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20th CENTURY

THE NEGRO IN NEW YORK

The prospect for the Negro in New York City is not very encouraging.  His race is not numerically  very strong in the metropolis, and the number is not rapidly increasing either by births or by migrations from the South. The riot of August, when a mob attacked Negroes in the streets without much, if any, restraint from the police, was even more of a surprise than it would have been at almost any time during during the preceding quarter of a century.  There have been no times when the Negroes in New York were increasing with rapidity. At this time the opportunities of Negroes are less in New York than they have ever been, and there does not seem any likelihood that present conditions will be immediately changed.  This riot, however, has directed the attention of the people to the Negro population, and if the truth be disclosed it may be that their present hard lot may in time be ameliorated.

The Negro is not a newcomer in New York.  He has been here for two centuries and a half.  In the beginning and until 1785 he was a slave, but even during time of bondage his condition was not much worse than now.  The slavery that existed in New York was of a very mild sort, and the amiable Dutchmen who were the first slave owners were very good and considerate masters.  The English were not a so gentle, and in the first half of the eighteenth century there were two severe disturbances, each marked with a loss of life.  In 1709 there was so much traffic in slaves that a slave market was opened in Wall Street, and black men and women were dealt in as though they were cattle or swine.  The Negroes were quite numerous in proportion to the white population, and there was always apprehension that there might be a slave uprising.  In 1712 a house was burned, the slaves attacked the whites, and after killing several, were suppressed but the Royal troops of the garrison. For twenty-nine years there was comparative quiet, though one-fifth of the population was black. In 1741 there were ten thousand inhabitants of New York. Of these, two thousand were Negro slaves. There was an epidemic of incendiary fires. The investigations were not more scientifically judicial than the witchcraft trials in Salem. The most improbable and contradictory stories are believed, and many Negroes were condemned in consequence. Some were hanged and some were burned at the stake. It was an anxious time in the little island city, and the officers of justice seem to have lost their heads pretty completely. This anxiety made slavery itself unpopular, and in 1785 the new State was quite willing to abolish the institution. At the time there were about 22,000 Negro slaves in the State, a considerable proportion of these being held in and around the city. This abolition of slavery in New York did not cause the death of the slave trade, however, for this was participated in by New York merchants until the whole wretched business was wiped out by the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. Free Negroes continued to live in New York from the time of the abolition of slavery until now, but they have always kept very much to themselves, living in colonies and engaged in a few special occupations in which they were reasonably prosperous. In 1850, when New York had a population of 515,547, there were 13,815 Negroes in the city. This was not a formidable proportion, only about two and a half percent, but the Negroes then in the city were in many regards much better off than their successors are fifty years later.  At that time the chief caterers of the city were Negroes, as they continued to be in Philadelphia till a very few years ago.  There were many barber shops manned by colored men. The whitewashing trade belonged almost exclusively to Negroes. Negroes also were the private coachmen of the town, and not a few drove public hacks.  The bootblack business was theirs, and very many, if not most, of the hotel dining rooms and restaurants had Negro waiters. This was half a century ago, when the opportunity for Negro employment in New York was a high-water mark. From the mark it has been receding ever since. At first slowly, but in the past dozen years very rapidly.

In the decade between 1850 and 1860 the Negro population in New York actually decreased. This was due to the immense influx of foreign population and the subsequent competition in all the unskilled branches of labor, and also to the prejudice against the race indecent to the first political passions which culminated in the Civil War. In 1860 the population of New York was 805,651, while of Negroes there were 12,472, or one and a half percent.  The occupation of these colored people were just about what they had been ten years before.  And, indeed, there was no appreciable change in this until after 1880.