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User:Miriam H.From The Peopling of New York CityTable of Contents: I. Research Proposal II. Research A) BC Library
B) Ancestry.com
C) NYPL
1. Familysearch.org
2. Immigrant Index Reference Book
3. Newspaper Databases
D) New York Burning
III. Reflection Section IV. Walking Tour Site V. Works Cited
Research proposal: For my research project, I have decided to investigate the lives of the slave owners found in Jill Lepore’s New York Burning. When considering the two books, I took into account the fact that I have already read New York Burning. It may have taken an extraordinarily long amount of time to get through that particular book, but all in all, I found it quite interesting. Whenever any name was mentioned, I had to flip back pages to remind myself exactly who that character was, and what role he played in the 1741 slave conspiracy, along with its historical background. The constant referring-back was tiresome at the time, I admit. Now, however, I feel more confident with my knowledge of that book, and it has certainly piqued my curiosity in regards to what has become of those slave owners and their poor slaves. Which brings me to my next point, the actual substance of the histories. Though I never knew the precise details of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory of 1911, I had known that New York in the early 1900’s was a dangerous and flammable place. Thus, reading about the fire will be illuminating, to be sure, but not necessarily eye-opening. On the other hand, the thought that a Northern state (or colony, at that point in time) could have been a part of the infamous slave trade, never even crossed my mind! . Of course, what with the Fugitive Slave Act and such laws, the North had something to do with slaves. But by and large, I figured the industrial North comprised of abolitionists, or at least factory workers, none of whom owned slaves. Reading New York Burning was an enlightening experience. With each page, I learned something new about New York in the city’s early stages, and about the people who lived there. To my surprise and, I confess, horror, New York was a hub of slavery! Slaves were bought, sold, traded, and mistreated, all in this Northern State, nicknamed today as The Big Apple. While discovering New York’s true identity has not been pleasant, I do appreciate the fact that I now know more of the truth. Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is power. Therefore, I am glad to have been assigned such an informative and thorough history of New York and its’ alleged slave conspiracy of 1741. Really, “who would’ve thunk it?” Certainly not me! The following names are the slave owners whose lives I will investigate: 1) Richard Baker (English, tavernkeeper) 2) Comfort Gerardus (Dutch, cooper) 3) William Jamison (Scottish, lawyer) 4) David Provost (Dutch, merchant/ slaver trader) 5) Simeon Soumaien (French, silversmith) I hope to use this involving project as an opportunity to greatly improve my research skills. Is it too much to hope for that this research project will not be too much to handle? In any event, here’s to a learning experience! II. Research Process A) Preliminary Research: Brooklyn College Library The first thing I did was browse the BC Library to find another book about the Slave Conspiracy. I wanted some more background information, if possible. T.J. Davis's "A Rumor of Revolt: The 'Great Negro Plot' in Colonial New York" mentioned a few of my immigrant's names. It took me a while just to find them in the index, however, for some were listed by first name, some only in relation to their slaves, and one wasn't mentioned at all (Soumaien). The information I attained is as follows: Caesar, the first slave to be hanged in this so-called conspiracy, committed his first theft at Baker's Tavern. Though seemingly insignificant, at least I know now that Richard Baker did, in fact, own a Tavern, thus his career can be verified. David Provost (spelled Provoost in the book and elsewhere as well) was suspected, as a juryman, of serving as an informant to the defendants, his code name "Brother Lucas" for some unknown reason. His slave Lowe was jailed at first, then transported after ratting out other slaves. William Jamison, the lawyer, was apparently the county sheriff as well. He pledged his loyalty to Daniel Horsmanden versus the conspirators. Jamison's slave Cuffee greatly embarrassed him by skipping town before anyone had the chance to interrogate, and possibly punish him. Comfort Gerardus was mentioned several times. As John Hughston's neighbor, he was called upon as a witness that conspiratorial meetings had not taken place in Hughston's house. But being a cooper, Gerardus was often away on business, thus provided Hugston with a feeble defense (Hughston, along with his wife and daughter, was killed in light of his supposed leading of the conspiracy). Little did Gerardus know, his own slave Cook often arranged meetings in his home while he was out of town. Cook was eventually burned, but apparently Gerardus owned another slave named Jack who's ultimate punishment remains ambiguous. Jack was jailed and sentenced to execution, but he managed to delay his death multiple times by naming 30 slaves who were involved in the "conspiracy." B) Ancestry site The next thing I did was enter each name on ancestry.com. The information was sparse and inconclusive, but David Provost (Provoost) may have been born in 1699 and married in 1729. A man named Simon Soumaien immigrated in the year 1753, but this date is years after the conspiracy, and therefore must be ruled out. Unfortunately, no one else exists on ancestry.com. C) The New York Public Library My next stop was the New York Public Library. I must confess, the sheer volume