New York - The Novel

the English kept Manhattan. The Mistress wasn’t pleased, but the Boss didn’t mind.
    “We’re just pawns in a bigger game, Greet,” he said.
    When Colonel Nicolls became the new governor, he told the Dutch people they were free to leave if they desired, but promised them they should never be asked to fight against the Netherlands if they stayed, no matter what the quarrel. He changed the name of the town to New York, on account of the Duke of York owning it, and the territory around he called Yorkshire. Then he gave the city a mayor and aldermen, like an English town. But most of the men on that body were the Dutch merchants anyway, so they were better pleased than they had been when Governor Stuyvesant was ruling them, for Colonel Nicolls was always asking their counsel. He was a friendly man; he’d raise his hat whenever he saw the Mistress in the street. He also started the racing of horses, which was liked.
    And by and by, after Governor Stuyvesant had crossed the ocean to the Netherlands, to explain himself for losing the city, the old man came back to his bouwerie here; and Colonel Nicolls treated him very respectful, andthe two of them became the best of friends. The English governor was always going out to spend time with the old man at his farm. The Mistress still had no love for the English. “But I won’t deny,” she would say, “that Nicolls is polite.”
    The next governor was like Colonel Nicolls. He started the mail service to Boston. He took plenty of profit for himself as well. The rich merchants didn’t care, but the poorer part of the Dutch people, which was the greatest number, were not so pleased with the English rule after a while, on account of the English troops in the city, that gave them trouble and expense.

    When I was a boy, most of the slaves owned by the West India Company were engaged in building works. The merchants’ slaves were mostly gardening, or loading and unloading the boats at the wharfs. Some were used as extra crew on the ships. But there were women slaves too. They were mostly employed in laundry and the heavier housework; though a few of them were cooking. The men would often be passing in the street, and especially in the evening, you would see them talking to the slave women over the fences as the dusk fell. As you might imagine, children were sometimes the result of this conversing. But although it was against their religion, the owners did not seem to mind that these children were born. And I believe the reason for this was plain enough.
    For the trade in slaves is very profitable. A slave bought fresh out of Africa in those days might fetch more than ten times his purchase price if he was brought to the wharf at Manhattan, and in other places even more. So that even if a good part of the cargo was lost upon the way, a merchant might do uncommonly well in the selling of slaves. It was surely for this reason that both old Governor Stuyvesant and our new ruler, the Duke of York, had had such hopes of making Manhattan a big slave market. And indeed, many hundreds of slaves were brought to New Amsterdam in the days of Governor Stuyvesant and, after, some directly from Africa. Many slaves remained in this region, and others were sold to the English plantations in Virginia and other places. So if a slave in New York had children, their master might wait until the children came to a certain age, and sell them; or sometimes he would keep the children and train them for work, while he sold their mother, so that she wouldn’t be spoiling them with too much attention.
    There being quite a number of young women around the town, therefore, my interest in them grew, and by the time the English came, I was getting very eager to make myself a man in that regard. And I was always looking out around the town for a slave girl that might be agreeable to giving me some experience in that way. On Sundays, when the Boss and all the other families were in church, the black people would come out into the streets to enjoy themselves; and at these times I was able to meet slave girls from other parts of the town. But the two or three I had found were not easy to spend any time with. Twice I was chased down the street for trying to come into the house of the owner of one of them; and another was whipped for talking to me. So I was in some difficulty.
    There were women in the town, of course—it being a port—who would give a man all he wanted so long as he paid. And I had a little