HIST 3480: The History of NYC

1. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation HIST 3480: The History of NYC

2. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation “Queen of Commerce” • The Port of New York benefits immensely from the chaos of the 1790s in Europe. • Signing of the Jay Treaty in 1795 trebles American exports to Britain, while the U.S. becomes the main market for British exports. • West Indies plantation economies become more reliant on the U.S., cut off from the home country by war. • The U.S. captures most of the international carrying trade: sugar from the West Indies, cotton and spices from India, manufactures from Europe; American shipments of sugar to Europe doubled between 1795 to 1800. • By the late 1790s, the Port of New York had pulled ahead of its rival, Philadelphia; by 1799, New York handled one-third of the nation’s overseas trade.

3. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Domestic and Overseas Connections • Physical geography of the port was part of New York’s advantages; it had one of the deepest and most protected harbors in the world and was rarely blocked by ice even in the middle of the winter; bigger ships of the 1790s found it much easier to load and unload in New York as opposed to Philadelphia, which was 100 miles upriver and a shallower port. • In the early 1790s, New York was establishing ties with its British sister port, Liverpool; the largest flow of transatlantic commerce began to flow between these two cities. • The flow of settlers into upstate New York at the expense of the Six Nations of the Iroquois created a bigger hinterland; many New Englanders made their way up the Mohawk Valley, across the Adirondacks, to the rich lands along the shores of Lake Ontario. • New York State’s population increased from 340,000 in 1790 to 589,000 in 1800, and many were New Englanders fleeing the poor soil. Towns and villages like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Elmira, and Ithaca grew. Farm produce from these areas made its way down to the city and then was shipped overseas. • State land commissioners auctioned off 5.5 million acres of Iroquois land in 1791, putting over one million dollars into the state coffers and putting most of it into the hands of city investors.

4. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Cotton Comes to Gotham • Before the 1790s, only long-staple was profitable to grow, but this breed of cotton could only be grown in humid, tropical to semi-tropical environments, like the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, the Nile in Egypt, and India. • Short-staple cotton was heartier and easier to grow in drier places, but it was difficult to process and unprofitable because it had so many impurities. • When Eli Whitney introduces his cotton gin in 1792-93, it makes short-staple cotton profitable to grow, thus revivifying slavery in the South. • New Orleans started as the chief cotton-exporting hub, but New York began to challenge it: British buyers preferred New York since it was a better export market for their own goods (less consumer demand in slave areas), it had a better commercial infrastructure, the most extensive financial and insurance industries, as well as speculative markets. By 1798, half of the city’s exports were cotton shipments.

5. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Yankees in Gotham • In 1790, there were 248 merchants in a city directory, the number had increased to over 1,100 by 1800. • Many soon-to-be prominent merchant newcomers in the 1790s and after were New Englanders: • Nathaniel and George Griswold of Old Lyme, Connecticut, came to the city to trade with the West Indies, South America, and China. • Low Family from Salem, Massachusetts, became involved in the China trade. • Grinnell family from New Bedford, Massachusetts. • Goodhue family from Salem, Massachusetts.

6. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Portrait of John Jacob Astor by Gilbert Stuart (1794) John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) • Son of a butcher born in the German lands, near Heidelberg. • Emigrated to the new U.S. in 1784 after spending some time in London. • Traded for furs with Indians and started a fur goods shop in Manhattan in the 1780s. • With signing of the Jay Treaty in 1794, he was able to tap into the Great Lakes region fur trade and started to make large sums of money; he also started to participate in the China trade, started to build his own ships, and established the American Fur Company in 1808. • Invested heavily in Manhattan real estate, making massive profits.

7. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Merchant Life • English actor John Bernard on New York merchants in 1797: “They breakfasted at eight or half past, and by nine they were in their counting-houses, laying out the business of the day; at ten they were on the wharves, with aprons around their wastes, rolling hogsheads of rum and molasses; at twelve, at market, flying about as dirty and diligent as porters; at two, back again to rolling, heaving, hallooing, and scribbling. At four they went home to dress for dinner; at seven, to the play; at eleven, to supper, with a crew of lusty Bacchanals who would smoke cigars, gulp down brandy, and sing, roar, and shout in the thickening clouds of smoke they created, like so many merry devils, till three in the morning.”

8. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Maritime Commerce • Merchants became more specialized in the 1790s: general-purpose merchants were joined by commission merchants, brokers, jobbers, importers, auctioneers, etc. • The 1790s marked a revival in New York’s shipbuilding capacity, which had languished since before the war. • East River shipbuilding yards around Corlear’s Hook come back on line. Shipbuilding workers were some of the most highly skilled workers of the artisanal class. New York is soon building vessels that surpass British vessels in quality. • Private shipyard on Wallabout Bay near Brooklyn is sold to the federal government in 1801, creating the Navy Yard.

9. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Robert Fulton (1765-1815) Fulton’s Steam Boat • Connecticut inventor John Fitch had demonstrated a functioning steamboat of his own design in Philadelphia in 1787, and even received a monopoly to develop a Hudson River boat, but he lacked the money or powerful friends to get it done, and was in part defeated by his social ineptitude. • Robert Fulton, an Irish American inventor born in Pennsylvania had the good fortune to meet wealthy and influential New Yorker, Robert R. Livingston, while staying in Paris. Unlike Fitch, Fulton dressed and acted like a gentleman. With Livingston’s aid, he tested a model steamboat on the Seine. He then moved to New York to build a full-sized steam boat in 1806-1807 with the aid of local shipbuilders and craftsmen, and a twenty-four horsepower Boulton & Watt steam engine smuggled out of Britain.

10. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Fulton’s Steam Boat • On Aug. 17, 1807, the North River Boat sailed up the Hudson at a speed of four-and-a-half miles per hour, chugging about Albany. Accomplishing this feat won him a monopoly. • In September, Fulton started regular commercial service to Albany departing from the dock at the foot of Cortland Street. • By the end of 1812, Fulton had six boats operating.

11. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Changes in Manufacturing • Many New York manufacturers departed from traditional methods: moved away from one item at a time crafted by a skilled master to a greater volume produced by lesser skilled journeyman and low-skill wage workers. • Duncan Phyfe (1770-1854): Did this with neo-classical furniture, but maintained a high level of quality. • Lorillard tobacco Company: Founded in 1760 by Pierre Lorillard, the patriot was killed in 1776 by Hessian soldiers.His sons of the founder began to mass produce tobacco products, starting with a snuff mill on the Bronx River. • Poor quality clothing produced by immigrant journeymen or poor women: for slaves in the South and Caribbean, rural farmers, and the laboring urban poor. “Ready to wear” was first for the poor; wealthier people had individual items made by tailors. • Influx of cheap immigrant labor undermines older high-skill methods of production passed down through apprenticeship, and use of female wage workers was becoming more common.

12. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Changes in Production Phyfe chair ca. 1830 Phyfe’s store and warehouse at 168-172 Fulton Street.

13. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Ending Slavery • In 1800, NYC’s population neared the 60,000 mark, and its slave population reached 2,500, a 25 percent increase since 1790; three-quarters of NYC’s slave holders had not owned slaves a decade before. • New slave owners tended to economic winners of the 1790s—merchants, bankers, lawyers, artisan-entrepreneurs—who were most interested as slaves as domestic servants. In some traditional trades like baking and butchering, slaves were still attractive, but overall, wage labor was becoming more appealing. Few artisan were buying slaves. • The Manumission continued to promote its African Free Schools to show how people of African descent could become productive and useful members of society. • The population of free blacks had risen from 1790 to 1800, from 1,100 to 3,500. This was partly due to natural increase, but also due to migration, such as the “French Negroes” from Haiti.

14. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Ending Slavery • Free blacks often hid runaways, and blacks from St. Domingue had a strong tradition of resisting the institution. • Mechanics’ organizations—like the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen—began to endorse the idea of abolition, in part because members’ trades had become less reliant on it. • Some Federalists—like John Jay—took up the anti-slavery issue in part to counter their party’s more autocratic tendencies. • Slavery still remained vital economically in Queens, Kings, and other rural counties, and Dutch farmers in particular fought hard to preserve the institution. • With John Jay’s election as governor in late 1795, the Manumission Society decided to make another attempt at gradual emancipation. • Justifying slavery became harder to sustain in an increasing republican ideological environment that emphasized individual rights and liberty.

15. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Ending Slavery • A bill passed the assembly and senate in January 1799 after three years of very public debate. The plan is for gradual emancipation: those who were born into slavery already would remain slaves for life, but those born after July 4, 1799, would be technically free, but would be required to serve an “apprenticeship” under their mother’s master for twenty-eight years if male, and twenty-five years if female. • With the end of the institution in sight, many owners sold off their slaves and found ways to get around the prohibition on out-of-state sales; with manumissions and sales, the slave population of the city declined by 43 percent from 1800 to 1810, while the free black population climbed to 7,500. • Free blacks led precarious economic existences in the city. Certain trades were open to them in the new wage labor market, but on unequal terms. • A small number of black women kept occupations like boarding-house keeper, fruit seller, baking, or selling hot corn. • The vast majority of black women worked in heavy domestic service.

16. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Ending Slavery • Free black men were increasingly excluded from skilled crafts despite some having acquired such skills as slaves. • Some nonetheless managed to work in shoe-making, baking, butchering, tanning, and carpentry; a few made livings as tavern or dance-hall keepers, as tobacconists, barbers, or caterers. • A majority of the city’s oystermen and chimneysweeps were free blacks. • A vast number of free black men became sailors, perhaps as many as 40 percent. During the war years, jobs were plentiful, but the work was dangerous. But black sailors were paid the same as whites, and in general, the work environment was more egalitarian. Black sailors were a common sight in most U.S. ports.

17. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Poverty • Free blacks and immigrants were entering the city’s almshouse in alarming numbers in the 1790s and early 1800s. • The divide between the rich and poor was becoming much greater in this period: the richest 2 percent of the population—a mere 88 individuals—owned 25 percent of the city’s assessed wealth. The bottom half owned under 5 percent of the city’s assessed wealth. • The transition to more capitalistic forms of production left those at the bottom—small masters, apprentices, journeymen, and other wage laborers—in a state of reduced circumstances, struggling even harder to survive. They did not share in the overall prosperity that the city enjoyed in the 1790s and early 1800s.

18. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Coming of War • The increasing aggressiveness of the Royal Navy made maintaining neutrality more and more difficult as the Napoleonic Wars resumed in 1803. • The Leander incident of 1806, when a British frigate fired warning shots that beheaded John Pierce, the helmsman of an American vessel, the Richard, off the coast of New Jersey on its way to New York, horrified and enraged New Yorkers. Pierce’s headless body was put on display at the Tontine Coffee House to further the sense of outrage. • The Royal Navy had become more aggressive globally after Lord Nelson’s crushing of the French fleet in 1805 at Trafalgar; it actively stopped American ships and impressed sailors that could not produce proper documentation. New York was under a virtual blockade. • Congress passes a “Non Importation Act” against the British in 1806. • Things escalate when the H.M.S. Leopard fires on the U.S.S. Chesapeake off Norfolk Roads, Virginia, killing three American sailors.

19. Commercial Preeminence, the War of 1812, and Gradual Emancipation Coming of War • In November 1807, the British forbid all neutral trade with France. The French retaliated with the threat of seizing all vessels that submitted to British inspection. • In December 1807, Jefferson asked that Congress pass a total embargo on all American vessels leaving port. This obviously had a devastating effect on New York economically. • It turned out to be a massive blunder: it brought a decade of American prosperity to a full dead stop, and nowhere more so than in the Port of New York, where weeds started to grow on the docks and wharves. • Some merchants stayed afloat by finding legal loopholes and though old-fashioned smuggling, but most were devastated.