conversations] >> the hudson as a 350-mile 50-mile river that runs through eastern new york. up next author susan stessin cohn talks about the slave experience and the surrounding river valley. >> during the last few years i have done talks are all different age groups, and they always talk about that when they went to school they were told that the ruling no slaves in the north. and everyone come when you pick up a book or talk to someone, they carried the story of slavery and slavery ending with the civil war. and people forget that slaves lived and were part of the economic system of new york, and the north, especially new york which was a hub for slavery. if you wanted to take a look at

the hudson river valley in the early to mid 18th century you would see a lot of dutch farmers here, slave labor was predominate for the dutch farmers and the huguenots. and as far as i know when i think when we are looking at households, most families that had enslaved people living in their household had between one and three. obviously the big manners, livingston phillips, morrissey anna i think it was. they had these big manners where they may be somewhere between 20-40 enslaved people living there but the majority of the people in hudson river valley had maybe one to three enslaved people living in their houses. they were enslavers themselves. what it did is it caused more issues and actually made slavery

more cruel than it was in the south because people were isolated, and especially the women. one woman make a living in a household where she might not see other people of color or other enslaved people anywhere near her. so it created an isolated life whereas in the south you would see much more of a slave culture that would be able to develop. you would get the music and these stories and maybe 200 200 people living in their own cabins that were not always being watched by the masters. not that life was easy either way, but from a research slavery in the north was more cruel because the isolation. i felt at a think ashley agreed with me that the way to tell the story about enslaved people was through these notices, because there is really nothing else that gives you such a full picture of a person, of a human life. each and every notice in this

book is another story of someone's life, and what we found is it's almost like a vignette. you can look at them and learn so much. runaways from the care of the constable in eastchester, and nico van named robin belonging to dr. thomas wright of the same place. he is a middle sized him somewhat thin, square shouldered and seems to stoop a little. he has a scar on his left arm by inoculation and at several cords on his toes. he is about 28, was born in westchester, understands all sort of country business extremely well, and pretends to be a good brewer and somewhat of a shoemaker. he had on when he went away an old clothes bondage gray coat with white metal think buttons with catgut eyes, i check shirt with a black velvet stock, a pair of leather breeches, two new pairs of course trousers

with horned buttons and an old felt hat. he also took within an old white cloth coat lined with brown holland with silver twisted buttons, a blue cloth jacket without sleeves with the gold buttonholes, to white shirts, one of which is ruffled, and also an old long pistol with a site on the barrel like a gun. it is with the greatest probability imagine that he has obtained the past from some ill disposed person and will try to get to the northern parts of the province, and amongst the five nations of indians at or near pier number four in boston government, or else to the northern part of maryland or virginia, all which places he is well acquainted with by his elopement heretofore. whoever takes him our caution to secure him well, for he is an artful fellow. this one actually was in the new york mercury.

cds in the newspapers. so in the early 1700s when new york city started publishing newspapers, it was a gain for enslavers because now instead of just putting up a notice on the side of a barn or in the town office, they would be able to put these in newspapers so that there would be a wide range of areas they could actually get these out to you. so we've actually found notices from new york that are in connecticut papers, new jersey papers. so before this notice went out though, it's important to note that what we see are just kind of the tip of the iceberg, that the notice come sometimes it would take a week for the notice to come out and most of the time these people were caught before then. and if you didn't notice in the beginning of this, run away from the care of the constable in eastchester. that means robin ran, wescott

and jailed and then ran away again. so this was his second time. answer just looking at this one notice, there is so much just to learn and know about this person, which i find intriguing. this is someone that, again, out of the 67 670 people that we hae in the book, you can look at him and, first of all, find out, what i found interesting is that it said he had been inoculated. now, smallpox was rampant in the colony and sometime in the early 1700s it was discovered that i think there was an african-american man come he was enslaved, who was a slave to thomas mather, and he lived in boston and he learned that if you take someone that has

smallpox, you take a postural off of them and you put a small slit on someone else and put it on then, that they would get smallpox but they would get it to a much less severe, they would get in much less severe case of it. so they were going around with, he was going around with the doctor around new england, but then they discovered that tuberculosis and syphilis were also spread with that, so they made that illegal. so this procedure which was called bear lake in was stop and said this is a legal. but it's interesting that it was still illegal at the time that we're looking at robins notice, did you see that he was enslaved by a doctor who knew about this and wanted to make sure that his slaves didn't get smallpox. so i found that interesting. it's not until the revolutionary war. , because men are an obvious

