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The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War
Winner of a 2020-2021 New York City Book Award
In a rapidly changing New York, two forces battled for the city's the pro-slavery New Yorkers who kept the illegal slave trade alive and well, and the abolitionists fighting for freedom.
We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive.
In The Kidnapping Club , historian Jonathan Daniel Wells tells the story of the powerful network of judges, lawyers, and police officers who circumvented anti-slavery laws by sanctioning the kidnapping of free and fugitive African Americans. Nicknamed "The New York Kidnapping Club," the group had the tacit support of institutions from Wall Street to Tammany Hall whose wealth depended on the Southern slave and cotton trade. But a small cohort of abolitionists, including Black journalist David Ruggles, organized tirelessly for the rights of Black New Yorkers, often risking their lives in the process.
Taking readers into the bustling streets and ports of America's great Northern metropolis, The Kidnapping Club is a dramatic account of the ties between slavery and capitalism, the deeply corrupt roots of policing, and the strength of Black activism.
In a rapidly changing New York, two forces battled for the city's the pro-slavery New Yorkers who kept the illegal slave trade alive and well, and the abolitionists fighting for freedom.
We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive.
In The Kidnapping Club , historian Jonathan Daniel Wells tells the story of the powerful network of judges, lawyers, and police officers who circumvented anti-slavery laws by sanctioning the kidnapping of free and fugitive African Americans. Nicknamed "The New York Kidnapping Club," the group had the tacit support of institutions from Wall Street to Tammany Hall whose wealth depended on the Southern slave and cotton trade. But a small cohort of abolitionists, including Black journalist David Ruggles, organized tirelessly for the rights of Black New Yorkers, often risking their lives in the process.
Taking readers into the bustling streets and ports of America's great Northern metropolis, The Kidnapping Club is a dramatic account of the ties between slavery and capitalism, the deeply corrupt roots of policing, and the strength of Black activism.
368 pages, Paperback
First published October 20, 2020
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August 23, 2020
Excellent! Vividly examines the precarious state of freedom for Black New Yorkers in the 1830s-1860s, when New York’s 1827 emancipation law was so loosely regarded that dozens of people continued to live in slavery in Brooklyn and dozens more were snatched off the street, taken South, and sold. This book does a good job balancing the conservatism and self interest of New York’s judges, police, and business community and the endless frustrations of its Black residents like David Ruggles, who fought tirelessly to defend Black peoples’ freedom in the face of an indifferent or actively hostile city, constantly dealing with physical violence and charges of “insolence”.
The issues covered are of course specific to the time period, and the author does a good job noting changes in laws, judges, activism, and national politics within this period. But there’s also palpable relevance to the present; Black activists found themselves caught in the obstacle of respectability politics, and the issue of appeasement because of business interests feels salient today. A moment where Isaiah Rynders tries to throttle the abolitionist Lewis Tappan for asking to take custody of three Black boys rather than having the city send them to Liberia, while screaming at him, “why do you not educate poor white boys?” feels like it could be dropped right into the comments section on a New York Post article.
This book is a disturbing reminder that the diverse, cosmopolitan, tolerant New York many of us aspire to live in is an ongoing work in progress, with a long history of racist, reactionary, pugnacious authorities as well as heroic, long-suffering activists who labored to uphold the moral rather than the profitable.
The issues covered are of course specific to the time period, and the author does a good job noting changes in laws, judges, activism, and national politics within this period. But there’s also palpable relevance to the present; Black activists found themselves caught in the obstacle of respectability politics, and the issue of appeasement because of business interests feels salient today. A moment where Isaiah Rynders tries to throttle the abolitionist Lewis Tappan for asking to take custody of three Black boys rather than having the city send them to Liberia, while screaming at him, “why do you not educate poor white boys?” feels like it could be dropped right into the comments section on a New York Post article.
This book is a disturbing reminder that the diverse, cosmopolitan, tolerant New York many of us aspire to live in is an ongoing work in progress, with a long history of racist, reactionary, pugnacious authorities as well as heroic, long-suffering activists who labored to uphold the moral rather than the profitable.
March 3, 2021
This is one of those "It's not you, it's me" books. Other readers have found it more sastisfgying than I did. That's fine. I learned a great deal from reading it, but it never quite grabbed me. As others have noted, it tends to be repetitious, and I felt there was lack of energy to the writing.
