A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family

by Debra Bruno, Eleanor C. Mire (afterword)

A Hudson Valley Reckoning tells the long-ignored story of slavery's history in upstate New York through Debra Bruno's absorbing chronicle that uncovers her Dutch ancestors' slave-holding past and leads to a deep connection with the descendants of the enslaved people her family owned.

Bruno, who grew up in New York's Hudson Valley knowing little about her Dutch heritage, was shaken when a historian told her that her Dutch ancestors were almost certainly slaveholders. Driven by this knowledge, Bruno began to unearth her family's past. In the last will and testament of her ancestor, she found the first human beings bequeathed to his family along with animals and furniture. The more she expanded her family tree, the more enslavers she found. She reached out to Black Americans tracing their own ancestry, and by serendipitous luck became friends with Eleanor C. Mire, a descendent of a woman enslaved by Bruno's Dutch ancestors.

A Hudson Valley Reckoning recounts Bruno's journey into the nearly forgotten history of Northern slavery and of the thousands of enslaved people brought in chains to Manhattan and the Hudson Valley. With the help of Mire, who provides a moving epilogue, Debra Bruno tells the story of white and Black lives impacted by the stain of slavery and its long legacy of racism, as she investigates the erasure of the uncomfortable truths about our family and national histories.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race

304 pages, Hardcover

Published October 15, 2024

About the author

Debra Bruno is a longtime Washington journalist and teacher, with a career that has covered law, politics, the arts, music, dance, theater, books, culture, health, and international issues. She has worked at Moment Magazine, Legal Times, and Roll Call.

From 2011-2014, she was a freelance writer in Beijing, covering subjects as diverse as expat divorce and post-nuptial agreements for the Wall Street Journal, about rowing in a dragon boat for the Washington Post, and about Chinese hutongs for Atlantic’s CityLab.

After returning from China, she continued as a freelance writer, covering topics as diverse as an interview with ACLU legal head David Cole for American Lawyer, or writing about drum circles and 3D ultrasound images for the Washington Post.

A historian friend told her that if she had ancestors in New York’s Hudson Valley, especially if they were Dutch, they were likely enslavers. She was right. She hadn’t known about New York’s 200 years of enslavement, and was stunned to realize that her small hometown of Athens held so many hidden stories.

That story first appeared as a 2020 article in the Washington Post Magazine, one that drew a wave of attention and allowed her to tell those stories for NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “Here and Now.”

Her book, an expansion of that article, is A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in my Dutch American Family. It will be published by Cornell’s Three Hills imprint on October 15.

Reviews

[Brian Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very important and excellent book about slavery in the Hudson Valley from a very personal perspective. The author’s openness and honesty along with the meticulous research make what can be a very dry subject at times - genealogy- come to life in a unique way. What stands out to me is the way history was often deliberately trying to be erased yet thankfully much was brought to light in this quite interesting read.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book.

[Nancy L · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so impressed with Bruno's meticulous research and sensitivity to her interactions with the descendants of the enslaved families, especially the friendship she formed with Eleanor Mire. Took me a while to absorb all the names--as it did for the researchers--and learning about the many ways the Dutch colonists and African-American people kept changing them. I empathized with her open reactions as a white person uncovering the hidden stories within her own family as well as the white communities around them, for the last centuries through today. I have been on the same trajectory with my colonial Massachusetts family and have written a hybrid poetry book about it, The Stoop and The Steeple. The cultural differences between the Dutch and the British were fascinating. Bruno's interspersing of anecdotes, factual and imagined, her introspection and setting the cultural contexts liven the dense sections of genealogy research. highly recommend this book for all who are open to the unvarnished story of the making of the United States, taking the lid off secrets both black and white, indigenous and colonists have buried for too long. Brava, Debra and Eleanor for your persistence, curiosity and courage and especially for the friendship that is a torch for the emotional reparations we all need

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Gripping! Heard about this book on a podcast and so glad I read it. This book follows the quest of Debra Bruno, who is a “reluctant archaeologist “ of her past—through an ancestry search, she discovers her Dutch ancestors in upper NY were slaveholders (as were most residents of the time) Mining history of her family from back in the 1600’s, Bruno is met with the long unfolding story of the enslaved and enslavers in her family tree. The history of slavery is really only now coming into the forefront; at first hardly ever mentioned, then relegated to “just” southern plantations, what we now know is that people of color were enslaved everywhere, including the north. The truth is there if only we would look. Well, Debra Bruno looked and her discoveries are amazing, sad, and so compelling. How many lives will we never know about, how many nameless people and families toiled so that we all could live our lives of comfort? This book peels back the layers and really made me think about the ground on which I’m walking. I may read this book again.