of books and enormity of space intimidated me, not in the least because it was my first time entering the building. Once we (Abraham, Mikey and I) settled ourselves by a computer area, with the help of a friendly librarian, we were ready to research. I plugged in name after name into website after website. The NYPL has numerous databases, all of which sounded interesting. I began with familysearch.org. After ruling out many entries due to unlikely immigration and birth dates and places, this is what I gathered: Richard Baker: Birth: March 24, 1649/1650 in Bromley, Worfield, Shropshire, England. Christened: April 1, 1649 (I wonder why the birth year remains ambiguous, if the year of his Christening is known...). Father: Francis Baker. Mother: Anne. Brothers: Francis, Roger, William, and John. Sister: Elizabeth. (The results fell short of naming Baker's wife and children). William Jamison (Jamieson): Christening: May 1, 1713 in Paisley, Renfrew, Scotland. (Though this year may be too late, all other entries listed birth years from 1750 and on, so I am left with this one). David Provost: Many initial results, but all born in New York. (Unless "Dutch" implies immigrant parents, not the birthplace of the person himself...) Comfort Gerardus: no matches, both for his first name and last. Simon Soumaien: two matches, but immigrated in the 1750's, so must be ruled out. What I found most bothersome about researching at the NYPL, is that though information sources are vast in the colossal library, most of them pertain to the 19th century and on. For instance, I felt excited that the NYPL contains census data of the United States. My excitement bubble burst after discovering that the first census is from 1790, a generation or so after our slave owners from the time of the conspiracy. So to with the NYC Death Certificates and Marriage Licenses; the earliest record of the aforementioned is during the mid-1800's. Imagine my frustration...actually, all those researching the 1741 slave conspiracy probably can adequately picture my annoyance, as they likely feel it too! THE SEARCH CONTINUES... The librarian pointed me to shelves of what looked like the thickest textbooks I had ever seen. These "textbooks" were, in fact, indexes of immigrants to America from the 17th Century onwards. Hefting these books (categorized alphabetically, like an encyclopedia) back to my seat was no easy task. But actually finding and determining the slave owners was even harder! (Not in the physical sense, obviously, but intellectually). The following is a summary of my findings for each slave owner: Richard Baker: 14 exact name entries. The problem was, only four of those names were pre-1800, and all of those men immigrated to Virginia, not New York. William Jamison: All Jamison and Jamiesons listed immigrated in the 19th century. Two Jamiesons immigrated on the late 1600's, but the book stated "Canada" as their final destination (which begs the question, 'What are these man doing in a book of U.S. immigrants?') David Provost: A Provoost immigrated from New Netherlands in 1640, but upon further inquiry, this date is too early for our slave owners. Simeon Soumaien: Found two matching names, but they immigrated in the 1750's, at least a decade after the slave conspiracy. D) Retracing My Steps Not knowing where to turn to next, I decided to return to our classroom roots- "The Scholars That Inspire Us." Put simply, I opened up our first assigned book, Jill Lepore's New York Burning. After browsing through the index, I thought, "Why didn't I check back here sooner?!". I gathered, or in some cases, reaffirmed the following information regarding my assigned elusive immigrants: Richard Baker: On January 28th, a Saturday night, slaves Caesar, Prince, and Cuffee were arrested for robbing Baker's Tavern. No trial was even necessary, as they confessed to the crime themselves. (New Tidbits:)After stealing the gin from Baker's Tavern, the slaves took to calling themselves the Geneva Club. Baker served in the very same militia company as John Hughson, so the two were familiar with one another. This made it more likely that Hughson had something to do with the robbery. William Jamison: (Plenty of mentions.) First introduced in court as Sheriff William Jamison. Physical description: "A homely carbuncle kind of a countenance with a hideous knob of a nose," which he "screwed...into a hundred different forms...his mouth plentifully bedewed with salival juice, by the force of liquor which he drank and the fumes of tobacco which he smoked." (I greatly appreciate that elaborate portrait, for up until reading the above I mistakenly assumed that as Sheriff, Jamison was an upstanding, dapper man, or at least not one as careless and prone to vice as Lepore quotes from Gentleman's Progress by Hamilton.) On April 23rd, soon after Mary Burton's shocking, all-changing testimony, Daniel Horsmanden gathered all seven of the city's lawyers qualified to practice before the Supreme Court, Sheriff Jamison among them. Each of the prominent lawyers, upon Horsmanden's pressuring, agreed to aid in the prosecution. On May 30th, Jamison arrested slaves Quack and Cuffee in shackles and chained them to tall wooden stakes near the Negroes Burial Ground. Jamison saw the crowd and called it a "mob," anxious to see the burning of the two condemned men. Even after the slaves confessed, the Sheriff decided it was too "impractical" not to have a burning at this point, when the mob so longed for and expected one (or two). So Quack and Cuffee were burned alive at the stake, at the hands of Sheriff Jamison. By June 27th, more than 100 slaves were crammed into the Great Gaol. Fitting the multiplying (alleged) criminals in was beginning to be a serious concern. William Jamison had so much on his hands already what