The Philipse Manor Hall Story
 onkers, New York, is situated in a hilly region in the southwest quadrant of Westchester County. Westward, the superb valley of the Hudson River unfolds its glory. In 1609, Henry Hudson’s ship “The Half Moon” first emerged from the obscuring shadows of the hills and miles of massive Palisades, Nature’s masonry, which stands out against the horizon. Originally, a small Indian settlement on the banks of the Hudson River, this land was granted to a young scion of Dutch nobility, Adriaen Von der Donck, by the Dutch West India Company in 1646. His title was “Jong Heer”or Lord. Eventually his land became known as Yonkheers, and later Yonkers.
The British took control of New Netherland in 1664, and part of the colony was renamed New York in honor of James II, the Duke of York, a major shareholder in the Royal African Company. The Royal African Company, established in the 1660s, held the royal monopoly on the British slave trades, and became the largest shipper of slaves from Africa to the Americas. The British government actively promoted slavery in the colony, with New York eventually having the largest slave population in the North.
The Atlantic slave trade was vital to Britain’s rise to global power. Between 1662-1807, British ships carried approximately 3.4 million slaves from Africa to the Americas, nearly 50 percent of all slave exports of this period. Slave labor ensured the success of plantations that produced large quantities of sugar, tobacco, rices, and cotton for export. The slave economy also advanced trade and ship building, and stimulated British manufacturing due to the colonies’ demand for British-made goods.
Frederick Philipse and his wife Margaret Harden Brock built the earliest section of Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers, in the 1680's. In 1685, Frederick Philipse's ship, the “Charles,” sailed from Amsterdam to Angola on the Congo River in West Africa to exchange weapons and other goods for Africans. The Philipses were directly involved in the slave trade from 1685 to 1695. They amassed a great fortune through a profitable shipping business and extensive land acquisition, in addition to owning many slaves.
About 40 percent of households in Colonial New York owned either one or two slaves. The Philipse family, however, owned an average of least 40, more than half were specifically associated with the manor property. The Philipse required highly skilled slaves, knowledgeable in specific trades. Millers were needed to operate the grist mills, and boatmen were need to sail goods back and forth from the property to Philipse warehouse in Manhattan. Philipse slaves also worked as farmers, carpenters, and domestics. Philipse family wills and inventories insist that there were slaves of all ages and some families on the manor. Some of the slaves associated with the Lower Mills (Yonkers) portion of the property resided on the third floor of the Manor Hall.
The City of Yonkers, New York, played an intriguing, and heretofore unarticulated, role in the history of freedom in America. The Philipse Manor Hall–now serving as a museum of history, art, and architecture–has a history which lends a unique twist to general knowledge of the American Revolution. In 1776, the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, over 200 Colonial New Yorkers signed a Declaration of Dependence. These "Loyalists" remained faithful to the King. Prominent among this group was Frederick Philipse III, Lord of the Manor of Philipsburg, a 52,500 acre estate, part of which eventually became Yonkers.
In 1786–predating all historical landmark events–the State of New York passed a law manumitting slaves whose masters’ property had been confiscated.(1) This was the very first law of its kind in what would become the United States. In a twist of fate, this law was written by a man who had visited this land often: his great-grandmother lived in the Manor, and was the biggest slave trader in old New York. He came to see the injustice of slavery first-hand as a young man, and acted upon it. His name was John Jay, the future first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Among the short list of Loyalists, whose property was taken by the State are not one, but six members of the Philipse family. It has been postulated that this law, liberating slaves, was written with the Philipse case in mind. On May 1, 1786, an island of freedom was created in Yonkers, still surrounded by a sea of slavery, as a handful of enslaved Africans at the Philipse Manor Hall blazed a path of liberty for millions more to follow in the next century.
In this way, this Yonkers location is a priceless hallowed place to commemorate the earliest date of liberation of slaves in America. The site is the only one of those confiscated, with such an extensive surviving context. Of the other sites in New York, this site had the largest number of slaves, and was indeed an epicenter of colonial America. To establish Yonkers primacy in the annals of the history of freedom–reposing quietly in a modern urban American downtown–is of national significance, and deserving of further attention.
State of New York, Public Lands Law, L. 1786, Ch. 58/1-15, 22, 28-31; |
