In the early 18th century,
New York City had one of the largest slave populations of any of England’s colonies. Slavery in the city differed from some of the other colonies because there were no large
plantations. Slaves worked as domestic servants, artisans, dock workers and various skilled laborers.
[1] Enslaved Africans lived near each other, making communication easy.
They also often worked among free blacks, a situation that did not exist on most Southern plantations. Slaves in the city could communicate and plan a conspiracy more easily than among those on plantations. [2]
Events that presumably led to the revolt include a decrease in freedom and status when the English took over the colony in 1664. Under
Dutch rule, when the city was part of
New Netherland, freed slaves had certain legal rights, such as the rights to own land and to marry.
[3] After the English took over New Amsterdam and made it the colony of New York, they enacted laws that restricted the lives of enslaved peoples.
A slave market was built near present-day Wall Street to accommodate the increase in slaves being imported by the Royal African Company.[
citation needed]
By the early 1700s, about 20 percent of the population were enslaved black people. The colonial government restricted this group through several measures: requiring slaves to carry a pass if traveling more than a mile (1.6km) from home; discouraging marriage among them; prohibiting gatherings in groups of more than three persons; and requiring them to sit in separate galleries at church services.
[4]
A group of more than twenty black slaves gathered on the night of April 6, 1712, and set fire to a building on Maiden Lane near Broadway.[2] While the white colonists tried to put out the fire, the enslaved blacks, armed with guns, hatchets, and swords, attacked the whites and then ran off, but were soon recaptured.
[5]
New York Slave Revolt of 1712 - Wikipedia