Harlem Then, Now, and Forever

Illustration by Doreen Lam

In September of 1658, the Dutch and their African labor force of enslaved and half-free Africans celebrated the founding of a village called New Haarlem. 350 years later, Harlem is still going strong. If only for that reason, we must celebrate its 350th birthday with full “pomp and circumstance”—not just to party, but to honor its richly diverse cultural legacy and to spotlight the need for continuing educational and economic investment in the community. The process should target and benefit current, long-time black and brown residents of the area who now face massive displacement.

There should be a vote of confidence in Harlem then, now, and forever.

Historian Christopher Moore tells us that according to colonial documents, the road to the new village was constructed during spring of 1658. The Africans leveled the forests and built the road from New Amsterdam at the southern end of Manhattan northward to an area near the current 110th Street.

The original Africans were either members of the Dutch West India Company labor force or individually owned workers. From the very beginning New Haarlem was, like most of New Netherlands, populated not just by the Dutch but by the Africans as well. That bears repeating—people of African descent lived in what is today’s Harlem 350 years ago.

Prior to the Africans’ arrival, the colony was essentially a failing, lackluster afterthought of Dutch holdings. Its predominantly Dutch inhabitants clustered at the lower tip of Manhattan island in the tiny New Amsterdam enclave. They wanted to get rich quickly through the fur trade and return home to Holland. But since the fur trade was dominated by the Dutch West India Company, the settlers were mostly enduring frontier hardships with very little return on their colonial “sweat equity.” The arrival of the Africans in the mid-1620s soon saw the growth of road-building, forest-clearing, lumbering, farming—a burgeoning, diverse economy developed primarily on the backs of those Africans that Moore accurately refers to as “colony builders.”

But the African or multi-racial presence actually began even before there was a New Netherlands colony. One could even say that without it, there might never have been a New Netherlands. What, or rather who, was that early African presence? He was a free black-hispanic from Santo Domingo known as Juan “Jan” Rodrigues, hired by a Dutch captain in 1613 to be an interpreter and translator with the local Lenape tribe of Manhattan island and the Algonquin people of the Hudson Valley. He was so good at his job that the Dutch were squabbling over his services. Because of this man’s linguistic and interpersonal skills as a translator and negotiator, the Dutch were able to launch a successful fur trade with the Native Americans. Without the trade, there probably would not have been a New Netherlands colony—therefore no New Haarlem or New Amsterdam, and probably no New York, at least not as we know it today.

The story of this early black-hispanic whom the Dutch called “The Mulatto” needs to be widely known and celebrated. Rodrigues and the African colony builders who followed him, who made the colony the thriving place that eventually became the hub of European colonial expansion and economic development, have never received their due acknowledgement and recognition. There were enslaved Africans—such as Simon Congo, Peter San Tome and his son Lucas Pieters, Big Manuel, Dorothy Angola, Little Manuel Minuit, and Anthony Portugese and his daughter Susanna Anthony Roberts—who labored successfully, earned freedom, and produced free second-generation children who became barber surgeons and property-owning entrepreneurs. They were the residents of an enclave known as “Little Africa” or the “Land of the Blacks” in a lower-Manhattan area that eventually stretched from Prince Street northward to what is now Herald Square.

It is this little-known history of the early New Netherlands colony that makes celebrating Harlem’s 350th anniversary so significant. It allows us to revisit, celebrate, and disseminate the rich, multi-cultural legacy that’s been too-long hidden and unsung—the first celebration of Harlem’s success over the years. The Harlem Preservation Foundation and Neighborhood Artists, Inc. recognize this importance and are planning festivities that will last from April through October.

We expect these anniversary celebrations to help produce the needed educational and economic re-investment in the Harlem community for its long-time residents. We hope to gain a cultural historic district for Central Harlem, and we propose to have a bust of Juan “Jan” Rodrigues permanently enshrined in the 125th Street Hudson River Pier Park. CB9 and local supporters agree that it would be the perfect representation of the long-standing black and Hispanic presence in the Hudson Valley—especially in Harlem. We hope that the community will support these efforts and help us make the 350th anniversary celebrations a truly inclusive and historic success, reflecting on the success of New Haarlem those 350 years ago.

The author is a Harlem resident and vice president of the Harlem Preservation Foundation.