Wells does a solid job in showing how vilely racist New York City was in the years leading to the Civil War (yes, and after). I was familiar with some of the key events of the time, like the Draft Riots, but I had no idea how closely tied the city leaders, Wall Street investors, and law enforcement, were to the South. Wells writes, "New York was the most potent proslavery and pro-South city north of the Mason-Dixon Line." Indeed, as he shows, the city's very financial structure was built on slave labor:
Much of the city's wealth had been built on the backs of southern slaves who picked cotton for hunfreds of thousands of cotton bales every year, a crop that was financed by Wall Street banks and exported to New England and British textile mills via New York brokers, businesses, and financiers. Slave masters depended on New York insurance companies to protect their investments in bondage.
City officials eagerly followed the Fugitive Slave clause in the Constitution and in subsequent legislation. They weren't picky about whether the individual detained by slave catchers and agents really were runaways or not. Nor were they shy about abducting Black children and selling them down south. For them, it was all about money and race.
By and large, the city's residents hated Lincoln, voting instead for his opponent. So great was the bond between the city and the South that the city's Common Council actually voted to secede from the union early on when some southern states did. They planned to form a new autonomous entity that would be called the Free City of Tri-Insula and would link Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island. What obliged them to change their minds was the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. A new-found patriotism among White citizens dramatically changed the social and political milieu, and the city leaders had to react accordingly -- though they did persist in agitating for a compromise that would bring the union (and cotton) back together, or failing that, recover the money that Southern borrowers owed their backers up north. I hadn't known any of these things before reading the book. Reading about them gave me a deeper understanding of how race and slavery were so central to 19th century economy in the United States.
Wells does a solid job in showing how vilely racist New York City was in the years leading to the Civil War (yes, and after). I was familiar with some of the key events of the time, like the Draft Riots, but I had no idea how closely tied the city leaders, Wall Street investors, and law enforcement, were to the South. Wells writes, "New York was the most potent proslavery and pro-South city north of the Mason-Dixon Line." Indeed, as he shows, the city's very financial structure was built on slave labor:
Much of the city's wealth had been built on the backs of southern slaves who picked cotton for hunfreds of thousands of cotton bales every year, a crop that was financed by Wall Street banks and exported to New England and British textile mills via New York brokers, businesses, and financiers. Slave masters depended on New York insurance companies to protect their investments in bondage.
City officials eagerly followed the Fugitive Slave clause in the Constitution and in subsequent legislation. They weren't picky about whether the individual detained by slave catchers and agents really were runaways or not. Nor were they shy about abducting Black children and selling them down south. For them, it was all about money and race.
By and large, the city's residents hated Lincoln, voting instead for his opponent. So great was the bond between the city and the South that the city's Common Council actually voted to secede from the union early on when some southern states did. They planned to form a new autonomous entity that would be called the Free City of Tri-Insula and would link Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island. What obliged them to change their minds was the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. A new-found patriotism among White citizens dramatically changed the social and political milieu, and the city leaders had to react accordingly -- though they did persist in agitating for a compromise that would bring the union (and cotton) back together, or failing that, recover the money that Southern borrowers owed their backers up north. I hadn't known any of these things before reading the book. Reading about them gave me a deeper understanding of how race and slavery were so central to 19th century economy in the United States.
September 16, 2021
Jonathan Daniel Wells’ The Kidnapping Club explores New York City’s battle over slavery in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Nominally a free state after 1827, New York nonetheless found the “peculiar institution” a major role in their economic development; greedy capitalists, crooked cops and Democratic politicians exploited the city’s colored population for both political and literal capital. The “Kidnapping Club” of the title abducted Black men suspected of being fugitive slaves and sold them to Southern slave traders; of course, they weren’t above kidnapping freedmen and women, as well, so long as they could turn a profit. Wells demonstrates, too, how complicit New York’s legal structures were in the illicit trade: the deeply racist NYPD (led by US Marshal Isiah Rynders) were often complicit in the kidnappings, while high-powered lawyers defended the “Club’s” rights to enforce Fugitive Slave Laws through semi-legal means. And how New York’s poor white population, particularly Irish immigrants exploited by Tammany Hall, were spurred to violence against Blacks, from complicity in kidnappings to full-fledged race riots. Not that Blacks and abolitionists took this standing down: Wells contrasts the deviousness of Gotham’s elite with Daniel Ruggles, a freedman who led legal and physical battles against the “Club’s” depredations, the Tappan Brothers, white abolitionists who advocated at great risk to their lives, and other allies in the struggle for justice. Still, up to and even through the Civil War, New York remained a northern hotbed of proslavery sentiment, with Copperhead Mayor Fernando Wood advocating the City’s secession and antiwar agitators provoking bloody, week-long Draft Riots that largely targeted Blacks. An unsettling portrait of Northern complicity in slavery, from working class whites to Gotham elites, along with the brave few who fought back.
