Juneteenth celebrates events far from Croton-on-Hudson. But we have our own history of slavery right here.

The village and the IDEA Advisory Committee will host a Juneteenth celebration in Vassallo Park the afternoon of June 19. See flyer below for details.

Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons

Pierre Van Cortlandt (1721–1814), slaveowner.

Most people in Croton know the name Pierre Van Cortlandt. He was the first Lieutenant Governor of New York State; he inherited Van Cortlandt Manor, now a major village tourist site, from his father, Philip Van Cortlandt; and our middle school is named after him.

Names less well known are Titus and Bridget, Ishmael, Sib, Abbey, Phillis, Ruth, Dinah, and Sam. They were slaves “owned” by the Van Cortlandt family over the years. If you take the tour of Van Cortlandt Manor, you will learn something about them. As Historic Hudson Valley puts it in its Web entry on Van Cortlandt Manor:

“Even as the Van Cortlandts discussed freedom and equality for citizens of the nation, the operations of the estate and the family business were made possible by the labor of African captives.”

In 1799, New York Governor John Jay signed legislation decreeing that children born to enslaved mothers after July 4 of that year would be free. But, as the Historical Society of the New York Courts explains, there was a major catch:

“The 1799 gradual abolition law declared that children born after July 4, 1799 to enslaved mothers in New York would be born free, but would have to provide free services to their mothers’ masters until they reached 25 if female and 28 if male. Because the law applied only to those born after 1799, slavery continued for those enslaved born before that year and a final act of emancipation was needed to eradicate slavery in the state. One was passed on March 31, 1817, even though some of those freed were required to continue to serve their masters under an indenture for a term of years.”

As we know, or as we should have learned in school, this very gradual abolition of slavery was typical of how African-Americans won their freedom throughout the nation. The Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863 did not end slavery, since it only applied to states that had seceded from the Union and the Civil War was not won until more than two years later.

The term “Juneteenth” has been used since the 1880s. It refers to June 19, 1865, the day that Union Major General Gordon Granger ordered that the Emancipation Proclamation applied to Texas and that all slaves in that state were now free. Those events were, historically speaking, pretty messy, but a couple of years ago Texas Monthly published a detailed and fascinating article about them. You can find the link to it here.

Juneteenth Celebration 1880/ Fishwrap

African-Americans and their allies had been celebrating Juneteenth for around 140 years when, during the 2020 presidential campaign, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump said they supported making Juneteenth a federal holiday. On June 17, 2021, then President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act (the Senate had passed it unanimously, but the vote in the House was 415–14.)

Of course, like most of our history, the real story behind Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday is as messy as the events it commemorates. The Brennan Center for Justice has a good explainer of that story here.

This coming June 19, here in Croton, we will celebrate Juneteenth at Vassallo Park during an afternoon picnic sponsored by Croton’s IDEA Advisory Committee and the village. (See details in the flyer below.) The event might serve as a reminder that the tyranny of slavery was not something that only happened somewhere else; it happened here too, right where the men, women, and children of Croton now walk free.

To view this video, please click on this link.

**********************************************************************************************************

To share this post, or to share The Croton Chronicle, please click on these links.

Comments policy: Please be polite and respectful at all times.