The 1619 Project

by Rachel Dworkin, archivist

In August 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived at Point Comfort, Virginia. It would be the first of many to arrive in what would become the United States. Between 1619 and the end of the Civil War, some 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped from their homes and transported against their will to work in American farms, homes, and businesses. A recent issue of the New York Times Magazine launched the 1619 Project, a series of articles about the long-reaching effects of slavery on America’s history, culture, . A PDF of the article can be found here. I recommend you check it out.

When I was in school, we were taught that slavery was a uniquely Southern institution which our Northern forbearers had rightly put a stop to, but that’s not remotely accurate. The Dutch West India Company brought the first batch of eleven enslaved Africans to New Amsterdam in 1626. By 1703, roughly 46% of New York City households held slaves, a higher percentage than any other American city outside of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1799, New York began to gradually abolish slavery. Children born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1799 would be born free, but were required to serve a period of indentured servitude until their 25^th birthday (for girls) or their 28^th (for boys). All slaves born before July 4, 1799 were freed on July 4, 1827, but the children of formerly enslaved mothers were still forced to provide their mothers’ former masters with their unpaid labor until as late 1855. See blog post "Strayed, Stolen or Run Away" for details.

New York’s slaves played an important role in its economy.  The first slaves were owned by the Dutch West India Company and were forced to clear the forests, lay the roads, and do other heavy labor to build the infrastructure of the budding colony. By the time the English took over the colony in 1664, enslaved Blacks were the primary laborers on farms up and down the Hudson River Valley. Under English rule, the importation and sale of slaves became big business, with a slave market established on Wall Street in 1711. Even after the abolition of slavery within the state, New York banks continued to invest heavily in the Southern slave trade.

New York Slave Market, 1730. Image courtesy of New York Public Library

 

While the vast majority of enslaved New Yorkers lived downstate, there were some right here in Chemung County. By 1810, there were thirteen slaves in eleven Elmira households, plus their children who were technically indentured servants. Jacob Lowman, for whom Lowman is named, owned an entire family of enslaved people, including a man called “Black Charley” Smith. Both Jacob Lowman and his son, Jacob Jr., made provisions for Smith’s family in their wills. It is unknown just what sort of labor the Smiths performed for the Lowmans, although the book The Lowmans of Chemung County insists that they were “almost exclusively domestic servants.” The book also tried to paint the Lowmans as especially benevolent masters, which is unsurprising considering it was written by one of their descendants.

Home of Jacob Lowman Sr., built 1819

 

As popular and pernicious as the myth of the good master is, the sad truth is that there were no good masters. The great Terry Pratchett once said that the root of all evil is treating people as things and that is exactly what slavery is. People as things: tools, financial assets, collateral, property. Even if a master never raised a hand to the people they enslaved, they were still relying on the threat of violence to compel labor. State and local laws restricted enslaved people’s ability to travel and runaways were hunted by the community and publically flogged upon capture as a matter of law.

Slavery has left an indelible mark on nearly every facet of our nation. New York State rose to financial prominence on the backs of enslaved peoples and that’s something we should be talking about.  

 

A True Story Word For Word As I Heard It

By Rachel Dworkin, archivist

It was summer-time, and twilight. We were sitting on the porch of the farmhouse, on the summit of the hill, and "Aunt Rachel" was sitting respectfully below our level, on the steps-for she was our Servant, and colored. She was of mighty frame and stature; she was sixty years old, but her eye was undimmed and her strength unabated. She was a cheerful, hearty soul, and it was no more trouble for her to laugh than it is for a bird to sing. She was under fire now, as usual when the day was done. That is to say, she was being chaffed without mercy, and was enjoying it. She would let off peal after of laughter, and then sit with her face in her hands and shake with throes of enjoyment which she could no longer get breath enough to express. It such a moment as this a thought occurred to me, and I said:

"Aunt Rachel, how is it that you've lived sixty years and never had any trouble?"

That’s how the short story “A True Story, Word for Word as I Heard It” by Mark Twain begins. It was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1874 and it really is a true story. Less word-for-word true and more Lifetime-movie true, but true none the less.

Aunt Rachel in The Atlantic Monthly, 1874

 

The woman Twain called Aunt Rachel was Mary Ann Cord and she had, in fact, known trouble. She was born into slavery in Virginia on a plantation where she eventually served as a cook. She had a husband and seven children, the youngest of whom, Henry, was her favorite. When he was a toddler, he cracked his head open on the corner of a stove and bore the scar for the rest of his life. Now, remember that detail, because it will be very, very important later on.

Mary Ann Cord, image courtesy of Elmira College

 

In 1852, the family’s mistress went broke and she decided to sell them all. Mary Ann stood helpless as her husband and seven children were auctioned off one by one. As little Henry, only eight years old, was being pulled from her arms, he slipped a simple wire ring on her finger and swore he would escape and find her.  Mary Ann was sold to a plantation in New Bern, North Carolina. She thought she would never see him, or any of the rest of her family, ever again, but she kept that ring on her finger. Henry never forgot his promise and never gave up hope of finding her. 