close quarters and they're going to catch it from each other so they started allowing this type of we call it a vaccination being allowed in. ran away 1794, april 30. this was posted in the new york churn and patriotic register. five dollars reward. ran away on wednesday last a negro girl named jude pictures about 19, short, thick set, good-looking, quite black with lips somewhat thick and no short but not very flat. a small head with short woolly hair. speaks good english, it's a slight timing a girl, talks much and is very observant. swears roundly, was brought up in huntington long island. two lowlife white scoundrels dressed like gentlemen were caught in bed with her on the morning previous to her going off. for the names of whom three dollars each will be given if

proved that the reason of her dessert is supposed to be her having been threatened to be with for this alarming fault. without executing the threat or being enticed away by those fellows, she was seriously reprimanded and an iron call or put around neck to shaver, and deter a possible without stripes from being guilty of such acts in future. led into the house at midnight thieves, robbers, murderers, drunkards, would be considered alarming by every good citizen. whoever will conduct such negro girl jude to greenleaf printing office new york shall be paid five dollars at all reasonable expenses. masters of vessel and others are warned not to conceal or take her off. it was intended that this girl should have after freedom at a certain age new york, may 3, 1794. that's a whole story about what happened. what i found incredibly

interesting is that he is willing to pay three dollars each for the names of the name that he found in bed with her, and only five dollars for her. so that's nine dollars he's paying for the names of those people, but we have found images of iron collars and we actually have with in the book. at the chances of her actually not being discovered are very slim with a thick iron caller picked up it almost impossible to take off her neck. but he blinks her. there's no idea, did they come in and demand and raper? so it's just again another whole story as i said each notice is a story to itself and for me my assumption is that for most people in this book this is the only thing we have about their lives. so they are so important. for sale notices actually paint a whole different picture. we collected probably between

four and 600 for sale notices, and they obviously when you want to sell something you are going to say all these really wonderful things about an object, and he did the same with people. this one is from 1814. i wish to dispose of a female negro slave pictures about 27. she understands and is capable of performing every kind of house work well. her faults are an aversion to live in this country where there are very few black people with whom she can associate come and too much impudence location fight excess of indulgence. the vices of stealing, intoxication, e, et cetera, shes not guilty of. she has resided 15 years in my family and when she contented, i should wish her to remain. i will sell her a reasonable price but would prefer exchanging a for a female 12 or 14 years of age who had a time to serve as i think a young one would be more content to live where there are no black people

in the neighborhood. avenues of thought, arbor hill, delhi. we look at this and we realize that this was a very long ago. this book, again the notices, i think it's 1831 the notices go up to. but again slavery existed in the south until the 1860s, and i think it was sometime in the 1930s the wpa went around and actually took oral interviews. there upon the libra congress. they have been transcribed and you can get a picture how people were treated at that time. we don't have that in the north because there was a very slow, a very slow, gradual -- i think it was sometime, i think it's july in 1799 the gradual law was passed which says that anyone

who has come in the woman that gives birth to a baby that's enslaved, according to the mother, the baby will have 25 years to serve if she's a girl, 28 years to serve the master of her mother, 20 years to serve if the baby is a male. and the loss kept changing. but at the time if you kept that child, you were entitled to $3.50 a month from the state of new york for the upkeep of the child. but many people what the widget is they would take the baby comes you would have to register the birth of that chocolate the town clerk, then you would go to the master and give up the child. and then either the poor match would give the child right back to you or the mast would find someonsome else to take the babd then they would be paid the $3.50. by 1800 to to the law had

changed so it was two dollars a month and then only until a a child was four years old. and by 1804 they totally changed it where the limited it because new york state was going broke and they couldn't afford to keep paying this. but this was the arrangement they had to make to get this gradual mission. by 1870 they change the law so that everyone male or female that was born would have to serve 21 years to the parents enslaved or whoever they were then indented to. and then in 1827, july 4, with all the people that were called slaves were freed, all these indentures still there. it actually takes until 1848 when everyone in new york would be freed. one of the points of writing this book again was to bring out the information about each person, to learn about life

because it's a part that is kind of excluded in the history books. so we look at 18th and 19th century history, we forget black history. so one of my missions especially because i was a teacher and i was a professor as well, a a professor of education and social studies education, is to enlighten young children about that this is part of our history. in order to know who we are as people now we have to look back and see where we came from, and the legacy of slavery is exactly where we are right now. you have to look back to understand who we are now. >> here's a look at some of the current best-selling nonfiction books according to the "washington post."

>> many of these authors have or will be appearing on booktv. you can watch them on our website booktv.org. [inaudible conversations] [cheers and applause] >> elizabeth warren is here. thanks so much are coming