Featuring: Larry Kenneth Alexander
Transcript:
Today we gather to remember a chapter in history that reverberates with the cries of those who refuse to be silenced. It is a story of courage, defiance, and the unquenchable thirst for liberty, a tale of the New York slave revolt of 1712. By the early 18th century, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 enshrined certain legal freedoms, including habeas corpus protections. Yet these rights were grotesquely absent in the lives of Africans forced into colonial America.
In New York, one of the largest centers of Northern enslavement, more than 42% of households enslaved Africans by 1703, fewer than 15 years after the Bill of Rights became law. These men and women, stripped of their autonomy, endured unimaginable brutality. Their labor was exploited to fuel the ambitions of a growing colony. Imagine, if you will, a world where families were torn apart, where people could not gather freely, where every movement required permission, and resistance was met with unspeakable punishments. This was the cruel reality for countless men and women in the colonies, a reality designed to strip them not only of freedom, but of their very humanity.
But the human spirit is not easily extinguished. On the night of April 6th, 1712, a spark ignited on the streets of New York City, and with it, the flames of rebellion. Led by a man known as Kofi, or Cuffy in Anglicized form, 22 enslaved individuals stood together, armed with weapons and an indomitable desire for freedom. Under cover of darkness, they set fire to a building on Maiden Lane near Broadway, luring white colonists into the blaze. As they rushed to extinguish the flames, the rebels struck with guns, hatchets, and swords. Nine colonists lost their lives, and many were wounded.
For this audacious act of defiance, 70 individuals were arrested, and 21 were executed. Some might only see the tragic end of this rebellion, but let us see the extraordinary beginning instead. This revolt was more than a single event—it was a declaration, a primal cry that said, “We are human. We are not property. We are deserving of freedom, dignity, and life.” The shockwaves of that night rippled across the colonies. The fear it instilled led to harsher laws, more oppressive patrols, and a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo. But it also sowed seeds of doubt in the hearts of colonists. Could a system so inhumane truly stand?
In Virginia and the Carolinas, some leaders even considered ceasing the importation of Africans, pivoting instead to hereditary slavery, believing those born into bondage were more docile. This practice would, by the mid-1760s, entrench slavery as an institution foundational to the economy of colonial America, particularly in the South. But history does not forget those who resist, and neither should we. Consequently, by the mid-1760s, hereditary slavery had become core to the economy of colonial America, especially in the Southern colonies, where it was foundational to the prosperity of major agricultural industries.
After 50 years of this policy and practice, in 1766, nearly 95% of all colonial America’s enslaved people were colonial-born. This became a problem once the British imperial government passed the American Colonies Act of 1766, which abolished all colonial laws that questioned or called into question Parliament’s supreme legislative authority, which colonial slave codes and Negro laws did because of parliamentary sovereignty and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.
The New York Slave Revolt of 1712 is one of the first organized acts of resistance by enslaved Africans in America. It reminds us that even in the face of overwhelming odds, there are always those who will rise and risk everything to say, “We are human and we deserve to be free.”
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