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.Again, blacksoften noisy intrusion into these public spaces caused resentment.Complaints to city authorities about black-inhabited buildingsthat were a public nuisance often included a few pointed com-ments about the number of inhabitants commonly loitering outthe front.In a similar vein, the more than thirty signatories to apetition directed at premises on Lombardy Street, owned by Wil-liam Slam, were offended by, among other things, the fact that the walk in front of the house especially in the evening is gener-ally incumbered with from three to six or eight of these worthlesscharacters. There were protests, too, that the vacant lots oppo-site the Lafayette Circus on Laurens Street were taken over, par-ticularly on Sundays, by  negroes and vagrant white boys whospent the whole day  throwing dice and pitching pennies. 66Occasionally, the sources hint at the almost inevitable turf warsthat occurred on the streets.In May 1812, the old Slip boys andthe Whitehall boys (black gangs) clashed violently with whites inthe vicinity of Broad and Beaver streets.Errant stones flung by ri-val groups struck passers by and damaged property.Subsequently,Leonard Emmons, a young black man who was  called Captain of52 STORIES OF FREEDOM IN BLACK NEW YORKone of the said mobs, was convicted of riot.Two decades laterblack gangs still ranged over the city streets, particularly late atnight.According to the Courier and Enquirer in 1834, a  gang ofjuvenile thieves, all negroes, was making a habit of stealing meatand fish from  the shambles of Fulton market. Several of theyoung black men were arrested and claimed  they did not knowthe real name of each other, but that the captain of the gang wasknown by the name of  Long Tailed Blue, and lieutenant by thatof  Bloater.  The spoils of their nightly raids were sold either to awhite man in the Five Points district or to a black man living nextdoor to the free school.67At virtually any time of the day or night, then, there was a blackpresence on the city streets, so that incidents ranging, say, fromthe recapture of a runaway slave to the staging of a prizefightquickly drew large crowds.When one letter writer to The Ameri-can passed the corner of Anthony and Little Water streets on anafternoon in August 1820, he observed a prize fight  between twoblacks, who, I understand, are noted for their pugilism. Theboxers stripped and commenced their bout in front of  an im-mense crowd, whose  volley of oaths and indecorous languageand loud shouts of  Give room, enlarge the circle! &c.[were] trulyshocking. A decade later much the same sort of event was stilla common occurrence: as reported in The Morning Courier andNew-York Enquirer,  two ragamuffin colored  gemmen of the ringamused themselves and the admirers of the fistic art by a scientificprize fight on the Collect, for  50 cents a side. The bout wasstopped by the authorities after thirty-six rounds.68Most of all, blacks used the streets simply for walking.Theyears in which African New Yorkers finally gained their freedomwere the same during which the sociability of the street, activitiesassociated with what would later be called the  stroll, became es-tablished as a key element in an emerging and distinctive northernTHE END OF SLAVERY 53urban black culture.69 As the National Advocate noted in August1821,  their modicum of pleasure was taken on Sunday evening,when black dandys and dandizettes, after attending meeting, oc-cupied the sidewalks in Broadway, and slowly lounged towardstheir different homes. A year earlier,  A New-Yorker, writingto the New-York Columbian, had drawn attention to the same phe-nomenon.On an August Sunday afternoon, he revealed, two gentlemen had  had the curiosity to count the number of ne-groes, male and female, that passed a house in Broadway, nearWashington-Hall. In just under two hours no fewer than 1,480blacks had strolled past, and in the course of the evening severalhundred more went by.This was an extraordinary number, some-where between one in six and one in five of the black inhabitantsof the city.But it was more than just numbers that impressed thispair of white observers.These blacks  were all well drest, and verymany much better than whites. Almost without exception, themales  wore broadcloth coats, very many of them boots, fashion-able Cossack pantaloons, and white hats; watches and canes, thelast-mentioned accessory being  flourished with inimitable graceto the annoyance of all. Further, these African New Yorkers usually walk four or five a breast, arm and arm, with segars intheir mouths, bid defiance to all opposition, and almost univer-sally compel our most respectable citizens, returning from churchwith their families, to take the outside of the walk, and sometimesto leave the sidewalk altogether. 70 A New Yorker s observations had a broader application, onethat helps to explain the paradox of how a minority of blacksmaintained a public profile out of all proportion to their numbers.If the sheer number of blacks on the city streets often seemed al-most overwhelming, it was more than their apparently dominantphysical presence that made them such a noticeable part of NewYork life.The larger-than-life style of African New Yorkers, the54 STORIES OF FREEDOM IN BLACK NEW YORKway they dressed, talked, and moved, often combining flamboy-ance and aggression, left a heavy imprint on observers recollec-tions of the city.Various reasons were advanced for this behav-ior, which so unsettled whites.A writer in the National Advocatesought to blame  discontented runaway blacks from the southernstates, for such fugitives did  little more than corrupt the fewgood and make the bad worse. 71 But runaways were hardly a sig-nificant factor; unless exposed as such, they were, if anything,more inclined to keep a low profile than to flaunt their presence.The main reason for black New Yorkers highly visible assertive-ness was neither particularly complicated nor traceable to outsideinfluences.As large numbers of African New Yorkers managed towin their freedom, they had also shucked off the petty restrictionsof slavery, and that in its turn effected an exhilarating transforma-tion that impelled them to test deliberately, consciously, and pub-licly the boundaries of their newly won liberty.Travelers observations register this transformation.To HenryFearon, a visitor from England, the  striking feature of the NewYork of 1817 was  the number of blacks, many of whom are finelydressed, the females very ludicrously so, showing a partiality towhite muslin dresses, artificial flowers, and pink shoes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]