[Lawrence Cock · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't recommend this book.
The author did not tell an interesting story.
The writing is clumsy.
I felt assaulted with names, variations of names, and many places and events peripheral to the theme.
I felt the author wanted me (and everyone else) to share her shame for the many sins of slavery.
The few interesting parts of this book did not redeem the poorly constructed overall narrative.
If you are interested in the Hudson Valley Dutch as slave traders and slave owners, find a better way to spend your time and your money ($32.95 in hardback).
One interesting thing to contemplate after reading this book: how could reviewers (such as a Washington Post reviewer) give it anything other than a “two thumbs down”?

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chagrined to learn that Dutch landholders in her Hudson Valley home had been slaveholders, the author researches her family and the slaves who lived in that valley from Colonial times through the Civil War.
She was lucky to discover Eleanor Mire, an African-American woman with ancestors from that very area, who joined her in her search. This is eye-opening even if you had been aware of the history of slavery in New England and New York and the difficulties African-Americans have in researching their roots. She includes lots of detail from the records she found, giving a picture of slave life quite different from the "part of the family" suggestion that past histories have proposed.

[Henry Kisor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personal history meets familial history meets American history: a compelling, multileveled investigation into slaveholding ancestors and the myths they created for themselves both before and after the fact. One of the best books I've read all year, and I'm not saying this because I share a Hudson Valley ancestor with Ms. Bruno and learned something about my own forebears. She has opened all our eyes to a shameful event—slavery in the North—that we need to acknowledge if we are ever to overcome it.

[Sxfoster · Rating 1 out of 5]

can I leave negative stars? I’m guessing the positive reviews of this book were written by bots or humans who have not read it. She had an idea-to examine her Dutch ancestor’s slave ownership. And then she belabored that idea- each and every chapter was a repetitive litany of names, questions, and ancestry.com research. Terrible writing, tedious facts, and very little insight. That’s a week of my life I’ll never get back.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because of the genealogical connections I share with the author, also descending from Lambert Van Valkenburg. I am interested in doing some research into how we may be related (or not) to James Dunbar Van Valkenburg. Not sure I appreciate the tone of the book. While I am definitely against slavery, the book felt like it was assuming a share of guilt for the sins of people we don't even know just because we happen to descend from them. It would have helped to approach the writing with an academic style.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an eye-opening book about how history is deliberately forgotten and hidden when shameful and horrific actions occurred. Ms. Bruno wrote a well-researched and fascinating account of the history of slave ownership by her ancestors in New York--and also reveals how much farther we still have to go in acknowledging and understanding. This is a very disturbing, but very necessary book.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about slavery in the Hudson Valley. I was not aware that it was so prevalent on the farms in the area and I found her research to be fascinating. The people in the book were hard to follow and I felt like it jumped from place to place making it hard to put the pieces together at times.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the most academically written book, but the author did a lot if research and the information is important to learn. 

I grew up in the Hudson Valley and live in the Capital Region now and I knew almost none of this part of New York's history. 

[Darlene Dupre · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read. Eye opening. Well written.

[Denise Sands-Kolankowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting book about two women working on their genealogy and discovered they had enslaved ancestors living in the Hudson Valley in the 1700's.

[Patrick Comey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing Stories of Slavery in the North

This book was an eye-opener for me since I had only known of slavery bin the south. There is so much to learn.

[Gerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned some things about the ubiquity of slavery in the Hudson Valley. But kind of forced myself to read the whole thing.

[Bob Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done, thank you!