Res. No. 732
Resolution declaring August 23 as Slavery Remembrance Day in the City of New York
By Council Member Williams
Whereas, New York City (NYC) has a long, sorrowful, and well-documented history connected to slavery and the slave trade; and
Whereas, That history begins as early as 1626, when the Dutch West India Company used enslaved Africans to toil in terrible working conditions in its colony of New Netherland and its capital of New Amsterdam, now NYC; and
Whereas, After the Dutch lost the colony to the English in 1664, Dutch slaveholders and others continued exploiting enslaved peoples, who grew in number into the 1700s; and
Whereas, In 1711, NYC opened a market on Wall Street for the selling of enslaved peoples arriving by ship after ship at the Port of New York in what is now lower Manhattan; and
Whereas, As slavery grew, white New Yorkers imposed legal and de facto limits to restrict and control the enslaved peoples, such as limiting their travel or buying of alcohol without permission, refusing them church membership, prohibiting them from owning weapons, and keeping them confined to back rooms, cellars, and attics in the homes of their enslavers; and
Whereas, By 1730, just over 40 percent of white New Yorkers held enslaved people; and
Whereas, By the end of the 1700s, almost 75 percent of the free white families held enslaved people in Kings County (Brooklyn), where about one-third of residents were enslaved Africans; and
Whereas, At that time, many enslaved people found ways to resist the control of white New Yorkers on a daily basis; and
Whereas, Some enslaved people rebelled and escaped their enslavers’ homes, while others were arrested and sometimes executed; and
Whereas, Even free Black people in NYC had to cope with threats of violence and the fear of being kidnapped and sent to live as runaway “fugitive slaves” in the South; and
Whereas, New York State eventually abolished slavery in 1827, though NYC continued to profit from and invest in businesses related to slavery; and
Whereas, Almost 200 years later, the Council addressed this history in Local Law 91 of 2024, which created a truth, healing, and reconciliation process; Local Law 92 of 2024, which called for a study of the impacts of slavery and its legacies in NYC, including recommendations for potential reparative measures for resulting harms; Local Law 93 of 2024, which established a NYC Freedom Trail task force; and Local Law 95 of 2024, which required the installation and maintenance of an informational sign at the intersection of Wall and Pearl Streets in Manhattan to mark the site of New York’s first slave market; and
Whereas, Over 25 years ago, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated August 23 annually as the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition because the “night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in Saint Domingue, today the Republic of Haiti, saw the beginning of the uprising that would play a crucial role in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade”; and
Whereas, It is fitting that NYC now mark a day to remember the shameful history and devastating impact of the slave trade from the earliest days of its founding as New Amsterdam and to commemorate its eventual abolition; now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York declares August 23 as Slavery Remembrance Day in the City of New York.
LS #26155
10/30/2026
RHP