January 2, 2021
While this book is somewhat repetitive and a little tedious... it was very informative.
This is a book that unfolds the complicated nature of America's North and South and its connection to the Big Apple's rise to financial dominance. The inherent tension associated with one of the founding principles of our nation: a seemingly united nation comprised of 50 individual states. And of course, our original sin of slavery that was romanticized to justify the practice of unspeakable violence and inhumanity towards millions of Black people. And with that sin, how King Cotton literally shaped our nation, its riches and inequities.
A detailing of how Wall Street was created as a financial powerhouse on the backs of cotton, Black people and slavery. At best, a big city in a free state, NYC and Wall Street sat on the fence neutral to slavery. But even of more consequence, at its worst, it was a key ally and co-conspirator... without which, the South could never have thrived and continued to enslave Black people with impunity.
So much to unpack in this book, but the gist is that Wall Street then as now, too frequently trades the care of humanity and basic moral ideals for the almighty dollar.
Who knew that in the run up to the Civil War... a few titans of Wall Street industry and politics considered succeeding from the state of NY so they could continue banking the profits of enslavers to make a pretty penny?
The narrative that the North was so righteous when it came to slavery is bull... yes, many Northerners didn't believe in the practice, but just as many, if not more, looked the other way, which fueled its continuation.
A good portion of this book recounts how often Black people were kidnapped on the streets of NYC and sent down South... regardless of whether they were actually free or runaways. Lawyers, police, judges and every day citizens were part of a system of enslavement or re-enslavement of too many... but then the system and the Fugitive Slave Law worked as designed. Systemic racism... whew... there is nothing new under the sun on that front.
This is a sobering look at how clearly today's racial and economic inequities were sown into the fabric of NYC.
My goodness people... maybe if the whole picture of slavery and financial gain was known, the idea of reparations would seem like a real strategy for correcting the tragedy of America's original sin.
#chellelynnreads
This is a book that unfolds the complicated nature of America's North and South and its connection to the Big Apple's rise to financial dominance. The inherent tension associated with one of the founding principles of our nation: a seemingly united nation comprised of 50 individual states. And of course, our original sin of slavery that was romanticized to justify the practice of unspeakable violence and inhumanity towards millions of Black people. And with that sin, how King Cotton literally shaped our nation, its riches and inequities.
A detailing of how Wall Street was created as a financial powerhouse on the backs of cotton, Black people and slavery. At best, a big city in a free state, NYC and Wall Street sat on the fence neutral to slavery. But even of more consequence, at its worst, it was a key ally and co-conspirator... without which, the South could never have thrived and continued to enslave Black people with impunity.
So much to unpack in this book, but the gist is that Wall Street then as now, too frequently trades the care of humanity and basic moral ideals for the almighty dollar.
Who knew that in the run up to the Civil War... a few titans of Wall Street industry and politics considered succeeding from the state of NY so they could continue banking the profits of enslavers to make a pretty penny?
The narrative that the North was so righteous when it came to slavery is bull... yes, many Northerners didn't believe in the practice, but just as many, if not more, looked the other way, which fueled its continuation.
A good portion of this book recounts how often Black people were kidnapped on the streets of NYC and sent down South... regardless of whether they were actually free or runaways. Lawyers, police, judges and every day citizens were part of a system of enslavement or re-enslavement of too many... but then the system and the Fugitive Slave Law worked as designed. Systemic racism... whew... there is nothing new under the sun on that front.
This is a sobering look at how clearly today's racial and economic inequities were sown into the fabric of NYC.
