t is said that in proportion
to population N.Y. imported as many Africans as Virginia. That New
York did not become a slave-state like Carolina was, according to
Bancroft, "due to climate and not to the superior humanity of its
founders. [Gov.] Stuyvesant was instructed to use every exertion
to promote the sale of negroes. They were imported sometimes by
way of the West Indies, often directly from Guinea, and were sold
at auction to the highest bidder. The average price was less than
$140." With the extension of English rule to N.Y. in 1664 the
slave trade in this colony passed into the hands of the British.
It is estimated that the total import of slaves into all the
British colonies of America and the West Indies from 1680 to 1786
was 2,130,000. The traffic was then carried on principally from
Liverpool, London and other English ports; the entire number of
ships sailing from these ports then engaged in the slave traffic
was 192, and in them space was provided for the transport of
47,146 negroes. The native chiefs on the African coasts took up
the hunt for human beings and engaged in forays, sometimes even on
their own subjects, for the purpose of procuring slaves to be
exchanged for western commodities. They often set fire to a
village by night and captured the inhabitants when trying to
escape. Out of every lot of 100 shipped from Africa, about 17 died
either during the passage or before the sale at Jamaica, while not
more than 50 lived through the "seasoning" process and became
effective plantation laborers. Slavery in N.Y. was continued till
1827. It was then abolished by terms of an act passed by the N.Y.
Assembly ten years earlier.]

Henry Hudson, English navigator, made four important voyages to
find a passage to China by the northeast or northwest route; it
was on the third venture undertaken at the instance of the Dutch
East India Co., that he found the Hudson, probably a greater
discovery than the one he undertook to make. With a mixed crew of
18 or 20 men he started on his voyage in the "Half Moon," April
6, 1609, and soon was among the ice towards the northern part of
Barents Sea. His men mutinied and he was forced to seek the
passage farther south. Thus eventually he entered the fine bay of
what is now N.Y. harbour, Sept. 3, 1609. John Fiske says: "In all
that