Author Talk: Michael J. Douma and The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York

We are pleased to host a talk with author Michael J. Douma about his new book The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York: A Cultural, Economic, and Demographic History, 1700-1827. Through an extensive and careful look at the data behind slavery in New York, Professor Michael J. Douma overturns many of the common assumptions of slavery in the state. Through his research, he argues that slavery in eighteenth-century New York was mostly rural, heavily Dutch, and generally profitable through the cultivation of wheat.