Black Life in Colonial New York
A Black girl's childhood is contracted into servitude
Citation: Wendell, Evert Jansen, 1860-1917, collector. Evert Jansen Wendell collection of contracts for the sale of slaves, 1796-1829. Haycorn, Cynthia. Indenture contract as apprentice to Samuel Fleet of Brooklyn, New York : DS, 1829 July 27. MS Am 889.478 (3). Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
This indenture witnesseth, that Cynthia Haycorn a coloured girl----now aged six years by and with the consent of Peter Conover and Joseph Herbert overseers of the poor of the town of Brooklyn hath put herself, and by these Presents doth voluntarily, and of her own free will and accord put herself with Samuel Fleet of the Town aforesaid to learn house and kitchen work and after the manner of an Apprentice, to serve from the day of the date hereof, for and during, and until the full end and term of Twelve years or till she arrives at the age of Eighteen years----
next ensuing; during all which time, the said apprentice his master faithfully shall serve, his secrets keep, his lawful commands every where readily obey; he shall do no damage to his said master, nor see it done by others, without letting or giving notice thereof to his said master : he shall not waste his said master’s goods, nor lend them unlawfully to any : he shall no contract matrimony within the said term : at cards, dice, or any unlawful game he shall not play, whereby his said master may have damage : with his own goods, nor the goods of others, without license from his said master, he shall neither buy nor sell ; he shall not absent himself day nor not from his master’s service, without his leave ; nor haunt ale-houses, taverns dance-houses, or play-houses ; but in all things behave himself as a faithful apprentice ought to do during the said term. And the said master shall use the utmost of his endeavour to teach, or cause to be taught or instructed, the said apprentice in the trade of mystery of house and kitchen work and procure and provide for her sufficient meat, drink, washing lodging minding[?] and clothing fitting for an apprentice during the said term and to instruct or cause the apprentice to be instructed to read and write and at the expiration of the said time to give her a new Bible.
And for the true performance of all and singular the covenant and agreements aforesaid, the said parties bind themselves, each unto the other, firmly by these presents.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties to these Presents have hereunto set their hands and seals the 27th day of July in the year of Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty nine.
Sealed and Delivered in the Presence of
Cynthia Haycorn
Her X mark
Samuel Fleet
Joseph Herbert
Peter Conover Overseer of the Poor
This contract is different from the others, as it was signed on behalf of six year old Cynthia Haycorn, who marked an "X" amongst the signatures of the men making the agreement. This printed indenture contract was clearly designed for apprenticeships, but was used in this case to place a child into domestic work- notice how the signers repeatedly cross out "his" and replace it with "her," and how they filled in the contract section "And the said master shall use the utmost of his endeavour to teach, or cause to be taught or instructed, the said apprentice in the trade or mystery of ________" with "house and kitchen work."
The contract was filled out by Peter Conover and Joseph Herbert who identify themselves as "Overseers of the Poor" for Brooklyn, New York," a type of administrator commissioned by the county to manage almshouses and find work for those manumitted by the 1799 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.
Based on this contract, we can assume Cynthia Haycorn was either orphaned, or given up to the state by the people who had previously enslaved her mother. The 1799 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery laid out the following guidelines:
The 1827 act that further extended emancipation to people like Cynthia who were born after 1799, left formally enslaved children without parents or homes as wards of the state. This contract marks Haycorn being "bound out" to one Samuel Fleet, and sets a term of release from Fleet's service once Haycorn reached 18 years old age. It goes on to say that not only should Haycorn by taught house and kitchen work, but that she should be taught to read and write, and be gifted with a new Bible upon her release from service....And be it further enacted that the person entitled to such
service may nevertheless within on year after the Birth of
such child elect to abandon his or her right to such service
by a notification of the same from under his or her hand
and lodged with the Clerk of the Town or city where the owner
of the mother of any such Child may reside; in which case
every child abandoned as aforesaid shall be considered as paupers
of the respective Town or City where the proprietor or Owner of
the mother of such Child may reside at the time of its birth;
and liable to be bound out by the Overseers of the Poor on the
same Terms and Conditions that the Children of paupers
were subject to before the passing this Act.
Cynthia Haycorn was not a slave, she was legally a free child- but she was also legally bound as a laborer to Samuel Fleet, without freedom of movement or employment. She would have moved into Fleet's home as a domestic servant, and learned how to do that work over the course of her childhood and teenage years. Though people like Cynthia Haycorn were legally not enslaved, they were not completely safe. Under a decade after Haycorn was bound out, early Black abolitionist David Ruggles would charge another Brooklyn Overseer of the Poor with illegally jailing a free woman and her two children in an almshouse with the goal of selling them south into slavery. As this video from the PBS series "Secrets of the Dead" explains, abolition and freedom were not simple concepts for Black people living in New York.
By the time Cynthia Haycorn was working in Samuel Fleet's house, New York City, and especially Brooklyn, had a burgeoning, rich Black community, in spite of the difficulties they faced. Churches, schools, and community groups were beginning to form. The first of these schools with the African Free School, founded by the New York Manumission Society in 1794. By the 1820s, the African Free School had over 700 pupils including Black Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge, activist and restauranteur George T. Downing, and Charles L. Reason, the first Black college professor in the United States.