My goodness people... maybe if the whole picture of slavery and financial gain was known, the idea of reparations would seem like a real strategy for correcting the tragedy of America's original sin.
#chellelynnreads
March 26, 2021
This is an excellent history of the racist foundation of pre-civil war America, specifically how chattel slavery, explicitly written into the US Constitution and sustained by police and governmental authority, built northern wealth in Wall Street and New York City. The details of daily life for black people in NYC during this time clarified my understanding about the long and shameful history of racism in America-children, men, and women kidnapped in NYC and sold as slaves in the south is an example of corruption and evil that should sear our souls. The author’s epilogue includes this quote “This is why the study of history, so often neglected in favor of more lucrative fields of inquiry, is so fundamental, because without knowing the daily trials of ordinary individuals, it becomes easy to pretend that the past represents an idyllic world.” which explains why it’s important to read and study difficult topics.
June 2, 2022
My first DNF in many years. While this information is incredibly important, Wells displays the stories in a repetitive and unstructured manner. At no point while reading this text did I find myself engaged; more specifically, I was, quite frankly, bored and looking for something else to read.
The book was clearly well-researched, though. The author will be speaking at the ASU Center for the Study of Race and Democracy in Fall 2022, which is why I picked up this book in the first place. Because of this, I think I'll have to pick up this book to reread and finish it sometime in the next few months.
The book was clearly well-researched, though. The author will be speaking at the ASU Center for the Study of Race and Democracy in Fall 2022, which is why I picked up this book in the first place. Because of this, I think I'll have to pick up this book to reread and finish it sometime in the next few months.
July 11, 2021
A great addition to the new cannon of books exploring Black lives and communities in antebellum America. There is a lot to learn in this book for any student of history but this would be a must-read for anyone studying or interested in NYC history in particular.
A bit repetitive at times, it might be difficult for a casual reader but it is clearly well-written and researched and should be required reading for anyone looking to expand their understanding of the North's role in promoting slavery and especially NY and its financial institutions.
A bit repetitive at times, it might be difficult for a casual reader but it is clearly well-written and researched and should be required reading for anyone looking to expand their understanding of the North's role in promoting slavery and especially NY and its financial institutions.
August 7, 2021
A very solid history of New York during the pre-civil war era that shows both the precariousness of the lives of Black Americans and White Americans willingness to placate the South for their profit. It is always amazing how many people are willing to profit off of the suffering of others. It is especially glaring that they were not willing to suffer the consequences themselves but gladly made Black people suffer.
December 5, 2020
Yet another big reveal of hidden history. God, how little has changed relative to what needs to be changed.
The police, the courts, and Wall Street = The Kidnapping Club. All reactionary forces still at work today. Thank God Biden prevailed; hope he doesn't turn out to be yet another weak Dem. A man more concerned with Republicans liking him that with saving our Federal Govt. It's going to take a lot of force and no apologies. Of course, so much depends on Georgia. Thank the Gods for Stacey Abrams; with her, we stand half a chance. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow
The police, the courts, and Wall Street = The Kidnapping Club. All reactionary forces still at work today. Thank God Biden prevailed; hope he doesn't turn out to be yet another weak Dem. A man more concerned with Republicans liking him that with saving our Federal Govt. It's going to take a lot of force and no apologies. Of course, so much depends on Georgia. Thank the Gods for Stacey Abrams; with her, we stand half a chance. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow
January 11, 2021
Did you know that Wall Street was so closely tied to southern slavery (via the cotton industry) that New York City came close to seceding from the Union? This book gives lie to the notion that white supremacy is primarily a southern ideology. The title refers to a group of civic leaders and policemen who routinely kidnapped African Americans (many escaped slaves, and some free-born) and sold them into slavery. This included children. New York City was also a major port used by the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade, as city officials mostly turned a blind eye. Another eye-opener for me.
January 19, 2021
Read enough to know that I knew this story already from previous reading. This reminded me of City of Sedition, in that it seems like there's not enough material to tell the story implied by the title, so the author just reverts to a more general history.
