1641: Not Manuel de Gerrit de Reus, chosen by lot, saved by hemp

ExecutedToday.com ^ | January 24, 2017 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

Our Manuel — his “de Reus” surname came from his Dutch owner — appears to have been among the very earliest slaves imported into New Amsterdam when the Dutch West India Company first introduced this institution in 1626.

By every indication apart from this brush with the scaffold he was a respected man who prospered about as well as his situation permitted. Manuel received (partial) freedom in 1644 along with nine other slaves, prominently including several others charged in this same fracas. These freedmen and their families would thereafter form the nucleus of Manhattan’s first black community by settling (post-manumission) neighboring farming plots north of Fresh Water Pond.*

We can continue to track Manuel, fleetingly, through colonial records as late as 1674 — by which time his place was no longer New Amsterdam at all, but New York....

[CheshireTheCat]

This should have been posted yesterday, but I fell asleep in the chair around 5 while listening to a video and just kept sleeping.

I thought this one was pretty interesting.

[pierrem15]

I liked the part about, “having served his sentence in part,” by having been hanged, but not until death because the ropes broke. LOL