Enslavement was more than a system of forced labor. In the English colonies, laws were established that defined a person as “chattel” or movable property. Resisting enslavement, then, was more than simply fighting against overwork or the lack of compensation. Resistance was a fight to reassert one’s humanity. Acts demanding a recognition of humanity took many forms; some were organized and overt, but many more were practiced quietly or covertly on a daily basis.
Cultural retention is a form of resistance. Maintaining a cultural identity separate from one’s captors not only provides solace, it also serves to unite individuals in opposition to their enslavers. We often forget how influential and integral African cultures have been to the development of the United States. Food and language, for example, form large parts of one’s culture.
American culture is peppered with words and recipes from West and Central Africa. The word “phony” originates from the Mandingo word foney (insincere or counterfeit). “Tote” is a Kikonga word, tota (to carry), and “jam” and “jamboree” stem from the Wolof word jama (to gather together for fun).
In addition to the use of black-eyed peas, okra, and numerous spices, cooking techniques such as deep frying, barbecuing, and steaming food wrapped in vegetable leaves all have West African origins. The name of the thick stew known as gumbo comes from the Bantu word Kingombo, and rice cultivation techniques in South Carolina originated in the floodplains and deltas of the Niger, Gambia, and Casamance Rivers in western Africa.[1]
Other methods of resistance, or ways to simply survive the brutal working and living conditions associated with enslavement, included common sense practices used to alleviate the endless labor. Both enslaved individuals and groups would reduce their workload by pacing themselves or intentionally working at a reduced capacity. Feigning illness, as well as breaking, losing, or misusing tools were other methods practiced.
Although documenting covert methods of resistance can be difficult, recognizing that these practices are universal and continue today suggests that these tactics were also employed by enslaved communities. Of course, if any of these acts of resistance or self-defense were discovered, they had brutal consequences. Physical punishments ranged from whippings, brandings, imprisonment, and execution. Other punishments were equally severe and included separation or being sold from one's family, deportation to Caribbean sugar plantations, or the punishment of family members for one’s actions. An enslaver’s threat to harm one’s family may have been the strongest deterrent to resisting.
Physical acts of resistance include self-defense, arson, murder, and organized rebellion. In 1735, wealthy planter Peter Kipp of Hackensack, New Jersey struck his enslaved man, Jack, in punishment and “the said Negro Resisted & fought with his Master Striking him Several Blows…” Jack was arrested and was hastily tried, convicted, and sentenced to be burned at the stake for this offense.[2]
In 1730, Ulster County authorities arrested an enslaved man for setting fire to a barn and a shed containing wheat. The enslaved man was condemned “to be burnt at the stake… untill he is dead, and after that to ashes.” In the fall of 1793, Albany experienced one of the town’s worst fires, destroying more than 25 homes and most of the city’s business center. Arson was suspected and three enslaved teenagers—Pompey, Dinah, and Bet—were convicted on scant evidence. All three were sentenced to death by hanging.[3]
More violent acts of resistance, although rare, occurred in New York. In January of 1708, the Hallet family of Queens County were murdered by two people whom they enslaved. In a letter to the London Board of Trade, New York’s Governor, Lord Cornbury, wrote:
“[A] most barbarous murder has been committed upon the Family of one Hallet by an Indian Man Slave, and a Negro Woman, who have murder’d their Master, Mistress and five Children; The Slaves were taken, and I immediately issued a special commission for the Tryal of them, which was done, and the man sentenced to be hanged, and the Woman burnt, and they have been executed; They Discovered two other Negros their accomplices who have been tryed, condemned & Executed.”[4]
New York was not immune to large-scale insurrections and uprisings. On the night of April 1, 1712 several African captives, men and women from the Coromantee region of the Akan Empire, allegedly set fire to a house in New York City; when white residents came to put out the fire, the slave conspirators killed about nine of them using muskets and knives, while about 12 more were severely wounded. The plan was for the remainder of the enslaved population to join in, setting fire to their enslaver’s homes and killing them. No one else participated. The original group were caught and tried in a hastily convened court. Within two months,18 enslaved men and women were executed: some were hanged, others burned at the stake. One was broken on a wheel and another dragged through town until dead. The brutality of the executions was meant to serve as a warning to the enslaved community to not think of doing this again.
Twenty-nine years later, in the spring of 1741, a number of highly suspicious fires coupled with rumors of a Spanish invasion led New Yorkers to believe there was yet another full-blown slave conspiracy afoot. Like the 1712 uprising, the aim of the conspirators was to burn the town and kill white residents as they came to extinguish the flames. Conspiracy—simply talking about insurrection—was enough to get an enslaved person executed or, at least, deported, in 1741. While the plot was never actually enacted, over 200 enslaved men and women were rounded up and placed in jail. They were questioned and tried for arson and conspiracy to insurrect. Over 70 enslaved men were deported from the colony (and thus separated from their families) to the sugar plantations of Barbados and Antigua. Another 18 were hanged, and 13 more burned at the stake, for their involvement in the alleged plot. The first man to be burnt at the stake was Cuffee, a man enslaved by Adolph Philipse. Unlike the 1712 incident, in which nine white people were killed in the aborted insurrection, none were killed trying to put out the flames.
