Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1885 — Slavery in New York. [ARTICLE]

Slavery in New York.

In the year 1799 New York adopted a gradual emancipation act. There were then about twenty thousand slaves in the State. In 1817 another act was passed declaring all slaves free on the Fourth of July, 1827. “Enquirer” will observe that there have been no slaves, by law, in this State for fifty-eight years. There were very few in 1827; nearly all had become free under the act of gradnal emancipation passed in 1799. It may be proper to remark that many of the people of the North who, previous to 1863, were in the habit of turning up the whites of their eyes in holy horror when any one alluded to slavery in the South, were very apt to be the sons or daughters of men who held slaves in this State.—Schenectady Star.