NYC Post #3: British New York. 1664 - 1783. A Brief History of the Big Apple. (#3 of 8).

EVENT

_{Note: The information here is all gathered from The Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of 400 Years of New York City's History.}

Officially, from this point forward, the colony was named New York after James, the current Duke of York. Despite occasional moments of autocratic rule, the British governance was on the whole more tolerant and broadly conceived than the Dutch West India company, which encouraged the heterogeneity for which the city would soon be famous.

Initially trailing behind both Boston and Philadelphia in population, New York quickly acquired a reputation that belied its numbers. The dominance of the harbor combined with a mixed population resulting from competing French, Dutch, and English colonists, native influences, and soon increasing numbers of slaves, huguenots, and Jews, British New York was almost at once a rambling and confused hodgepodge of settlers.

In fact, over the latter half of the 17th century, despite broad retention of their rights, the previously dominant Dutch merchant class steadily lost ground to British and French craftsmen. By the end of the century, a sort of de facto segregation had developed, with different nationalities sorted into separate streets in six wards. The wealthier classes occupied the dock areas adjacent to the East river, while the Dutch continually moved inland. Zoning was practically unheard of, conceptually, at this point, so most blocks were a dense mixture of residences and mercantile activity. Upriver, the farmland retreated further and further as the rechristened New York continually advanced.

* * * * *

British rule was not without its hiccups, however.

In 1673, during the third Anglo-Dutch war, the colony briefly reverted to Dutch rule under the name of "New Orange." Reprisal followed in the form of intensified British colonization, a process that may have been a distant death knell for the remaining Dutch merchants (who had, of course, sided with their countrymen in the founding of New Orange). In 1682, Democratically-minded reforms introduced by governor Thomas Dongan, an Irish Catholic, were rejected by the crown, and both taxation and royal prerogative were exercised more broadly both in enforcement of laws and the appointment of officials. Upheaval later followed in the form of the "Glorious Revolution" along partisan lines parallel to the Bloodless Revolution in England. Those acting in the name of William of Orange were executed for treason.

* * * * *

Despite its continuing legacy of corruption and mismanagment, and periodic entanglement in imperial drama, New York's strategic situation was sufficient to sustain growth with increasing stability through the first half of the 18th century. The arrival of Huguenots, Jews, and Africans among the colonial populations is of particular interest, as it both prompted and suggested New York's cosmopolitan future.

The Huguenots, in particular of these groups, were not unexpected arrivals. The Walloons who had originally settled New York under the Dutch West India company (and who were of drindling numbers and influence throughout the 18th century) were French-speaking Dutchmen. The Huguenots, as French protestants, would have shared both a language and a religion with the Walloons, and especially after the Glorious Revolution the sympathies of the British government was solidly anti-Catholic. The Huguenots, then, could settle in settle in and around New York with some level of historic reassurrance.

The Jews settled under more troubled circumstances, and certainly took a more circuitous route. Spain's Sephardic community had been expelled in 1492, and many relocated to the Netherlands, and from there migrated to other colonies in present day Brazil and Venezuela. As Dutch holdings eroded worldwide, many Jews moved to the north, having more provisions under British law than Spanish. They exercised considerable freedom in Manhattan, developing their own merchant class, building a synagogue and holding religious services.

Finally, the African-American population steadily increased through the period of British rule, ultimately reaching several thousand in number, equally divided among slaves and the free. While they only accounted for around ten percent of the population, New York had a higher rate of slavery than any other colony north of Virginia. Most of these slaves held roles as domestic servants or artesanial assistance, instead of agriculture. Through the 1700s, abolition became a more contentious local issue, with several unsuccessful slave revolts that were harshly punished. The most dramatics revolts occurred in 1712, when a fire lit as a signal led to an altercation between slaves and the militia, and a later conspiracy led by taven-owner John Hughson was uncovered. Between these two events, almost sixty people were killed or exercuted, and another seventy slaves were deported. Slavery would eventually decline in New York following the American Revoultion, but wouldn't cease altogether until the 1840s.

Meanwhile, as New York played host to an influx of settlers from these parts and elsewhere, and the city was built up toward the North and along the Hudson, the Dutch presence continued to diminish, until the only relic of the Dutch presence in the city was the widespread popularity of St. Batholomew's day, on August 24th.

* * * * *

More than most major cities in the American colonies, New York was sharply divided between patriot and loyalist factions. At the outset of the war, January 1776, with the city as a decisive prize, General Charles Lee fortified both banks of the East River at Brooklyn Heights and Battery Park. When General Washington arrived in mid-April, he expanded these defences, adding a key fort at the extreme north of Manhattan.

In late August, the first British move was to occupy Staten Island and cross into Brooklyn at the narrows and march to the North. The two armies skirmished throughout the morning, and the American forces retreated to the fortification on the Heights. That night, the American army of 9,000 retreated in silence across the East river, and the move was not discovered until the next morning. Two weeks passed before the British renewed their offensive, crossing the East river and easily pushing the patriot forces north into Harlem. The most extended battle wat to happen the following day, when American troops flooded out of the fortifications on the heights, attacking along the flanks, and driving the British from what is now 128th street down to about 109th. The primary function of these activities had been to delay British maneuvers and exact a heavy toll. In this, Washington and Lee were nominally successful, though they retreated on October 16th with the bulk of their forces.

* * * * *

The Historical Atlas of New York City states that:

The experience of New York City during the Revolutionary War was unique. It was the only American city to remain under British occupation for virtually the entire struggle, and it suffered more physical damage than any other city.

In addition to the obvious consequences of any occupation, New York suffered from a dramatic vasciallations; first, loyallists fled the city as a major battle arena in the initial fervor of independence. This trend would switch, with patriots fleeing New York at the inevitability of a British occupation. In mid-September, 1776, as British and American forces skirmished in Harlem, a supposedly unrelated fire broke out near Battery Park and spead north and west along the Hudson, ultimately destroying a fourth of the city, including a thousand houses. Once the Fort Washington garrison had finally been captured in November 1776, the American forces were imprisoned, the city was refortified, and was to serve as the British center of operations through the duration of the war. They could not, however, drive out American forces from the surrounding area, which effectively limited communication, and enabled both sides to engage in guerilla warfare.

Despite such tumult, New York's population gradually increased, as loyallists relocated to the city as a major British outpost. There were to be no further military engagements during the American Revolution, but Cornwallis surrendered on October 19th, 1781, and British Troops departed the city two years later, on November 25th, 1783. 8,000 loyalists, one-fourth of New York, left with the British, and New York entered into a new phase as one of the new country's most ports.

END OF POST.