Abolitionism
In 1817, New York passed a new law that would free enslaved people born before 1799, but not until 1827. As seen in this manumission certificate recorded in 1818, many in New York wanted to see a speedier end to slavery. By the 1830 census, there were only 75 slaves in New York. Courtesy of The New York Public Library.
Upstate New York was a center of abolition activity during the canal era and anti-slavery ideas spread from port to port. The Canal was completed in 1825, and two years later, New York state officially abolished slavery. Many freedom seekers followed the canal path on their way to Canada and others settled in towns and cities along the Canal. Some of the great leaders of the movement lived a short distance from the Erie Canal, including Stephen and Harriet Myers in Albany, Harriet Tubman in Oswego, Jermain Loguen in Syracuse, William Wells Brown in Buffalo, and Frederick Douglass, who published his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star in Rochester, New York.
Activists organized anti-slavery societies throughout New York, and in October 1835, the first convention of the New York Anti-Slavery Society took place in Utica, not far from the Erie Canal. Several prominent figures in New York’s abolitionist movement had businesses that were tied to the success of the Erie Canal, including Lyman Spalding of Lockport, Isaac and Amy Post of Rochester, and Gerrit Smith of Utica and New York City.