with his ever-increasing Sheriff tasks, that he was exempt from all other duties. David Provost: Introduced as a stepson of the famous James Alexander. Provost was a captain in Colonel William Gooch's regiment stationed in Jamaica-New York's largest slave supplier- thus he was a valuable correspondent to Alexander. In the 1730's, numerous black Caribbeans came to New York in ships owned by New York merchants (Provost being one of them) whose slaves would later be accused in the 1741 "Slave Conspiracy." Comfort Gerardus: At first, I could not find his name in the book's index under "Gerardus." This obviously bewildered me, for how can an immigrant, elusive as he may be, not appear in the very scholarly book from which we took our immigrant names in the first place? After a moment's thought, I turned to "C", and there he was, listed under "Comfort." Why this man is listed under his first name rather than his surname, I do not know. Maybe he was called by his last name, and his first was his last? My slight suspicions proved correct, to my astonishment. The very first mention of the elusive immigrant's name, states that his name was Gerardus Comfort. No wonder! All this time I have had to look under both names for this man because more often than not, "Comfort" was found while "Gerardus" was not. Amazing where referring back the the source can lead you... Back to the book's info: In 1733, Comfort's workshop and stable burned down to the ground due to a crack in the oven. This was brought in as an example to prove the likelihood of an accidental fire in 18th-century New York. Since Comfort lived next-door to John Hughston, the supposed mastermind behind the "Great Negro Plot," he was accused of holding conspiracy gatherings in his house. Comfort admitted to being away much of the time, hence he would not always be aware of the going-ons of his house. Comfort's slaves were arrested, among them a man named Cook. During his trial, Hughston brought in Comfort to serve on his side as a defense witness. Unfortunately, Comfort's repeated "I have seen nothing amiss in Hughston's," did not do much to sway the biased judges hearts and minds. Comfort lived in a remote area of the West Ward with his wife, children, and slaves Cook, Jenny, and Jack. With their help, Comfort built a house, a workshop, and a barn. After the oven fire which tore the whole place apart, Comfort moved to another house he owned on New Street, near the center of town. There he engineered a large pump, which turned out to tap into a freshwater underground spring. Gradually, slaves came to Comfort's Dock to use his water resources. Being a cooper, Comfort sold the slaves the jugs and kettles they used to fill with water. Simon Soumaien: If only my "slight suspicions" stated above proved correct with this strangely elusive immigrant! I do not write "strangely elusive" to mean that I am surprised this immigrant is so difficult to track, but rather in this particular case, I expected to find at least one sentence on each of my immigrants, for reasons explained above. How could this man not be mentioned in this book at all?? I checked and re-checked the index, but to no avail. The listed terms are determined to jump from "Some..." to "Spanish (slave," with no Soumaien in between. (I tried looking up "Simon" as well, on the off-chance the same thing happened to him as did to Comfort... no such luck. I guess you win some, lose some.)
WHAT DOES "SEARCH FOR THE ELUSIVE IMMIGRANT" MEAN? What comes to mind when I hear the words "Elusive Immigrant" is Professor Wills. Well, her and all she's taught us (or tried to teach us) mere students this semester. Personally, I have learned the importance-and certainly the frustrations- of historical detective work. I used to think that historians simply analyze history textbooks and explain past events. Now I understand their vital task more fully. Historians must actually go and discover the past before they can even attempt to theorize about it! Through this immense undertaking- that of searching for the elusive immigrant- I have come to see, firsthand, just how frustrating uncovering the past can be. And to think, I only have five people to research! History itself is elusive; for how can we, present-day people with no special power to visualize the past, truly know who did what 300 years ago? This is even more true of everyday people, like you and me. I will speak only for myself right now, but I mean the kind of people who did not necessarily make a huge mark on the world at large. Sure, I mean something to my friends and family. But outside my close circle, who ever heard of Miriam Harari? Imagine how many people in history existed that we never heard of. Every century, every generation, every country, consists of common people, going about their mundane lives. It is exactly those people Professor Wills has pressed us to get to know, so to speak. Despite the sad fact that I have not succeeded in gathering that much data about my five immigrants, I appreciate the overall experience. And as Professor Wills has taught us, again and again, your journey is at least as important as what you discover. At the very least, this project pushed me to finally pay a visit to the NY Public Library, right? :-) IV. Walking Tour Site V. Works Cited 1. Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan, New York, Random House, Inc., 2005. pp 40, 48, 54, 67-9, 79, 82, 93, 104-6, 121, 130-1, 133, 135, 138, 141, 146. 2. Thomas J. Davis, A Rumor of Revolt: The "Great Negro Plot" in Colonial New York, New York, The Free Press, 1985. 3. ancestry.com 5. infoweb.newsbank.com [only accessible through NYPL computers] 6. America's Historical Newspapers Database [only accessible through NYPL computers] 7. New York Passenger and Immigrant Lists Index |
