New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did something of huge importance this week when she signed a bill that could lead the way for the state to make reparation payments to the descendants of the state’s enslaved people. The bill is extraordinary in its searing detail about the history of slavery in the state and how it impacts us today. It orders the establishment of a nine-member commission to examine the more than 180 years of the enslavement of Africans and people of African descent — and how to atone for it. It will also look at post-slavery treatment of Black Americans, as well as the current issues facing people with African heritage today. On eastern Long Island, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. voted yes; State Senator Anthony Palumbo voted no.
Opposition to the bill is mostly from Republicans like Mr. Palumbo and centers on how much a program of paying reparations to Black New Yorkers might cost. But by focusing on a price, they miss the point, which is to face slavery head-on and gain an understanding of the key role that the enslaved and free people of color had on the growth of the state.
The first captured Africans to arrive in what would eventually become New York State were brought to New Amsterdam in 1626; on the East End of Long Island, the earliest known enslaved people are found in records from the early 1650s. Slavery existed in the state until 1827, though in many instances, people were held much longer through onerous indenture agreements. In East Hampton, the earliest enslaved people known at present are Boose and Japhet, in 1657, a woman and a man, respectively; the last is Tamer, whose liberty was sold in 1829 — two years after the legal end of slavery — to remain in bondage until at least 1832.
Slavery was hardly an isolated reality and stretched from our end of the state to its farthest reaches. As much as 12 percent of the mid-18th-century Long Island population was enslaved, records show. But the state’s dependence on enslavement extended far beyond forced labor. Economic ties with the sugar-producing islands in the West Indies helped make the state rich. On Long Island, much of the food, wood, draft animals, and other commodities were shipped to places like Barbados and Hispaniola. New Yorkers funded slave ship voyages to the African coast. Even after the end of slavery in the state, there were criminals who kidnapped Black people to send them to the South to labor on the cotton and rice plantations.
In thinking about slavery and the state, it is important to recognize the spans of time involved. Enslavement had been practiced for more than 180 years here before Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, which contributed to the rise of King Cotton, which most Americans still think of as the sum total of slavery in the United States. Far from it. In reality, it was the rare family of means in the North that did not enslave at least one or two African people at some point during the Colonial and early republic periods. Great wealth was created on the literal backs of the enslaved. And, unlike in the South, many of those chains of inheritance remain unbroken to this day.
In a decision that deserved to get more attention, the East Hampton Town Trustees decided this year to drop the name of a former slave ship captain from its annual scholarship fund. But the legacy of the East End enslavers is impossible to ignore, enshrined in the names of streets (Hedges, Buell, Topping, Howell, Dayton, Jessup, Jermain) and even at Pierson High School, called that by Margaret Sage in honor of her Sag Harbor ancestors. For those who know the history, evidence of slavery is everywhere.
It is critical that we do not get hung up on an endless discussion of who gets reparation payments and how much. It is far more important that the conversation about slavery takes place.