February 2, 2021
With just a little bit more interesting writing style, this book would have been a five-star for me. What a lot I learned! Having spent a small amount of time in New York and being as informed as I was, I surmised the entire state was quite anti-slavery back in the day. This book focuses on New York City from the 1830's to the Civil War, and there are a lot of people pro-slavery. Wall Street and NYC businesses are very involved in the slave industry, including the insurance companies, and slave ship outfitters (which ran in and out of that harbor until the 1960's! even though it had been outlawed by the federal government in 1807. Abraham Lincoln did follow through on the execution of one slaver after he became president.). About 80% of the cotton made its way through that area so it was indeed big business. The title refers to a group that began in the 30's to kidnap, sometimes in very blatant manners (like grabbing a child from his school desk), black people to return to the South - some had escaped and some had not. There were many corrupt police and judges who supported these groups; there was also very involved and organized Blacks who came to protest and testify for the kidnapped. Ruggles was a most admirable man who dedicated his life to thwarting this kidnapping; he is right up there with MLK, Jr., it would seem, in his steadfastness. Ruggles's health was impacted and so he moved from the area at an early age; others stepped in to take his place and continue the fight. There were many successful Black businesses; Rosa Parks was not the first to stand her grounds for her seat on public transportation - that happened 100 years before, though not as successfully, obviously. The Compromise of 1850 did arouse some greater abolitionist sentiments, since now free states were obligated to become involved in returning slaves to the South, and that rankled. The Republican party gained some favor, with a stance against the Whigs and Democrats (both of which favored slavery), although Lincoln was certainly not a favorite of the city. Once Fort Sumter was attacked, feelings were more solidified against the South.
January 14, 2021
Perhaps most of us have encountered a narrative about the origins of the Civil War which emphasizes the opposed sectional interests of slave South and free-labor North. Such accounts ignore the substantial integration of the US economy and the extent to which US economic success relied on slavery. This was especially true in the nation's vibrant financial capital, New York.
This is the necessary context of The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War. This is a readable and engaging historical study which is at times provocative, heartbreaking, and (less often) inspiring. There was no formal "Kidnapping Club"; the term refers to the informal but nonetheless real understanding among police, Democratic city and state officials, and business leaders that a) slavery was a source of wealth and b) slavery as an institution must be protected.
The Kidnapping Club ruthlessly pursued escaped slaves, and - like Burke and Hare when the supply of available corpses dwindled - created slaves by kidnapping African Americans off the streets of New York (and in at least one case, out of a grammar school classroom). Worst still, author Jonathan Daniel Wells demonstrates that New York was the headquarters of the illegal foreign slave trade - at great profit to speculators and ship captains, kidnapping Africans into lives of chattel slavery in the southern states.
The Kidnapping Club reveals that New York police abuse of blacks and their rights is not a phenomenon existing solely in recent headlines, but instead, sadly, has a long history and perverse legacy.
The controversies of the antebellum era - and the political solutions appropriate then - are not so far from our concerns in the first quarter of the 21st century. All the more reason to read this fine book.
This is the necessary context of The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War. This is a readable and engaging historical study which is at times provocative, heartbreaking, and (less often) inspiring. There was no formal "Kidnapping Club"; the term refers to the informal but nonetheless real understanding among police, Democratic city and state officials, and business leaders that a) slavery was a source of wealth and b) slavery as an institution must be protected.
The Kidnapping Club ruthlessly pursued escaped slaves, and - like Burke and Hare when the supply of available corpses dwindled - created slaves by kidnapping African Americans off the streets of New York (and in at least one case, out of a grammar school classroom). Worst still, author Jonathan Daniel Wells demonstrates that New York was the headquarters of the illegal foreign slave trade - at great profit to speculators and ship captains, kidnapping Africans into lives of chattel slavery in the southern states.
The Kidnapping Club reveals that New York police abuse of blacks and their rights is not a phenomenon existing solely in recent headlines, but instead, sadly, has a long history and perverse legacy.
The controversies of the antebellum era - and the political solutions appropriate then - are not so far from our concerns in the first quarter of the 21st century. All the more reason to read this fine book.
