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colony in 1626. Unlike the subsequent
system of chattel slavery established under
British and then American rule, for a short
while under Dutch rule, “The enslaved men
can be baptized, marry, own property, and
work for themselves when not required for
company tasks. They can sue and bear
witness against whites.” (Mushabac and
Wigan 7) In fact, the first Black family to
own land in the colony, used their resources
to buy and free slaves. In the 1730s nearly
1,500 slaves were brought to the city and
sold at the foot of Wall Street (Mushabac
and Wigan 23). It was not until 1785 that
New York passed a gradual emancipation
law, prohibiting the importing of slaves and
allowing owners to free their enslaved
people easily (PBS).
The New York City that Aminata encounters
has an historically mixed relationship with
both the idea and practice of racialized
slavery, and it is in this, she finds limited
safety among the other people of African
descent in Canvas Town. Canvas Town, on
Manhattan Island was one of two tent cities
to which the British relocated escaped
enslaved people until they were transported
to other places, including Maritime Canada
(Foote).
The American fight for independence from
British rule was fueled by idealism focused
on justice and freedom for all. This did not,
however, include the enslaved men, women
and children who laboured for generations
under slavery’s yoke. Several of the
founding fathers owned human beings.
Others of them fathered children with the
women they owned. For example, DNA
tests done in 1999 on African Americans
who claimed direct decent from Thomas
Jefferson, proved that he had fathered
children with Sally Hemmings, whom he
owned (Cogliano). Jefferson became the
third president of the United States, and was
the principle author of the Declaration of
Independence. When he penned the line in
the Declaration that, “We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness,” he did not intend to
include the masses of enslaved men, women
and children whose labour was foundational
in establishing the American economy.
Indeed, Jefferson states in his Notes on the
State of Virginia, that:
“I advance it therefore as a suspicion
only, that the blacks, whether
originally a distinct race, or made
distinct by time and circumstances,
are inferior to the whites in the
endowments both of body and mind.
It is not against experience to
suppose, that different species of the
same genus, or varieties of the
same species, may possess
different qualifications. Will not a
lover of natural history then, one
who views the gradations in all the
races of animals with the eye of
philosophy, excuse an effort to keep
those in the department of man as
distinct as nature has formed them?
This unfortunate difference of colour,
and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful
obstacle to the emancipation of
these people” (Jefferson).
Enslaved bodies were used not only for
financial gain, but also for political gain.
One well-known example of this is the
Three-Fifths Compromise that secured the
agreement of Southern states to join the new
union. While slave-owning states were not
required to give voting rights to enslaved
adults, they were able to factor them into
their population figures. Each would be the
equivalent of three-fifths of a person, a
calculation that greatly increased the
political power of slave-owning states in the
South (Baptist).
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