A Gradual Emancipation (1783 – 1827)

The horses usually rested about five hours a day, while we were at work; thus did the beasts enjoy greater privileges than we did. (John Jea, The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, 1811)

John Jea lived and worked in Flatbush, Kings County during the colonial period and in the early days of the American republic. He was just one of the thousands of enslaved people who fueled the prosperity of Kings County’s agricultural economy.

Jea was born in southern Nigeria in 1773. He was kidnapped at the age of 2½ and sold into slavery. Jea worked on a large farm in Flatbush. His slaveholders, Albert and Anetje Terhune treated him “in a manner almost too shocking to relate.”* The Terhunes forced their enslaved laborers to work eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, with a paucity of food and inadequate clothing. They beat, whipped, and even killed those who complained or could not work.
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As the reality of slavery of Brooklyn faded, the memories of the past – when they surfaced at all – tended to focus on the “mildness” of slavery in the North and the beauty of its agricultural backdrop.

Created in 1848, this image idealizes Cornelius Van Brunt’s former home in the late eighteenth century as a tranquil scene. The person of color works in a beautiful rural landscape. In 1796, a writer under the pseudonym “Amynto” stated that “in no part of the world do slaves live so comfortable as here [in New York].” But John Jea’s autobiography documenting his experience as an enslaved person showed that slavery was just as oppressive and dehumanizing in the North as it was in the South. Working on Kings County’s farms was often grueling and shortened the life expectancy of the enslaved.

Agricultural Brooklyn
By the late eighteenth century, Dutch and English colonizers had firmly established an agrarian economy in Kings County.
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It took twenty-eight years for New York State, and therefore Kings County, to end slavery.

In 1799, New York State made provisions for the gradual emancipation of enslaved people. It was the second to last northern state to do so. After July 4, 1799 children born of enslaved mothers would be free at the age of 28 if male, and 25 if female.
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Gradual emancipation laws favored slaveholders not the enslaved.

Sine, a young African American girl living in Brooklyn in 1825 was not legally enslaved. But her indenture to Jacob Duryee of Flatbush required that she work uncompensated from the age of eight to ten. Her service should have ended on July 4, 1827, when slavery was abolished in New York State. However, it is difficult to say whether Sine was ever emancipated. Outer areas such as Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, and New Utrecht remained deeply agricultural until the late nineteenth century. Farmers in these areas continued to rely on the labor of African Americans who were held illegally in bondage and indentured servitude beyond 1827.

Margaret was a street crier who sold hot corn near the ferry on Fulton street during gradual emancipation (1799-1827)

Her enslaver was Robert Debevoise, a wealthy landowner in what is now Brooklyn Heights. Gabriel Furman, an early nineteenth century historian, lawyer and Brooklynite, reminisced that during his childhood “an old colored woman, familiarly known as Debevoise black peg, or rather, Margaret or Peggy, made her appearance, crying ‘Hot Corn, Nice Hot Corn, piping hot.’”

Margaret left no record of her own experiences, but Furman’s recollection confirms that countless oppressed women of color formed the social fabric of Brooklyn.

Irish born John Baxter was a lifelong resident of Flatlands. Over three decades, beginning in 1790, he made copious notes in his journals. His entries reveal life during gradual emancipation had upon ordinary Brooklynites. Following are excerpts from his detailed journals:

June 30, 1790
A. Wyckoff purchased Harry, a black, Bett his wife, and Peg her child from Widow Lott for 180. I am afraid no great bargain.

August 12, 1807
Abraham Wyckoff’s negro ran off.

May 17, 1815
This morning my negro was to come home. I am afraid he had run away and we cannot account for it.
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In 1816, the village of Brooklyn was incorporated within the town of the same name. Brooklyn had transformed from farmland to a bustling town centered around the ferry landing at the northwestern tip of Kings County.

Irish immigrants, transplants from New England, descendants of early English and Dutch settlers, and free African Americans lived side by side in its crooked streets.

Brooklyn’s free black community mostly lived among those of European descent in the neighborhoods we know now as DUMBO and Vinegar Hill, with the largest concentration in a triangle between Fulton, Main and Front Streets. Brothers Peter and Benjamin Croger, together with their growing families, were among the many residents.

Grassroots activists, the Crogers pioneered Brooklyn’s anti-slavery movement. Through assistance, education and faith they created an independent and strong community foundation, on which free black Brooklynites built lives of self-determination and dignity, despite significant oppression.

A small, but significant, free black community lived in the areas now known as DUMBO and Vinegar Hill. They pioneered Brooklyn’s anti-slavery movement through grassroots efforts.

In 1810, Brooklynites Peter Croger, Benjamin Croger, and Joseph Smith established the Brooklyn African Woolman Benevolent Society. The mutual aid society’s name referred to noted Quaker anti-slavery activist John Woolman and reflected the organization’s anti-slavery commitment. The Society offered care and financial assistance especially to the widows and children of deceased members.
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Peter Croger’s private African school founded in 1815 was located on James Street.

Today the street no longer exists. It was demolished when construction on the Brooklyn Bridge began in 1870.

Bridge Street AWME Church, Brooklyn’s oldest black church now located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was founded by grassroots anti-slavery activists as a political base during gradual emancipation.

In 1816, Reverend Richard Allen founded the independent African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Two years later, inspired by anti-racism developments in Philadelphia’s black community, Peter Croger, his brother Benjamin Croger, Israel Jemison, Cesar Springfield, and John E. Jackson founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church on High Street in Brooklyn.

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On July 4, 1827 slavery ended in New York State. Black New Yorkers chose to celebrate the next day in order to avoid reprisals and comment on the paradox of slavery and freedom in the United States.

Crowds gathered along Manhattan’s Broadway to celebrate Emancipation Day on July 5, 1827. James McCune Smith, a prominent abolitionist living in Manhattan, described it as a “real, full-souled, full-voiced shouting for joy … marching through the crowded streets, with feet jubilant to songs of freedom!” A week later, on July 12, 1827, black led benevolent societies took to the streets of the village of Brooklyn. They formed a “long and handsome procession,” accompanied by banners and several bands.

But emancipation brought tenuous liberties.
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