Negro slavery in a mild form prevailed in these early years in New York. The cruel and accursed system had been early introduced into the colony. Most of the slaves were domestic servants, very few being employed in the fields. They were treated with personal kindness. Still they were bondmen, deprived of liberty, of fair wages, and of any chance of rising in the world. Such men cannot, by any possibility, be contented with their lot. Mr. William L. Stone, in his very interesting History of New York, writes:
"As far back as 1628, slaves constituted a portion of the
population of New Amsterdam; and to such an extent had the
traffic in them reached that, in 1709, a slave market was
erected at the foot of Wall street, where all negroes who
were to be hired or sold, stood in readiness for bidders.
Their introduction into the colony was hastened by the
colonial establishment of the Dutch in Brazil and upon the
coast of Guinea, and also by the capture of Spanish and
Portuguese prizes with Africans on board.
"Several outbreaks had already happened among the negroes of
New Amsterdam; and the whites lived in constant anticipation
of trouble and danger from them. Rumors of an intended
insurrection real or imaginary, would circulate, as in the
negro plot of 1712, and the whole city be thrown into a
state of alarm. Whether there was any real danger on these
occasions, cannot now be known. But the result was always
the same. The slaves always suffered, many dying by the
fagot or the gallows."
In the year 1741, a terrible panic agitated the whole city in apprehension of an insurrection of the slaves. The most cruel laws had been passed to hold them firmly in bondage. The city then contained ten thousand inhabitants, two thousand of whom were slaves. If three of these, "black seed of Cain," were found together, they were liable to be punished by forty lashes on the bare back. The same punishment was inflicted upon a slave found walking with a club, outside of his master's grounds without a permit. Two justices could inflict any punishment, except amputation or death, upon any slave who should make an assault upon a Christian or a Jew.
A calaboose or jail for slaves stood on the Park Common. Many of the leading merchants in New York were engaged in the slave trade. Several fires had taken place, which led to the suspicion that the slaves had formed a plot to burn the city and massacre the inhabitants. The panic was such that the community seemed bereft of reason. A poor, weak, half-crazed servant-girl, Mary Burton, in a sailor's boarding house, testified, after much importunity, that she had overheard some negroes conferring respecting setting the town on fire.
At first she confined her accusations to the blacks. Then she began to criminate white people, bringing charges against her landlord, his wife and other white persons in the household. In a History of this strange affair written at the time, by Daniel Horsmanden, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, we read,
"The whole summer was spent in the prosecutions. A
coincidence of slight circumstances was magnified, by the
general terror, into violent presumptions. Tales collected
without doors, mingling with the proofs given at the bar,
poisoned the minds of the jurors, and this sanguinary spirit
of the day suffered no check until Mary, the capital
informer, bewildered by the frequent examinations and
suggestions, began to touch characters which malice itself
dare not suspect."
During this period of almost insane excitement, thirteen negroes were burned at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy transported.
I cannot conclude this treatise upon the olden time better than by quoting the eloquent words of Mr. Kip:
"The dress, which had for generations been the sign and
symbol of a gentleman, gradually waned away, till society
reached that charming state of equality in which it became
impossible, by any outward costume, to distinguish masters
from servants. John Jay says, in one of his letters, that
with small clothes and buckles the high tone of society
departed. In the writer's early day this system of the past
was just going out. Wigs and powder and queues, breeches and
buckles, still lingered among the older gentlemen, vestiges
of an age which was vanishing away.
"But the high toned feeling of the last century was still in
the ascendant, and had not yet succumbed to the worship of
mammon, which characterizes this age. There was still in New
York a reverence for the colonial families, and the
prominent political men, like Duane, Clinton, Golden,
Radcliff, Hoffman and Livingston, were generally gentlemen,
both by birth and social standing. The time had not yet come
when this was to be an objection to an individual in a
political career. The leaders were men whose names were
historical in the State, and they influenced society. The
old families still formed an association among themselves,
and intermarried, one generation after another. Society was
therefore very restricted. The writer remembers in his
childhood, when he went out with his father for his
afternoon drive, he knew every carriage they met on the
avenues.
"The gentlemen of that day knew each other well, for they
had grown up together and their associations in the past
were the same. Yet, what friendships for after-life did
these associations form! There was, in those days, none of
the show and glitter of modern times. But there was, with
many of these families, particularly with those who had
retained their landed estates and were still living in their
old family homes, an elegance which has never been rivalled
in other parts of the country. In his early days the writer
has been much at the South, has staid at Mount Vernon when
it was held by the Washingtons; with Lord Fairfax's family,
at Ashgrove and Vancluse; but he has never elsewhere seen
such elegance of living as was formerly exhibited by the old
families of New York.
"One thing is certain, that there was a high tone prevailing
at that time, which is now nowhere to be seen. The community
then looked up to public men, with a degree of reverence
which has never been felt by those who have succeeded them.
They were the last of a race which does not now exist. With
them died the stateliness of colonial times. Wealth came in
and created a social distinction which took the place of
family; and thus society became vulgarized.
"The influences of the past are fast vanishing away, and our
children will look only to the shadowy future. The very rule
by which we estimate individuals has been entirely altered.
The inquiry once was, 'Who is he?' Men now ask the question,
'How much is he worth?' Have we gained by the change?"