Slavery is a sensitive part of American history that will always remain in our minds (hopefully). Similarly to everyone else, I was also pretty surprised at the impact it had made in the north over the years. Slaves were basically responsible for all the labor and “hands-on” work, which factories and big companies would benefit from. It is interesting to see that economics played such a major role in how our nation turned out and even impacts us today in our everyday lives. Like Ashley said, there are many parallels between these two different times in history. However, the major difference between these two era’s is that slavery was the sole driving force for economic prosperity in the colonies at that time. Therefore, New York City is what it is today because of all the slave labor that went on. It is a big misconception to think otherwise although this idea is what we have been taught ever since elementary school.

It was pretty interesting to read about the great diversity that New York City had been flooded with and how they used slavery to benefit themselves. Overtime there were different laws passed to euphemize the treatment that the slaves were actually receiving. As Ashley said, laws became stricter as slaves were finding ways out of this sick system and eventually it became nearly impossible for them to escape.

Our perceptions of other “races” have greatly impacted how we view the world’s different cultures. Living in America we assume our lives are the normal way to live and what we do on a day-to-day basis is right. However we only make up a fraction of the worlds population and we really aren’t the norm. Furthermore, media also affects how we view various cultures and people all across the globe. We tend to think that we are more civilized than most of the world and this is the mentality has led to slavery and the justification commonly proposed.

Like many other people have said, slavery is a part of history that we can’t change now. It would be a whole different world if it never existed. Nevertheless if that change would be for the better or worse, we are not able to tell.

It was really cool to read Binders-Reimer about how New York was very similar back then as it is now-it was diverse, tolerant, and an entrepreneurial moneymaking capitalist center.  Although I vaguely remember learning at some point that New York and the rest of the North had slavery, I didn’t realize to what degree.  I always learned about how bad slavery was in the South and how widespread it was, but for some reason we always glossed over the North’s role in slavery.  (Maybe it is because we live in the North and we’re trying to make ourselves feel/sound better?)  Anyway, it was just a shock to read about how big a role slavery played in the North.

Also, I agree with Rebecca and In The Shadow of Slavery when it said slavery became the basis of the American social system of race and class.  Although everyone talks about America as the “land of opportunity”, not everyone really gets to experience the American dream of rags to riches- most people struggle to survive here, and you see homeless people lying on the streets as you walk by.  Meanwhile, there are rich people spending money on frivolities and not caring or trying to help those less fortunate homeless people find food or shelter, because the American culture is all about competition- winners and losers. Although slavery started out as needing laborers, it became part of the American social hierarchy.  You can’t have superior people without having someone be inferior to them.  The slaves were a necessary part of American social hierarchy because they filled the role of “inferior, poor blacks” so that the “superior, rich whites” could fill theirs.

The idea of race and class was socially constructed, even though back then they lied and told themselves it was biologically constructed in order to justify their actions.  For example, contrary to the white owners who believed that the slaves were too stupid to put up a fight, they actually resisted in a genius way.  In the Shadow of Slavery it says “they demonstrated through labor, resistance to bondage…”  I remember learning that the slaves resisted in secret ways- they pretended to be stupid and did their “tasks” very slowly, or even wrong, and the would purposely leave tools outside over night so they would rust and be ruined.  I think this was a genius plan because this way they mess up their owners’ labor, but at the same time they won’t be caught or punished because it doesn’t look like they did anything on purpose.

I just want to respond to Eden who mentioned that if slavery had been abolished then maybe Native Americans would have been put to work- If I remember correctly, that was actually the original plan to use Native Americans, but since they knew the land better than us they would always sneak away at night and there wasn’t really anything we could do, so then we turned to slavery.

Finally, I want to point out how weird it was to read sentences like “their commercial prospects appeared promising: gold, ivory and slaves…” like its no big deal, like slaves were just pieces of property or goods to be traded.

I found the point made in “The Shadow of Slavery” about Europeans defining Blacks as the only group fit to slavery to be very interesting.  As a kid, I always associated slaves with African Americans.  When I found out that wasn’t always the case, I was, to say the least, surprised.  Turns out that slavery  is a very old concept, and once upon a time, it used to be interracial.  It seems that in the New World, slavery was always restricted to African Americans (and Native Americans).  However, I think that indentured servants also counted as a form of slavery.  I don’t know how significant it is, Binder and Reimer didn’t mention it, so I suppose it didn’t make a huge difference.  I thought about it while reading “In the Shadow of Slavery” because I remember reading somewhere that indentured servants were almost slaves.

Adding on a little post script to what Marinna said about New York not being what it was without slaves: The same argument is made by people who argue that our economy would never be where it was if Industrial Giants hadn’t taken advantage of their workers the way they did.  Similarly, the Wall of China contains the bodies of the workers who died while building it.  So the question is, are people’s lives, freedoms, and happiness a price worth paying for a nation’s, or in this case, a city’s achievements?  I say we ask the people whose lives, freedoms and happiness are in jeopardy.