November 6, 2022
Cara New York City, è inutile che ti lamenti. Questo volume mette nero su bianco la tua storica ambiguità. O coerenza, a pensarci bene. Eri più realista del re, quando si trattava di difendere lo schiavismo. La logica stringente stava dalla tua parte: il traffico di esseri umani era così lucrativo e determinante nel sorreggere l’economia cittadina che compromettere i rapporti con gli stati sudisti sarebbe stato esiziale, o poco meno. Wall Street era già la rapace fiera senza pietà che vedeva solo il simbolo dei verdoni. Così, i più zelanti tra i tuoi cittadini si ingegnarono nella più efferata delle professioni: rapire uomini, donne e bambini per deportarli in una piantagione schiavista con la fetida complicità di poliziotti, giudici, politici, avvocati. Il tuo Kidnapping Club funzionava così bene che anche il South Carolina e i suoi amici ti mandavano ampie congratulazioni. Pure il buon Lincoln dovette fare a meno dei tuoi voti per essere eletto presidente. E dopo la fine della guerra civile, ci volle del tempo per ripulirti la coscienza e diventare faro della fazione abolizionista. Ora, dall’alto del tuo status di città santuario, puoi distribuire patenti di buona condotta e di umanità. Ma non dimenticare il sordido passato da cui vieni. Non è detto che non possa ritornare.
May 27, 2021
Delighted to see historians writing for a general public, synthesizing granular scholarship into more digestible forms. Far from being an abolitionist paradise ante-bellum New York City was deeply implicated in systematic slavery. Jonathan Daniel Wells draws our attention to multiple cases where the ugly face of profiteering on the human body motored the economic, political and social machine. Cotton, insurance, shipping and international trade cannot be understood without reference to how slavery permeated American life. Meanwhile, the struggle for black freedom is revealed as the constant companion of the slavery phenomenon. Wells draws on pre-existing scholarship from a broad field such as Carla Peterson, Graham Russell Hodges, Jill Lepore, Eric Foner, Shane White, Howard Dodson, and Leslie Harris, as well as on primary sources from David Ruggles, Sidney Gay, WIlliam Powell, Charles B Ray, Theodore Wright, Charles Reason and James McCune Smith. This is a picture of the development of New York that differs from the boosterish genre that blithely skips the slavery narrative in favor of the thrilling forward motion of capitalism and innovation.
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April 12, 2021This is a must read for any new yorker... People often say that New York is so liberal in the 19th century and what a great supporter of progress... isn't slavery forbidden in 1827... Well this is not totally true... New York was not liberal, it was segregated in many places, and it was building its wealth on the cotton industry and the owning/selling of slaves... down there for the slaves, but their existence and market value was essential to the banks and the insurance companies making Wall Street the financial success it was then...
And then there is worse than that and the Kidnapping Club gets into the nitty gritty of how free blacks, or ex slaves were grabbed in the street and shipped in the same 24 hours to the South...
It is a horrible detailed study and it is a depressing read sometimes...
But an essential one...
If you are a new yorker and have not read and digested this book, then you are not a new yorker but an ostrich hiding its ostrich head in the dirty concrete and pavement of the city!
And then there is worse than that and the Kidnapping Club gets into the nitty gritty of how free blacks, or ex slaves were grabbed in the street and shipped in the same 24 hours to the South...
It is a horrible detailed study and it is a depressing read sometimes...
But an essential one...
If you are a new yorker and have not read and digested this book, then you are not a new yorker but an ostrich hiding its ostrich head in the dirty concrete and pavement of the city!
May 24, 2021
It's hard to say I "really liked" this book. It's infuriating and frustrating. Wells writes a well-researched, riveting history of a group of white men who conspired to capture escaped slaves who make it to New York City--or kidnap free Black men, women and children; they didn't much care--and send them back into slavery. They have the support of men in law enforcement, politics, and businessmen who don't want to damage New York's profitable arrangements with the South, particularly when it comes to it cotton trade.
Against those forces are David Ruggles, a magazine and newspaper writer and editor, who devotes his life to trying to help people stay free and is sometimes his own worst enemy, and a large cast of sometime allies.
Important read; important history.
Against those forces are David Ruggles, a magazine and newspaper writer and editor, who devotes his life to trying to help people stay free and is sometimes his own worst enemy, and a large cast of sometime allies.
Important read; important history.
September 13, 2020
"The Kidnapping Club" by Jonathan Daniel Wells provides a unique analysis about the role that New York's financial markets played in fueling and upholding slavery in the United States. This book provides a very thorough examination of a topic that I just learned more about in listening to episode 2 of "The 1619 Project." As we as a society take a closer look at the legacy of slavery and the continuous oppression of Black people, we often gloss how much of the western world's financial markets were propelled by slavery. "The Kidnapping Club" makes it clear that the North and South were equally investing in maintaining slavery. I highly recommend this book!
