A drawing of the New York Slave Market. Image from New York Public Library

New York City will be installing a historical marker near the site of a market where Indian people and African people were sold as slaves.

The market opened in lower Manhattan in 1711. The city at the time passed a law and declared that "all Negro and Indian slaves that are let out to hire … be hired at the Market house at the Wall Street Slip," according to Mapping the African American Past.

The market continued until 1762. It will be commemorated with a marker at the intersection of Wall and Water Streets, a block from the original site.

"The slaves of that time and place helped build City Hall," council member Jumaane Williams, a sponsor of the legislation that led to the creation of the marker, told WNYC. "Their lives should be celebrated and their deaths should be mourned."

The law that established the slave market was one just of several that treated Indian people and African people in a discriminatory fashion. In 1684, the city barred more than four Indian and African people from meeting together and also barred them from possessing guns, according to Slavery and the Slave Trade in British New York, 1664-1783.

In 1737, the city passed a law that barred Indian and African slaves from walking the streets at night without a "candle or Lanthorn." The penalty was "being Whipt at the Publick Whipping Post."

The island of Manhattan is part of the territory of the Lenape people. Dutch explorer Peter Minuit claimed he acquired it in 1624.

Get the Story:
City to Acknowledge It Operated a Slave Market for More Than 50 Years (WNYC 4/15)
A permanent reminder of Wall Street’s hidden slave-trading past is coming soon (The Washington Post 4/15)