New York City Mayors and Slavery
By Paul Hortenstine ©2025
More enslaved people lived in New York City than any other town in North America for parts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and slavery was interwoven with political power in the commerce-driven city from its beginnings. From the city’s first mayor in 1665 until New York State emancipation in 1827, forty-nine men served as mayor or acting mayor. Of those, forty-three—about 88%—are documented enslavers or investors in ships that carried enslaved people. After emancipation there were two mayors involved in slavery, which brings the total number of mayors with clear connections to slavery up to forty-five.
The following is a five-part essay on the connections between New York City mayors and slavery from the first mayor until 1827. The menu on the left and titles below contain links to the five-part essay:
There are also summaries and tables of mayors and their involvement in slavery:
- Timeline: An overview of colonists and slavery in New York City from the city’s time as New Amsterdam to the Civil War.
- Enslaved People: The names of those enslaved by mayors that are found in historical documents.
- Mayoral Slaveship Investments: An exploration of mayor’s investments in the slave trade and a list of their ships.
- Terms of Enslaver Mayors: A list of the mayors with direct participation in slavery, including the slave trade.
- NYC Mayors List: A chronological list of the terms of all mayors until New York State emancipation.
After that, the final section lists direct participation in slavery by individual mayors through historical documents, including the terms of a 1664 auction, letters from 1698 about the arrival of slave ships, the 1703 census of New York City, a will from 1786, and an 1810 register of manumissions. It begins with the first mayor, Thomas Willett.
Mayors presided over the Common Council that enacted slave codes from the earliest days of the colony. This included implementing obligatory labor to improve the waterfront for one day a week in 1691 and giving colonists the power to apprehend enslaved people after dark in 1713. Activities on Sundays were severely limited, including a 1731 law that prohibited more than three enslaved people from gathering under the penalty of whipping. Even in 1818, mayors had to contend with enslavers using prison to punish the enslaved. Mayor Cadwallader Colden, president of the anti-slavery Manumission Society but formerly an enslaver, told the council to inquire under “what authority the City Prison is rendered subservient to the authority of slave holders.”
New York City Colonial Population [1]
| White | Black: vast majority enslaved | Total | % Black | |
| 1698 | 4,237 | 700 | 4,937 | 14% |
| 1703 | 3,745 | 630 | 4,375 | 14% |
| 1723 | 5,886 | 1,362 | 7,248 | 19% |
| 1731 | 7,045 | 1,577 | 8,622 | 18% |
| 1737 | 6,947 | 1,719 | 8,666 | 20% |
| 1746 | 9,273 | 2,444 | 11,717 | 21% |
| 1756 | 10,768 | 2,278 | 13,046 | 17% |
The names of eighty-five people who were enslaved by mayors are documented in sales, wills, court cases, petitions, runaway notices, and manumission records. Early mayors sold enslaved people for agricultural goods, such as in 1676 when Mayor Gabriel Minvielle sold Prince for three hundred schepels (229 bushels) of wheat. Many mayors enslaved one or two people, but acting Mayor Gerardus Stuyvesant (1744) listed nineteen enslaved people in his 1786 will. While the voices of the enslaved are difficult to hear, documents show that two people petitioned for freedom from mayors. Sarah Robins requested her freedom as “a free Indian woman” in 1711 and Sam, a free Black man, asked for the freedom of Robin in 1715 after the death of their enslaver.
Twelve mayors are documented investors in thirty-four ships that transported the enslaved, including every mayor who held office from 1726 to 1766. Most of the ships they invested in sailed from New York City to the Caribbean with provisions and returned with enslaved people and agricultural goods, but seven ships took captives from Africa. Mayor Cornelius Steenwyck co-owned the Leonora, which from 1666 to 1667 sailed from the Netherlands to Ardra on the west coast of Africa. Three hundred thirty-eight captives were purchased; the two hundred ninety-one who survived were sold in Curaçao and Martinique. In July 1723, Mayor David Provoost sued the captain of the Expedition, which he was an investor in, for fifty pounds for damages to goods and the death of Jenny, an enslaved girl, who arrived on the ship from Barbados.
New York City Population After American Independence [2]
| Black | Total Population | % Black | Free Black | Enslaved | % Enslaved | |
| 1790 | 3,092 | 31,225 | 9.9% | 1,036 | 2,056 | 66.5 |
| 1800 | 5,867 | 57,663 | 10.2% | 3,333 | 2,534 | 43.2 |
| 1810 | 8,916 | 91,659 | 9.7% | 7,470 | 1,446 | 16.2 |
This work ends at New York’s emancipation in 1827. However, after emancipation, Blacks, Indigenous persons, women, and many others in New York City still lived without equal rights and under the threat of violence.
Until the Civil War, slave ships were legally allowed to use the harbor to restock their supplies. Blacks lived in fear of being kidnapped into slavery and enslaved runaways were caught and returned. In July 1834, thousands of nativist rioters demolished the homes, businesses, and churches of abolitionists and Blacks, who were stoned and beaten. And, in July 1863, in the largest urban civil unrest in American history, rioters unleashed four days of violence and engaged in a battle for New York City in opposition to being drafted into the Union Army. The rioters, mainly working-class men, destroyed the homes of the rich, targeted abolitionists, and sought out Blacks for beatings and murder, including lynching. The state militia and army defeated the rioters over the course of two days, fighting across barricades on city streets and in buildings.
This is not the end of this project. There are additional details to be found about mayors and the lives of the enslaved. For the six mayors until emancipation who are not listed as enslavers, it is possible they were enslavers or investors in the slave trade, but the documentation is lacking or unclear. However, as mayor each of them enforced slave codes as part of their official duties.
New York City during this time period refers to Manhattan or New York County. Other towns in today’s New York City had their own governments and the five boroughs of New York were consolidated in 1898.
If you have questions, additions, omissions, or thoughts, please contact [email protected].
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Includes information from New York City, 1664-1710: Conquest and Change, In the Shadow of Slavery, 12-21; Prof. Benton essay on dating the beginning and end of slavery in New York; “Tale of the White Horse” and “To ‘experiment with a parcel of negros:’ Incentive, Collaboration, and Competition in New Amsterdam’s Slave Trade, Journal of Early American History by Dennis J. Maika; the Walt Whitman Archive, Minutes of the Common Council, The colonial laws of New York from the year 1664 to the revolution, Vol. I, Laws of New-York, from the year 1691, to 1751, inclusive: published according to an act of the General Assembly, and Laws of the state of New York: passed at the sessions of the Legislature held in the years 1777-[1801], Vol. II.
[1] The percentage of Blacks enslaved during this time period is unclear. There were some free people, but they were a small part of the Black population. Many who were free during the Dutch period fled the city, especially after more restrictive 1712 slave codes. Figures come from New York Burning, Appendix A, “Slavery in New York,” Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris, 2005, online edition p.62 table; citing American Population Before the Federal Census of 1790, p.94-104, link
[2] Data from census and other sources in Somewhat More Independent, Shane White, p.26
Copyright 2025 Paul Hortenstine
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