In 1858, at age 13, Henry escaped and wound up here in Elmira.  It was here that he met Charles Hoppe, the barber at the Brainard House, who gave him a job and a trade he would practice for the rest of his life. During the Civil War, he joined up with a Colored regiment just as soon as he was able and found himself down in New Bern, North Carolina. And that, my friends, is where a miracle happened.

Henry Washington's barber shop

 Mary Ann’s plantation had been liberated by Union troops and pressed into service as a sort of headquarters. The Union officers had asked her to stay on and cook for pay, and she had. One night, a group of colored troops showed up, demanding food and making a mess. Well, Mary Ann wasn’t putting up with that nonsense and threw them right out. If the story ended there, Mark Twain probably wouldn’t have written about it. 

Luckily, it didn’t end there. In Mark Twain’s version of events, she was lighting the stove the next morning when she looked up and saw a young man with a scar and knew it was Henry. What actually happened was a bit more complicated. Henry had been one of the colored troops from the night before and he had been so strongly reminded of his mother, that he had come back. He sat down where the cook was serving breakfast and pushed his hair back off his forehead to see if she’d notice. And boy, did she notice. According to Twain, she started hugging him and crying, but in reality, she took one look at his scar and fainted dead away. It was when he lunged to catch her that he noticed her ring and that was how Mary Ann and Henry, separated by years of slavery and war, found each other. 

As soon as he was discharged, Henry took Mary Ann home with him to Elmira. He went back to his barber shop and she built a life here. She got remarried and ended up working as a cook at Quarry Farm. That was how she came to meet Mark Twain, and how he came to write a version of her story. 

Mary Ann Cord with the Crane-Clemens family on the porch at Quarry Farm

Strayed, Stolen or Run Away: Missing Elmira's Indentured Servants

by Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

I was reading through the Elmira Republican & General Advertiser from 1836 the other day when I found an unusual notice.  

6 cents reward. Strayed, stolen, or run away, from the subscriber, on the 5^th instant, Gilbert Wilcox, an indented apprentice to the farming business, aged about 13 years. Whoever will return said boy to the subscriber shall receive the reward, but no charges will be paid. All persons are hereby forbidden from harbouring or trusting said boy on my account. JEREMIAH HALL.  Elmira, June 6, 1836.

Aside from the bit about not trusting the boy on the subscriber’s account, it is disturbingly similar to notices for missing livestock. 

Who was this Gilbert Wilcox kid and why was Jeremiah Hall advertising his disappearance like he was a missing cow? The notice itself gives us some clues. Gilbert Wilcox, age about 13, was an indentured laborer belonging to Jeremiah Hall and, when I say belonging, I mean that literally. Mr. Hall had some sort of legal contract granting him temporary ownership of Gilbert and his unpaid labor for a set period of years. People in this position were sometimes called indentured servants, bond boys, or bound or indentured apprentices.

There is a long history of indentured servitude in this country. Before the American Revolution, over 60% of all immigrants from the British Isle came as indentured servants. Too poor to afford the cost of the journey, they would sell themselves to ships’ captains who would then auction them off at the docks. The average cost of the voyage was £10 to be paid off over a period of servitude ranging from 3 to 7 years. The law offered no protections against cruel or abusive masters and it was not unusual for unhappy indentured servants to try to run. Although some states promised former indentured servants free land along the frontier, most began their free lives in America utterly destitute. The expansion of the slave trade in early 1800s spelled the end of large-scale indentured immigration, although it persists to this day, especially among the undocumented. 

Native-born Americans might have indentured themselves or their children for any number of reasons. In New York State, the children of enslaved Blacks born after July 4, 1799 were technically free, but indentured to their mother’s owners until their 25^th (for females) or 28^th (for males) birthday. In 1817, the state abolished slavery altogether effective on July 4, 1827. Since Gilbert Wilcox was 13 in 1836, it is possible he could be the indentured child of a Black woman who was still enslaved at the time of his birth. On the other hand, he could also be the son of an impoverished white family who indentured him in exchange for a debt forgiveness or a lump sum payment. Some families also indentured their sons to tradesmen so that they might learn said trade.

There are no good statistics on the numbers of indentured servants who lived and worked in Chemung County, but they were there since the beginning of white settlement. John Hendy, the first white man to plant corn in what is now the Town of Elmira, did so with the help of his bond boy, Dan Hill, in the spring of 1788.  There were at least two other indentured servants living in Elmira in 1836. We know because there are runaway notices for them too. I haven’t been able to find what happened to any of them, but I like to imagine they lived the rest of their lives happy and free.