding Member, Historic Hudson Valley African American Advisory Board . Independent Management Consultant . Board Member, Croton-Harmon Board of Education and local chapter of League of Women Voters . Resident of Croton-on-Hudson One cannot honestly talk about the history of the United States of America without discussing the institution of slavery in the United States of America. Slavery, a system that was in direct conflict with the democratic principles of this country, was a complex, international enterprise designed to maximize profits. From the early 1600s until the Civil War, millions of individuals were shipped to the Americas destined to become enslaved by plantation owners. During this same time, strict laws were passed throughout the U.S. severely restricting the movement and status of the enslaved and some free blacks as well. Slavery has shaped every aspect of this country – economic, cultural, and social. The legacy of slavery remains with us today. It is impossible to systematically oppress a group of people for several hundred years and expect them or their oppressors to walk away unscathed. The scars left by slavery have affected and continue to affect United States society today. Why is it important for people to talk about slavery? Slavery is not about African-American history, but American history. It is a part of our history that most of us would rather not discuss. The simple fact that African-Americans have been enslaved in this country more years than we have been free should provide sufficient reason to focus on this issue. The wounds, misunderstandings and negative impact of the past have not disappeared from our daily life as some would like to believe. We need to encourage dialog amongst all members of society. One of the goals of Philipsburg Manor is to dispel many myths associated with slavery. Myths such as slaves were lazy, uneducable, unskilled, subhuman, intellectually and culturally inferior and without a moral/social foundation. We present to the public the important role that the enslaved played in building this country. We note that the 23 enslaved men, women and children who lived on the property were not destined for servitude but possessed skills that were in great demand by slaveholders. Use of higher mathematics and knowledge of European languages enabled Caesar, the miller at Philipsburg Manor, to manage the successful wheat production for the Philipse family. We present the various forms of resistance that the enslaved employed as a result of unfavorable treatment by the slaveholders. We are fortunate to have many primary source documents that enable us to present historically accurate information to the public and convey the complexities of slavery in a non-threatening way. Historic Hudson Valley and Philipsburg Manor are recognized internationally as being on the cutting edge of presenting the story of slavery in the north. As one of my colleagues states: “Philipsburg is where the dialog begins.”. I would like the public to leave Philipsburg Manor feeling energized and empowered. Energized by the presentations and the messages conveyed and empowered by the knowledge they gained as a result of their experience. Hopefully, they will encourage their friends, colleagues and family to visit Philipsburg Manor and also encourage them to seek additional information about slavery in the north.
A Newspaper-in-Education Supplement to The Journal News • LoHud.com 13 . . With the Historic Hudson Valley African American Advisory Board 1 2 3 Phyllis Murray . Founding Member, Historic Hudson Valley African American Advisory Board . Educator, Author . Resident Of Scarsdale The contributions of Africans in America are quite often omitted from local, national, and world history texts. Thus, American History evolves as nothing more than the telling of half of the story. And as we must know, telling half of a story is nothing more than a lie, a myth, or a tall tale. This skewed version of American History may make descendants of Europeans feel better about the past, but it leaves the descendants of Africans with a void that can only be filled once African-American History is infused into American History. A walk along the Philipsburg Manor Upper Mills path in Sleepy Hollow, NY, is a walk through history. And this walk is taken often by members of the African American Advisory Board. Something must be said about the ability of Philipsburg Manor Upper Mills to draw a cadre of African- American professionals to its site again and again. These members have volunteered to work in a concerted effort to support, direct and reshape the current reinterpretation of Philipsburg Manor. Perhaps it is their urgent need to reflect and document the contributions of African Americans in America. This is part of a larger national phenomenon as African Americans contribute to a new wave of research, texts, monuments and film that celebrate the early African presence of their ancestors. The Philipse family used the free labor of its residing community of enslaved Africans to enrich themselves. The mills provided the natural and technical resources for the thriving business. The enslaved laborers were not mere chattel; they had names and occupations and provided a vital service to their owner and to their community. What do the following quotes mean? Which quote has the most meaning to you? Why? No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. —Frederick Douglass There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors and no slave who has not had a king among his. —Helen Keller Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. —Abraham Lincoln 1 2 3 Jim Taylor . Founding Member, Historic Hudson Valley African American Advisory Board . Retired Elementary School Principal . Part-Time Cooper, Philipsburg Manor . Amateur Historian, African-American Military History . Resident of Cortlandt Manor Today many of our young people, and many adults as well, have little or no idea of the African-American experience in the history of this country. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, we are now a more racially tolerant culture, which does not openly focus on racial or ethnic differences, as was the norm in the past. As a result, people are not cognizant of the institution of slavery that thousands of African Americans experienced in the first two hundred and fifty years of our country’s history, in spite of the recent efforts of so many writers and filmmakers to tell the story. To many, the image of black slaves bent over picking cotton on huge southern plantations is representative of slavery in general. They have no understanding of how or why slavery was promulgated in the first place. Phillipsburg Manor is one of the few “living history” museums that portray a realistic view of slavery in the north during the development of colonial America. As a part-time interpreter at Phillipsburg Manor, I am continually amazed at the questions I am asked by visitors to the site. Some have done their “homework” in a sense and know something about the site and its role in the growth of our nation, but most still see the plantation and are surprised by the skills and the resilience the enslaved had in negotiating their daily lives as chattel owned by an absentee owner at the site of a profitable mill and farm. Recent studies of slavery in the United States have exposed numerous facts that dispel the image of enslaved individuals as passive and lacking skills. In my role on site as a cooper (a person who makes wooden buckets and barrels), I am proud to demonstrate the skills that enslaved people possessed in 1750 to produce such products. Visitors leaving Philipsburg Manor should have a truer picture of the history of slavery in America, especially of the lives of the enslaved in the northern states. My enslaved ancestors led productive lives in spite of being subjected to the dark specter of slavery. Today many people look back at history and think: Discuss This! “How could people have allowed an institution like slavery to exist and persist for hundreds of years?” One hundred years from now, do you think people might have the same feeling about institutions and laws that exist in today’s world? Which ones and why? The Ibo in eastern Nigeria (Africa) have a saying: “Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Explain what this means, and think about how this might affect our understanding of the institution of slavery.
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