What I found interesting while reading these articles was the mindset of the people who had slaves. I had always been unclear as to how exactly the settlers in North America had come up with the concept that there were humans who were inferior to them. The articles “Black and White and Manhattan” and “Slavery in Colonial New York City,” showed me that the settlers wanted free labor, and only after they had captured and enslaved the Blacks from Africa or the Caribbean, they tried to justify their actions of enslaving a people for personal gain. That is how blacks became “inferior;” not because they actually were, but because the settlers needed to have a clean conscience.
I also found something else interesting. Blacks were not immediately thought to be incompetent. At first, under the Dutch, they were given certain rights, such as the right to sue an employer if they do not treat them right. There are records that show that there were a couple of people that sued their employers and won. Clearly, the superior attitude of the whites had not set in yet.
It was only after the British took over that the restrictions became harsher. One example of the English justifying their actions is when the poorer white artisans felt they were in competition with the slaves who were taught special skills. After they banned them from the crafts, they told themselves that it was became the Blacks were incompetent. This has obvious flaws: they had been successfully learning and practicing these skills previously, why are they suddenly incapable?
I had always wondered if these slaves had put up much of a fight. Did they have any idea how wrongfully they had been treated? I know now that they did. They fought against the Dutch, and even more so against the British. The British response to these rebellions was to increase the harsh restrictions. For instance, one slave punched the mayor in the face, and was tied to a cart and lashed on each corner. Also, in court, Blacks were wrongfully accused of crimes they did not commit, simply because they were black. At this point, the superiority fallacy had become intertwined with the life of Manhattan.
Many people forget that the North had just as much slaves as the South in the beginning. These articles show that not only did Manhattan have the most slaves of all of North America at some point, but also slavery originated there, because that was where the port was.
