In the 1700s, a Large Percentage of the Enslaved in New York Came from Jamaica
Between 1700 and 1774, the British imported between 6,800 and 7,400 Africans to the colony of New York. It was cheaper for New York slave traders to import directly from Africa than to buy enslaved Africans from elsewhere. Despite this deep discount, less than 30 percent of the enslaved imported to New York before 1741 came directly from Africa. Nearly all of the rest came from the English sugar islands of Barbados, Antigua and, most of all, Jamaica, from which 30 percent of all New York’s enslaved Blacks came. Another 35 percent came from elsewhere in the West Indies, while less than 3 percent came from South Carolina.
Life Was Extremely Hard for Enslaved Women in the Early 1700s
Most enslaved women were dead by age 40, and their mortality rates peaked between ages 30 and 34; they died of disease or complications of childbirth, exacerbated by poor nutrition and years of toil. Some were simply driven mad. In 1749, a “Negro Girl of about 15 Years of Age,” who “had been for sometime disordered in her Sences,” fell, or more likely, jumped “out of a garret window three story, of which unhappy fall she was so bruised, that she dyed in a few hours.” One owner sold his enslaved female in 1756 “because she breeds too fast for her owner to put up with such inconvenience.” Infant mortality was high, and infanticide not uncommon, although it is unclear who was committing infanticide — mothers or masters.