So, if simply talking about insurrection was an act of defiance that could get a person killed, how else could one resist?
One commonly practiced form of resistance was the act of self-emancipation—also known as running away. Choosing to run away, however, was a very difficult decision.
The opening lines from Robert Hayden’s poem Runagate Runagate capture both the confusion and determination present when enslaved individuals chose to self-emancipate and free themselves from the bonds of slavery:
Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness
and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror
and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing
and the night cold and the night long and the river
to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning
and blackness ahead and when shall I reach that somewhere morning and keep on going and never turnback and keep on going
Runagate
Runagate
Runagate
Some ran to find freedom, but during the colonial era, freedom rarely meant running north. Because slavery was still prevalent in the northern colonies, there simply was no “north” as far as freedom was concerned. Freedom often meant running to a city where one could blend in with the large black population or find employment as a sailor. Others ran to find family from whom they have been separated, while some even ran as a family.
New York colonial newspapers contained hundreds of advertisements for so-called runaways. These ads provide historians with vital information about the lives of those enslaved. Not only do these advertisements contain information about clothing, enslavers also noted physical characteristics and, occasionally, motivations for leaving.
At a time when slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies and every European colony in North and South America, the volume of advertisements for runaways suggests that the reasons for absconding were more varied than just freedom. Temporary refuge from overwork or punishments could be one reason, but the most likely reason would be to reunite with family.
During the summer of 1764, an enslaved man named Jack left his enslaver, Joseph Anthony of “Courtland’s Manor.” The advertisement for the return of Jack noted that “he is supposed to be gone to the house of Mr. John Coombs, at Jamaica, on Long Island; or otherwise to Mr. Palmer’s, at Whiteplains, Westchester County, from each of whom he has been sold.” It is doubtful that Jack was returning to visit his former enslavers. More likely was that Jack had been sold away from family or loved ones. Jack’s decision to leave his enslaver and visit family without asking for permission demonstrates his resistance to the dehumanizing effect of enslavement that denied him any right to maintain a family.
The New-York Weekly Gazette of November 5, 1753 contained an ad placed by William Smith of New York City. Smith offered a reward of 40 shillings for the return of an enslaved man named Lewis Francois. Francois had arrived from Jamaica “not long since” and was sold twice since coming to New York. According to Smith, Lewis Francois was “seen lurking about the Town, and is supposed to be harboured by West-India Negroes of his Acquaintance.” The ad suggests that there may have been a loose network of slaves or free persons of color in Manhattan who would aid runaways in their attempt to self-liberate.[5]
The Gradual Emancipation act of 1799 did not end slavery in New York; it actually prolonged it for another 28 years so enslavers could benefit from the unpaid labor of their human property. Between 1799 and1827, people continued to be bought and sold, families continued to be separated, and those enslaved continued to resist their captivity.
Born around 1797, an enslaved woman named Isabella Baumfree was sold three times by various Esopus and New Paltz enslavers before she turned 15. Because Isabella was born prior to New York’s gradual manumission act of 1799, the law stated that she would remain enslaved for life. In 1810, she was sold again to John Dumont of New Paltz. Dumont promised Isabella that he would free her in 1826, but Dumont rescinded his promise and Isabella remained enslaved. Taking matters into her own hands, Isabella self-emancipated, taking the youngest of her five children with her, and took refuge with a neighboring Quaker family, the Van Wagenen’s, who purchased her freedom from Dumont. In gratitude for their protection, she took the name Van Wagenen as her own.
Shortly after she left the Dumont family, John Dumont sold her five year old son, Peter, to an enslaver who illegally took him to Alabama. The illegal kidnapping of her son caused Isabella to demand that local law enforcement get her son back. She gave public speeches in Kingston, New York, explaining the cruelties of slavery to any person who would listen. With the help of Isaac Van Wagenen, she succeeded in regaining custody of her son, becoming the first woman of color to successfully sue a white man in the United States. Isabella Van Wagenen spent a lifetime resisting her enslavement and that of her children. In 1843, after a spiritual awakening, Van Wagenen took the name Sojourner Truth and continued her fight against injustice as a leading figure in the national abolition movement and the movement for women’s rights.[6]
[1] Major, Clarence. Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang (1994)
[2] Westervelt, Frances A. The History of Bergen County, New Jersey, 1630-1923 (1923), p. 263.
[3] Hodges, Graham Russell. Root and Branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613-1863, University of North Carolina Press (1999).
[4] https://www.executedtoday.com/2013/02/02/1708-indian-sam-william-hallet-slavery-new-york/
[5] Hodges, Graham Russell and Alan Edward Brown, eds. "Pretends to be Free:" Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial an Revolutionary New York and New Jersey, Fordham University Press (2019).
[6] https://www.newpaltz.edu/media/diversity/Hasbrouck%20Renaming%20Report-Web.pdf