Like everyone else, I too did not realize how vital a role slaves served in the development, emergence, and advancement of New York. I generally learned about their stereotypical purpose in the southern area of the United States in grade school, but never about their presence here in this very state. While reading these articles, I soon realized that I was not as familiar with this topic as I once thought I was.

That being said, I was surprised to learn about the diversity of those held in captivity by the colonists. Not only were slaves imported from Africa, but they also were taken from the Caribbean in order to further increase the area’s work output. The two locations shared a commonality: a distinguishable dark pigment in the skin. Thus, this seemed like a justifiable reason for the colonists to enslave dark-skinned Spaniards as well. These “inferior” people of diverse backgrounds were just as unified as their “superiors”; whites congregated together to show mastery over another race, and blacks assembled in order to rebel (such rebellions exemplified in Foote’s Black and White Manhattan). Over time, this unity ultimately led to interracial marriages and families amongst those in the groups, continuing what the Binder and Reimers article identified as assimilation.

Elaborating on what Marinna stated, slaves served as “natural” resource for the colonies. They helped boost the production and development of the newly inhabited land, but for no personal gain. In earlier times, they would find ways to avoid these unjust consequences by converting to Catholicism; however, as the half-free population of blacks began to increase dramatically, their white masters gained control and further redefined the status of their servants. This intensification continued to escalate during the land’s transformation from New Amsterdam to New York (according to Harris’ In the Shadow of Slavery). Although legally abolished in 1827, we can still see forms of unjust servitude (a more politically correct word than “slavery”, nowadays) in our state. Like Ashley said, New York has not changed much in terms of ethnic variety. However, in addition to that fact, New York – including other former colonies – has also retained a sense of racial dominance in the working class. Many of today’s immigrants come from our international neighbor, Mexico, and will work long hours for little/no wage. Many Americans find it in their own personal interest to take advantage of the “inferior” position of the foreigners for quick economic gains.

Does history repeat itself? I think so.

History has always been my weakest subject, so I tend to make many ignorant assumptions about the past that would outrage those who actually remember all these events that have helped shaped the future. One of these ignorant assumptions would be that I never believed that diversity would have existed in the colonies back in the 1600s. Yes, yes historians, feel free to shoot me. I deserve it.

I actually enjoyed Binder’s passage the most, because it gave me such great insight as to how diverse New York was from the very beginning. I was immensely irked however, by a line stated to Peter Stuyvesant in response to his conflict with John Bowne: “Stuyvesant was told, though it would be desirable to keep “these and other sectarians” away, the consequences of such efforts might well impede immigration, “which must be favored at so tender a stage of the country’s existence” (8). It gave the impression that diversity was not valued for diversity’s sake itself, but rather for the development and success of the nation.

However, slavery takes the stage here in all three passages, as the perspective on how it has shaped America seems slightly different than what we were taught in Kindergarten. Like ToniAnn, I actually forgot that slaves were human beings while reading certain parts of these passages. Focusing again on Binder’s passage, the crafting of words does this much for us: “they [slaves] had come in relatively small parcels from the Dutch West Indies” (14). It literally paints the image of a small package with a scarf tied around it.

Like practically everyone else here, I too was shocked to find out from the very first page of In the Shadow of Slavery that, slavery was relied on heavily in Manhattan. In grade school, I was always taught that the South relied on slaves to work the fields, whereas the North was more further developed and did not depend upon slave labor. The concept of slaves having certain rights in New Amsterdam was also shocking. Why don’t they go into detail about these aspects of American history in high school?

There has been a general discussion so far about how essential slavery seemed now for the development and success of the states, both culturally and economically. I’m tempted to play Devil’s Advocate and suggest that there would have been other ways and means of achieving the ethnic and economic success that we have (well, we’re not doing so well economically at the moment, but you know what I mean) today without the existence of slavery, but I’m not so sure if I could back that up.

But I’m willing to throw the question out there: Does anyone think that America could have achieved the kind of success that it did without slavery?

Slavery, above all, has always been a means to propel industry forward and increase economic stability and prosperity but to me, it seems that slavery has another, equally important function: to create a class system of social hierarchy. The success or failure of the United States was dependant on both of these things. Without producing goods, the young US would have suffered and without the creation of and justification of slavery our entire economic system would have failed.  The secret is that American society, both now and in the past, is entirely based on one powerful group dominating a weaker one. Capitalism is all about opportunity and economic prosperity, but opportunity and wealth are both somewhat relative. For example, if everyone owns a television set, its worth is diminished. If everyone has the same amount money, no one can be exorbitantly wealthy. I think it is not unreasonable to say that slavery (in one form or another) will always exist in the US so long as Capitalism is king.

I found the chapter from “In the Shadow of Slavery” to be very interesting, especially the bits that had been neglected in the history books I was exposed to in high school and college.  For example, I had ever heard of Jan Rodrigues (apparently neither has spell check on Microsoft word) and was taken back by the statistic that “in the eighteenth century, only Charleston and New Orleans exceeded NY in the number of slaves.” Taken back though I was, I have to say I wasn’t really surprised. Logically, it makes complete sense that New York City, the current capital of economic prosperity in the United States, would have been dependant on slaves from the beginning.

