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.

I find what Ashley said to be very interesting. Colonial New York is very similar to modern day New York, especially in terms of diversity. All these different ethnic groups migrated to New York for religious and economic reasons during Colonial times, and it is also for the same reasons why many immigrants come to New York today as well. And because of the ethnic and religious diversity, there was not a lot of pressure in Colonial New York to assimilate into “Dutch” culture at first. That is somewhat similar to today’s religious freedom and decreased pressure to assimilate. But somehow, I feel like from that point, Colonial New York went downhill in terms of tolerance, especially when the British took over for the second time.

And even though that the second article points out that the fact that slaves fared better under the Dutch does not undermine the fact that slavery is essentially wrong, I still find it sort of amazing that the Dutch were accepting enough to give the slaves at that time so many rights at that time. But when the reasons for this are taken into account, such as economic reasons and political reasons, it makes a little more sense. Then again, the whole slave labor system was used and maintained mainly for economic reasons, so I guess it can go either way.

It was interesting to see how the minute details regarding freedom for the slaves changed over time. There was freedom, and half-freedom, and the fact that some of them will never be free. Then there is the matter of passing that freedom on to the children, and how even though that is not allowed, the parents can still somewhat control what their children do. And there is, of course, the whole enslavement of Christians, and how that changed when the need for slave labor increased. What I didn’t realize was that the notion of African heritage and slavery was something that happened gradually. The enslavement of free Spanish men just because of their skin color was a proof of that.

The history of New York was quite interesting to read; its development and metamorphosis into a culturally rich and diverse city is much more complex than I had known.

Although initially the only religion that was permitted to be practiced publicly was Calvinisim, we can all attest to the religious freedom and opportunities present in New York. Time after time, a new ethnic/religious group arrived in New Amsterdam hoping to freely express their beliefs, and time and time again, the Dutch East India Company were tolerant, believing that it would lead to commercial prosperity. Their lenient attitude set the foundation for what would be the most populated city in the United States.

Africans were an essential element of the New Netherland population- they performed much of the labor, forming the infrastructure of the colony, building roads, working on farms to produce food to feed the colony’s inhabitants, etc. They were the overwhelming majority of the labor force. True, much of the growth and progress of New York is credited to the slaves, but I don’t think that they were necessarily the primary reason why New York is here today. Say slavery had been abolished, perhaps the Native Americans would have been put to work, or maybe the Africans would have been paid workers instead of slaves. Essentially, it was the masters who directed the working, and the end result should be credited to their instruction as well.

I noticed that the battle between the masters and slaves seemed sort of like a cycle- where the slaves began with a given amount of rights, gradually decreasing every time they fought for their freedom. For instance, at first, a few of the Africans were given half freedom, which applied to the man and wife, but not towards the children. However, when the indentured servants completed their indentured period, they immediately got total freedom and land—and their children weren’t automatically indentured servants. Of course, the Africans desired to be of equal status, which resulted into much tension, and then more restrictions, fewer privileges. Later, a law was instituted that converting slaves to Christianity would not make them free. “The teaching that every soul was equal in the sight of G-d could lead some to claim racial equality on earth.” (Harris) This shows that they were willing to go completely against the tenets of their faith to rationalize their inhumane behavior. Unfortunately, the tolerance that served as the incentive for people to travel to New York did not extend to the African Americans.

Before reading the assigned articles, I always thought of slavery  as mainly popular in the South. However, as it evolved over a couple of centuries, I was in shock as to how much slavery changed when the British took over New York.  I was also surprised to read that New York was a popular slave port during this time as well and not just the Southern region.

I never knew much about Dutch control of New York in the 1600s. In high school, I mainly had to know that they were overtaken by the British later on in the mid 1600s; so I was really surprised to see how much of an impact the Dutch made during their control of the New York colony.  The Dutch West India Company were pretty lenient in their policies of the colony; they were mainly concerned with monetary policy and income, so they welcomed different nationalities because occupancy of their land provided more wealth. If it was not for those they left in charge such as Peter Stuyvesant, who ruled with tough and sometimes discriminating policies, these groups would of had a life that was pretty much independent. Yet, even at times of tough policies, the company would still intervene to make sure these different groups were left with many opportunities in the new land.

Since the company was pretty lenient, that explains why slavery and slave masters were not as brutal to their slaves.  In fact, there was even opportunity for slaves to have freedom  for being Christian, but what struck me later on was how these policies drastically changed once the Dutch lost control.  I remember how one of the articles basically stated that it was at this point where slaves were just  property.  They were transported in bulk numbers and when they were on the shore, they came in shackles as if they were some animal.  In addition, one of the authors quoted another reading that discussed how the British no longer allowed Christianity as a means for freedom for them because they believed that they did not really comprehend the religion. It was sad to see how the British just thought that Africans were intellectually inferior and only good for work basically. Another example was the trial of Africans for the fires that occurred in the 1700s; slaves were just condemned for their inability to speak as well which was interpreted as a code for cheating.

Although all of this happened to slaves in history, I wonder how our society would be if slavery did not exist. Would we really not be as developed as a city? It is hard to say but it is definitely a question I will wonder for a long time.