To be sure, rural slave owners in our area did not oversee large plantation-like operations. There was no “Tara” in Woodstock. Nor was there a one crop, “cotton is king” type of economy requiring a large number of shackled bodies upon which an entire way of life rested. For the most part, depending on wealth and need, slave owners in Woodstock, owned one or two. In the 1790 census, for example, Peter Boyd is listed as possessing the greatest number of slaves in Woodstock — four. In 1800, Bearsville farmer Cornelius DeMont (Dumont) owned five slaves while Peter Crispell owned three. The vast majority of slaves in Woodstock worked in one of two capacities, performing domestic chores or undertaking labor in the fields — which, in rural Woodstock, could also mean the clearing of land. Because their numbers were small, usually one slave to one-owner, slaves typically worked side by side with their owner throughout the day. In one respect, such proximity between master and slave might be cited as offering the possibility for increased familiarity with each other. But the isolation of the rural slave — as opposed to being a part of a large number of slaves on a given plantation in the South — offered no cultural foundation upon which he or she could fall back — or retreat to — at the end of the day. Slaves in Woodstock were alone in who they were — or what they thought they were.
As noted, rural slaves were not essential for the support of a one-crop economy as in the South. However, in addition to the prestige certain owners took from the ownership of their slaves, the lack of an employable labor force — or even indentured labor — in the sparsely populated Catskills made the ownership of slaves critical to the economic success of some owners. In addition, as slaves were property and viewed no differently than a team of oxen, owners could further profit from their labor by “leasing” them to other farmers during the seasonal demands that came with planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall. Slaves could also be leased in support of entrepreneurial efforts within the community, as was the case with the construction of the road through Mink Hollow in the latter part of 18th century. In 1783, seeking to open a road from the Woodstock area to the Schoharie Valley for the purpose of reaching new markets — while, at the same time, permitting easier transport of resources such as timber south — a number of Kingston merchants sought out labor to carve out the road that originated in Lake Hill. Along with a number of hired white workers, the operation also included six Woodstock slaves whose wages went directly into the pockets of their owners.
Without any rights, slaves in our area were just as likely to be sold, purchased or punished as their southern counterparts, depending on the needs and disposition of their owners. Multiple examples remain in the form of newspaper advertisements and wills attesting to a slave’s lack of control over his or her own destiny. One 1797 advertisement in a weekly Kingston newspaper, the Rising Sun (later the Ulster Gazette), for example, carried an announcement for the sale of A remarkable smart healthy Negro Wench — About 22 years of age; used to both house work and farming, and sold for no fault but for want of employ. She has a child about 9 months old, which will be at the purchaser’s option. In another advertisement, offering further proof that owners had little regard for the age of the slaves they bought and sold, one local owner offered, To be sold, a smart, active, healthy negro boy, about twelve years of age. As noted previously, slaves, along with the owner’s other “possessions,” were often included within the last will and testament of the owner. Cornelius Newkerk, a noted Tory sympathizer during the Revolution and a farmer who owned lands along what is now Route 212 between Woodstock and Saugerties, left instructions that, upon his death, his Negro man named Charles was to continue the sole property of his wife Diana during her life time and after her decease to descend to his heirs.
Without control over their own future and with little hope that their condition would change, the possibility that a slave would, at some point, attempt to strike out against their treatment was a constant worry for slave owners. So it was that laws such as those prohibiting the sale of liquor to slaves and limiting the number of slaves that could gather at one time were examples of early legislation seeking to prevent trouble before it started. While there are no records reporting difficulties in “controlling” slaves in the Woodstock area, the possibility of problems arising we’re never far from the minds of local slave masters. Of particular concern were suspicions centering around theft that, if proven, was punishable by flogging “on the naked back.” In addition, the possibility of one’s slave becoming a runaway was ever present despite the close working proximity of master and slave throughout the day. Local owners were very much aware of the stories that made their way from farm to farm regarding runaways and, as if further proof were needed, they only had to read the advertisements that dotted local newspapers seeking a runaway’s return. In most instances, rewards ranging from $5 to $40 were offered depending on the value of the runaway to the owner, with male slaves in their twenties bringing the highest rewards.
The road to emancipation in New York State, though arriving sooner than in most of the nation, was slow and gradual. Vermont (1777) and Massachusetts (1783) proved decades ahead of New York, for example, when it came to emancipating all slaves within their respective boundaries. Certainly, if they so wished, owners always maintained the option of freeing their slaves on their own accord or through their wills at the time of their death. In the above mentioned case of Charles, Cornelius Newkerk’s slave, Newkerk’s will further stipulated that his wife Dianah or his heirs — if they so wished — could free Charles providing that he, “the said Charles do maintain and support his mother Gin an aged Negro wench in such a manner that we the subscribers may not hereafter become chargeable nor accountable…” In short, Charles might be a free man if he could demonstrate a means by which his mother could be supported. Such a contingency was not uncommon in the North as the rules on manumission prohibited the “turning out of worn out slaves upon the public…that they should not become a burden upon the taxpayer of the town.”