As Ashley says in this weeks spark, the amazing thing about New York is how little it has changed. Not only is it still extremely diverse, but also it is still extremely polarized. What I mean is that, there is still a white, wealthy group that dominates the city’s government and has the most money and there is still an African American minority who is taken advantage of by and kept down by the white, wealthy group.  Business and factory owners are still looking to exploit cheap/free labor and our society is as greed-based as ever. The truth is that America and New York City are both founded on a system of inequality. Though this system has been molded and changed – it remains fundamentally the same. Abolitionists and freedom fighters should not have sought an end to slavery, but instead fought for an entirely new economic system.

A common misconception about New York, is that New Yorkers are all accepting of others and always have been. New York is the land of opportunity – people come here from all over to earn money and be successful. After all, New York is where the possibility of the American Dream can become a reality…

The truth is, however, not all immigrants to New York over the years have been afforded the same freedoms and opportunities. When I learned about the Civil War in high school (in a public high school in the North), I learned that the North was right and the South was wrong: The South had slaves and all people in the North advocated for freedom. Although at the time of the Civil War, more than 30 years after the liberation of slaves in New York, many New Yorkers probably were opposed to slavery, New Yorker’s haven’t always been right.

According to the Harris chapter, when the European colonists first started coming to America, they weren’t all successful economically. The Dutch West India Company was predominantly motivated by profits, and their monopoly on trade presented difficulties for the other colonists. They brought slaves to the colonies for their own profit gains. At one point, slaves in New York actually outnumbered the slaves in Maryland. As Marinna said, when the slaves first came to America, they weren’t necessarily treated horribly and were given some rights; however, their rights were rebuked when they began to be seen as threats for the slave owners. The Dutch West India Company and slave owners wanted to use the slaves as labor, and in their own minds, they had to justify the use of forced labor, by proclaiming the existence of an inferior race, even though they had no basis for this. They had to clear their own consciences by telling themselves that they were helping people in need of their help. They refused to recognize the slaves’ religious choices when they saw them as interferences with their own agendas.

Jessica points out the extent to which New Yorkers have become more accepting over the years. We are lucky to live in an area and to attend a school with people of so many different cultures and backgrounds. Our generation has been recognized as the most tolerant yet, and this can be seen so vividly at Queens College, where people of different religions and nationalities attend the same classes and sit together in the cafeteria.

New York overflows with cultural, religious and ethnic diversity; to the point where acceptance is astonishing.  New York has been a place of tolerance ever since the Dutch controlled New Amsterdam.  The reason the Dutch were so accepting (or at least tolerant) of other religions was because of the desire for prosperity within the city.  The Dutch East India Company sought commercial growth which lead to such a diversely populated city, but also to the increase of slave trade in the North.

Everyone associates slavery with the South, even though New York was, at one time, responsible for being one of the largest ports that conducted slave trade.  Even though some slave owners could be “lenient,” meaning death wasn’t always the punishment for an insubordinate slave, no amount of leniency could cover up the fact that blacks were seen as nothing more than property.  This “property” had very limited rights which were taken away as time went on, first losing their half freedom and then the ability to convert to Christianity as a means of becoming free.  So in simplest terms, for blacks no amount of trying to elevate themselves to an equal status would ever free them; because blacks were incapable of understanding the religion in the eyes of the slave owners.

I agree with Ashley that New York was ahead of other colonies when it came to tolerance because colonial New York was seen as a promising opportunity for foreigners seeking (at least some) acceptance and monetary gain.  But this desire for wealth and power led to a horrible practice of pitiless and remorseless treatment of slaves.

These articles actually brought me to see how slavery actually played a major role in the North. In middle school and high school we learned that the North was much more tolerant and the South was where slavery existed and was at its highest peak. Surprisingly, New York itself was actually huge slave port.

Like Ashley said the Dutch brought slaves to New York to help and support the economy, but as time went on they were considered inferior and were being justified as slaves. Through the first chapter of In the Shadow of Slavery it can be seen just how intolerant and discriminatory Northern whites were to slaves as were Southern whites. For example, they would justify that blacks were the only group “fit” to be slaves and also that Spanish Negroes were considered slaves because of their “swarthy skin.” Slaves were not just assistance but became a necessity for the Dutch in order for their company to grow and prosper.

However, once slaves began to find ways to get around being treated like property, the colonizers found ways to close these loopholes (like Marinna said). For instance,  the church refused to baptize slaves, since  the law originally stated that no Christian could be used for forced labor. Furthermore, even in 1644 when the first slaves of New Amsterdam were given “half freedom,” it wasn’t given to actually free the slaves, but to mark the difference between Europeans and Africans. Even after half freedom the so-called free slaves still had to help the company when needed and pay an annual tribute in furs, produce etc.

Although slavery was very inhumane and shameful, after learning about the importance of slavery all through out high school,middle school and through these articles, l  find the history of New York/US difficult to imagine without slavery. As William said it is definitely a question to ponder upon.