Boy of the Van Rensselaer Family

This story dates from the earliest days of the community's life. Slavery was an integral feature of Albany's first 200 years. Beginning during the New Netherland period, and becoming widespread during the latter part of the eighteenth century, slavery lasted until 1827 when it finally was eradicated by law in New York State. We believe that slavery in Albany reached its peak in 1790 when 572 slaves were counted as residents - placing at least one African ancestry person in almost a third of the city's 573 households.

Among the most often discussed yet least understood parts of the early Albany story concern the roles of those of African ancestry in the growth and development of the pre-industrial city. Early Albany Timeline

This engaging portrait entitled "Boy of the Van Rensselaer Family" is thought to have been painted by limner John Heaton probably during the 1730s when the artist was living and working in Albany. It is unique in the visual record of early Albany.

The lives of Dinnah Jackson - Albany's first African ancestry matriarch; Benjamin Lattimore - a Revolutionary war soldier; and Captain Samuel Schuyler - a skipper and entrepreneur, represent our hope for making the African presence a regular part of the early Albany story.

But who were the people of colonial Albany? What were their names? Where did they come from? And how did they live? These are the basic questions asked by the historians at the Colonial Albany Social History Project each and every day!

Albany was a place where outsiders came to obtain goods and supplies and to have their broken tools and implements repaired. This tradition began during the New Netherland era when the community's principal activity involved trading for furs with Native Americans who came to Albany and its antecedents,

From the beginning, Europeans found procuring the skins of fur-bearing animals to be the one of the quickest and easiest ways to turn the natural bounty of the North American wilderness into profits and wealth. This premier economic activity was called the "Fur Trade," the "Indian Trade," or simply "the Trade!" The native inhabitants of Albany at the time of the arrival of the Dutch called the Normans Kill the Tawawsantha.[2] The area of Albany had been given different names by the various native tribes to the area. The Mohegans called it Pem-po-tu-wuth-ut, which means "place of the council fire" and the Iroqouis called it Sche-negh-ta-da, meaning "through the pine woods".[3]

Colonial Albany was one of the oldest American communities. From the time fur traders began to come together north of Fort Orange during the 1640s, the resulting concentration of human and economic resources fed ambition and fostered enterprise. By the time Beverwyck became Albany in 1664, the first generation New Netherland Dutch had emerged at the commercial center of a developing market region defined by the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys.

The Community Economy 

In early Albany, these descendants of the fur traders invested profits in land and sold country products and imported items to the settlers of an expanding countryside. Sometimes they owned mills, processing facilities, storehouses, and ships. Some of these businessmen had direct connections to overseas markets and resources.

basic training in social history research.