The
(Sachem Uncas) was a SNET site builder in 1993, a SBC site builder, an
Earthlink page in 2008 and has been moved to tripod Uncasvillage 2009 at
And now as a page on this my Google
blog posting site
Forgotten part of state's history
Dutch kept American Indian slaves in
18th-century Catskills, documents acquired by the State Library reveal
By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer
First published in print: Sunday, September
14, 2008
ALBANY -- Historians had long known of this dark
chapter in New York's history, but an 18th-century document recently acquired
by the State Library adds details to the fact that Indian slaves were kept in
the Catskills.
A 1720 deed of transfer of a large Dutch farm in
Orange County near present-day Goshen detailed legal descriptions of the land
-- and human property: "William an Indian Man ... Lawrence an Indian Man
... Casar a Negro Man."
The transfer was among three boxes of documents
contained in the Wawayanda Patent Papers (1705-1840), recently purchased from
Harold Decker, a private collector and historian in Orange County. The price
was not disclosed.
"It's the first document I've seen that
specifically names Indian slaves," said Paul Mercer, senior librarian in
the manuscripts and special collections division.
Mercer said the documents will join an important
collection at the State Library pertaining to African-American slaves in New
York.
"It's been understood in historical terms that
Indian slaves existed, but it's important that we now have a document that
actually provides names," Mercer said.
"We never learned about this in our classes on
the reservation. It just wasn't freely talked about," said Mike Tarbell,
educator at the Iroquois Indian Museum in Schoharie County, a Mohawk of the
Turtle clan who grew up on the St. Regis Mohawk reservation in Franklin County.
"But I'm glad it's coming to the surface
now," Tarbell said. "Enslaving of native peoples was done all over
the world, so I guess it's not surprising that there were Indian slaves in New
York."
No details are known about the Indian slaves mentioned
in the 1720 document and it will be up to researchers to find out more, Mercer
said. Decker wanted his collection to end up at a public research library so
the documents would be accessible to scholars.
Archaeologist Paul Huey, who has excavated American
Indian sites in the Capital Region, called the document important confirmation
of Indians held as slaves in New York, although he found prior evidence in
written records of Indians captured by Europeans in the state, sold as slaves
and shipped to Bermuda.
Huey's hypothesis is that Indians were not enslaved in
large numbers by the Dutch in the Fort Orange vicinity during the Colonial era
because they didn't want to offend their trading partners in the lucrative
beaver trade.
"The Dutch were very careful to maintain good
relations with the Indians and were more likely to use African slaves,"
said Huey, a scientist with the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic
Preservation at Peebles Island.
American Indians were widely enslaved across North
America during the Colonial era, according to Sean Rafferty, an assistant
professor of anthropology at the University at Albany. But little documentation
about such enslavement exists, in contrast to African slaves.
"This is an important acquisition because it's
the first I've heard of documentation of Native American slavery in New
York," said Rafferty, who specializes in American Indian rituals and
burial practices in eastern North America between 1000 B.C. and 1000 A.D.
(Page 2 of 2)
Some historians estimate that as many as 50,000
Indians were kept as slaves in North America during the 17th and 18th
centuries, Rafferty said.
"There was a wide spectrum of status in
the term of slavery in that era," Rafferty said. It ranged from indigent
white people who signed on as indentured servants to get out of debt to those
equated as property, freely bought and sold, such as Africans and Americans
Indians.
It's hard to determine what treatment the Indian
slaves received on the 60,000-acre Orange County farm, referred to as a
"plantation" in the 1720 document, which also transferred ownership
of four horses, three mares, two cows, one bull, one steer and two sows.
"I don't think the matter of Indian slaves was
necessarily covered up," Mercer said. "It's more a matter that this
is something that history forgot."
Paul Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail
at pgrondahl@timesunion.com.
September 15, 2008
When I read this story this morning, it
brought back some not
so pleasant memories of high school in
Connecticut.
Whenever I would play basketball with my
friends
who were mostly African Americans,
they would always make remarks about how bad
it had
been for their Ancestors who had been slaves.
I would listen to their stories and then at
the next meeting at my
grandfathers Mohegan Church I would tell my
Elders what they had said.
The Elders would always say that many of our
people had been slaves too.
Long before there was African slavery in this
country,
white people had been making slaves of our
people.
For so many years we heard about the poor
Africans slaves
and how badly they had been treated,
when we knew all along that our people had also
been slaves,
but no one ever cared or talked about it.
Except us.
The Elders also talked about the order of
feeding slaves.
First the white owners and their children
ate, then their dogs and the animals,
then the African American slaves ate, then if
there was anything left over
the Native slaves had to fight with the dogs
for it.
I did a report about all of this my freshman
year in high school.
My father had encouraged me to write about
it, because it bothered me so much.
I had to stand up in class and say in front
of the same people I played ball with,
"You know, you all complain to me about
how bad it was that your Ancestors
were slaves and how we should all feel sorry
for you, but none of you
have ever said that you were sorry about my
people being slaves."
I got an A on the report, I also got a lot of
cold shoulders for a couple
of days, but after that, they stopped whining
about their poor Ancestors,
at least around me.
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