Marriage, Family, and Enslaved Africans’ Pursuit of More Autonomy in Colonial New York

When in 1644 eleven Dutch West India Company slaves in the Dutch colony New Netherland petitioned for their freedom, they argued that they needed their freedom “to support their wives and children.” Their petition proved successful: The men and their wives received a conditional freedom as well as farming land so that they could provide for their dependents. These former Company slaves succesfully used their marriage and parental responsibilities to argue for their freedom, and they were not the only ones to do so.

Through marriage, slaves in the Dutch colony gained authority over their families even as they lived lives in bondage. The Dutch colonial records show that slaves knew that their marriages and subsequent family ties gave them material for negotiation. These dynamics changed when the colony came under English control and slave laws imposed restrictions on the slave population. It now became more difficult for slaves to use matrimony as a way to integrate into society and obtain more autonomy.

Although some scholars have written about the slave family in Colonial New York, they have not studied slave marriages as a way to gain some control over their lives and the lives of their kin. This paper will examine how slaves used their marriages and subsequent family bonds to increase their autonomy. It will investigate how New York’s enslaved population used Dutch understandings of marriage and family responsibilities to their advantage. The paper will also explore how these opportunities changed after the region came under English rule, and it will examine how the enslaved population adjusted to these changes.