Land of the Blacks (Manhattan)
The Land of the Blacks or Negro Frontier or Free Negro Lots was a village settled by people of African descent north of New Amsterdam from about 1643 to 1716. The inhabitants initially mostly belonged to the half-free social class of the colony.[1] There were about 30 African-owned farms over about 130 acres centered on the modern Washington Square Park.[2][3][4][5] It was created as a buffer area by the Dutch governor Willem Kieft when white people evacuated the region due to Kieft's War against the native Lenape people, and was effectively ended by anti-black laws after the New York Slave Revolt of 1712.
A later neighborhood was called Little Africa in Greenwich Village. Its legacy is preserved at the African Burial Ground National Monument.[6]
References
- Harris, Leslie M. (2004-08-01). In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. University of Chicago Press. pp. 23–25. ISBN 9780226317755.
- Tarrant-Reid, Linda (2018-03-15). Discovering Black America: From the Age of Exploration to the Twenty-First Century. Abrams. ISBN 9781683354291.
- "Slavery and Freedom 1613-1865". Black New Yorkers. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
- "Land of the Blacks". Mapping the African American Past. Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
- Stokes, I. N. Phelps (1915). The iconography of Manhattan Island. Рипол Классик. ISBN 9785871799505.
- Jaynes, Gerald D. (2005-02-01). Encyclopedia of African American Society. SAGE. ISBN 9780761927648.