In a rapidly changing New York, two forces battled for the city’s
soul: the pro-slavery New Yorkers who kept the illegal slave trade
alive and well, and the abolitionists fighting for freedom.
We
often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the
booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been
outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not
only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in
keeping slavery and the slave trade alive.
In
The Kidnapping Club, historian Jonathan Daniel Wells tells the story
of the powerful network of judges, lawyers, and police officers who
circumvented anti-slavery laws by sanctioning the kidnapping of free
and fugitive African Americans. Nicknamed “The New York Kidnapping
Club,” the group had the tacit support of institutions from Wall
Street to Tammany Hall whose wealth depended on the Southern slave
and cotton trade. But a small cohort of abolitionists, including
Black journalist David Ruggles, organized tirelessly for the rights
of Black New Yorkers, often risking their lives in the process.
Taking
readers into the bustling streets and ports of America’s great
Northern metropolis, The Kidnapping Club is a dramatic account of the
ties between slavery and capitalism, the deeply corrupt roots of
policing, and the strength of Black activism.