5/19/12

The Sachem Uncas site is on the move once again


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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