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.Merchants alsoacted as middlemen supplying the city with foodstuffs from the countryside.Beneath the tiny group of elite merchants labored a larger cadre of less wealthybusinessmen who yearned to move up to the higher rank, battled with city and colo-nial governments to gain favorable rulings on prices and monopolies, and dickeredwith area farmers over the cost and quality of their produce.These merchants workedendless hours, diversified into the sales end of the business, and invested in ships oftheir own.Like their counterparts throughout the British possessions, all the merchantspreached a gospel of fiscal responsibility and on-time payment of debts, and thengambled on credit.A single shipload of cargo, delivered to the right customer at theright time, might bring windfall profits, but ships might also be lost to storms orseized by enemies as prizes.Most of these merchants left behind small estates ahouse and garden, part ownership of a ship, uncollected notes and bills of exchange,and, on the other side of the ledger, shipping debts and unpaid bills.Using the profits of trade, New York City slowly began to improve its governanceand its physical appearance.Andros ordered repairs to the fort and the waterfront.Dongan gave the city a very liberal charter of incorporation in 1684.The newly fash-ioned wards of the city each chose an assistant and an alderman.Together with themayor, they constituted a council with autonomous rule-making power.Under thenew regime, the city ordered the canal filled (it became Broad Street) and laid outnew streets, paved with stones.The city paid for carters to remove rubbish.The city council, legally a private corporation, encouraged enterprise within thecity by giving some companies monopolies and regulating others.The city s bakerswere the first of the monopolists, causing an outcry from bakers in surroundingtowns.The ferrymen next received the blessing of the city fathers, and riders sooncomplained about the fares.When the colonial legislature resumed regular meetingsin the 1690s, it heard the complaints of the outlying communities that had lost busi-ness or paid higher prices because of the city monopolies and the counterargumentsTHE MI DDLE COLONI ES 203of the city s representatives.Disputes over regulation of the economy continued wellinto the next century.New York City also witnessed battles between organized labor and business.Var-ious groups of laborers and artisans demanded the freedom to associate and keepothers from practicing their trades.The coopers (barrel makers), for example, joinedtogether to set prices for their work in 1684.The council prosecuted the coopers for criminal conspiracy. The carters and porters also tested the resolve of the counciland lost their jobs.Like the combat between city and countryside, the struggle forcontrol of the price and wage mechanisms within the city became a regular featureof city life.Slavery in the CityThere were slaves in New Amsterdam from its founding one-fifth of the popu-lation but the Dutch allowed their slaves to own property and trade, and manu-mitted (freed) one out of five of their slaves.Some of these men and women becamelandholders themselves, using  freedom dues the Dutch West Indies Companygranted.When English slave traders replaced the Dutch, the profits of the slave tradeto the English West Indies flowed into the city.So did the slaves.By 1703, one-third of the families of consequence in the city had slaves, usuallyworking as domestics.Other slaves became porters on the docks.Slaves constituted20 percent of the city s population in the early 1700s.Although the percentage woulddecline over time due to the tremendous increase in European immigration and nat-ural increase among free families, the absolute number of slaves steadily increased.Excavated slave graveyards in the city prove that these bondmen and women en-dured deprivation from the time that they were young.Slave children were under-nourished.Adults suffered from broken joints and bones.The graves also reveal thatslaves retained West African burial customs, suggesting that slaves found comfortin their cultural traditions.Indeed, when freed slaves built their own houses, they fa-vored West African floor plans.Some free persons consorted with slaves, entertaining them in their homes orsharing spirits with them at the many taverns in the city.Some slaves were able tobuy or otherwise gain their freedom, and they became tradesmen and laborers.Otherslaves plotted rebellion.In April 1712, a group of slaves burned down a house in thecity and then murdered the people who came to put out the fire.The courts indictedforty-three slaves for the crime, convicted twenty-five, and executed eighteen ofthem.One, a ringleader, was burned to death.In 1741, a larger suspected conspiracy literally and figuratively set the city ablaze.A small group of slaves boasted that they would burn the city down and ally with theSpanish, whose fleet they expected in the harbor any day.Much of the plan was brag-gadocio fueled by drink.A scrofulous tavern keeper and receiver of stolen goods204 WORLDS I N MOTI ONabetted the scheme, hoping to rob houses when their owners were out fighting thefires.The elite of the city were frightened by the fires and even more by the rumors ofrevolt.Arson was a real threat, for the buildings were largely wooden and sat cheekby jowl on crowded streets [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]