March 25, 2021
Unfortunately the more things change, the more they stay the same. This incredibly well researched work weaves so many primary source documents into a cohesive and engaging narrative and shines a light on the very active role of NYC in the slave trade and its acquiescence to Southern interests to turn a profit. Of particular interest are the incredible black leaders lost in the history books that took a stand. Sadly the reader will find many parallels to current Civil Rights struggles such as the use of the press to push false narratives in an attempt pry the public’s attention away from the grave crime of the enslavement of others. At times repetitive, but an altogether important read.
October 8, 2023
A very dense but fascinating/depressing account of the reality of life for Black's in New York in the few decades before the Civil War. The book specifically tells about powerful/wealthy Anglos joined w/ law enforcement, elected officials, members of the judiciary and business leaders to continue to profit off of Black bodies and lives by perpetuating the institution of slavery, even in the "free North." So many similarities between the Black fight for their rights (and greater society's response to it) then and those same fights now. A fascinating book. A little harder to read due to its dense writing style, but I still recommend.
July 24, 2020
Eye opening account of how slavery was supported outside of the southern United States. There are plenty of familiar names and landmarks in this book to connect the present with the past. The reader will gain a greater perspective of what the country was like preceding the Civil War. The institution of slavery is revealed in a way most texts avoid, and this heightened exploration sheds even greater light onto the motivations that perpetuated this atrocity for so long.
I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
October 27, 2021
This book works best if you think of it as a history of how pro-slavery New York City was directly before the Civil War. Although ostensibly about the state-sanctioned kidnapping of free Black Americans in New York made most famous by the memoir and then movie "12 Years A Slave", the narrative is a little too convoluted to really be the focus of the book. However, the book is an excellent and important reminder that while many northerners would like to pretend that slavery was a uniquely Southern problem, the wealth of the capitalist North was built on cotton and slavery.
June 22, 2024
Interesting book about the thriving skave trade in NYC before the Civil War. Even after New York made slavery illegal in -1827, the trade continued because NYC was the economic hub of goods from the south.
This book has two main characters , Ruggkes and Rynders, one on each side of the abolition movement.
The two ways blacks were threatened in NYC was kidnapping ( where blacks would be taken south and claimed as slaves) and slavery ships that stopped in NYC.
Interesting read especially dispelling the idea that slavery existed only in the south!
This book has two main characters , Ruggkes and Rynders, one on each side of the abolition movement.
The two ways blacks were threatened in NYC was kidnapping ( where blacks would be taken south and claimed as slaves) and slavery ships that stopped in NYC.
Interesting read especially dispelling the idea that slavery existed only in the south!
November 26, 2020
While I was sometimes frustrated with the lack of narrative, I ultimately appreciated the importance of this book. It explodes all the myths about the abolitionist North and clearly exposes the alliance between Wall Street and the slave holding South. More important, it demonstrates once again the racist origins and history of policing. The parallels between this antebellum history and today’s struggle to end police violence are undeniable.
March 5, 2021
Great for anyone interested in Civil War/pre-Civil War, New York, or African American history. It's a very ugly story but a very classic "profits before people" story. I knew that the northern states were not blameless in the story of American slavery but this bares some very ugly truths about just how complicit the leaders of New York went. The author also explores some super sad individual stories.
September 23, 2021
A haunting look at the mercenaries who hunted down escaped slaves, both real and assumed, in New York and elsewhere in order to collect the bounties promised by the South's organized slave hunters. An interesting side note is how the South unanimously supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, passed to override laws in northern states granting escaped slaves safe passage and freedom. So much for states' rights, eh?
July 30, 2021
Enlightening look at a chapter in NYC history most people are not aware of. I especially enjoyed the anecdotes and real life experiences of the people subjected to this great miscarriage of justice.
David Ruggles and Nathaniel Gordon are two names that I will recall for a long time, but for entirely different reasons.
Definitely recommend to any student of NYC/US history!
David Ruggles and Nathaniel Gordon are two names that I will recall for a long time, but for entirely different reasons.
Definitely recommend to any student of NYC/US history!
January 12, 2026
Covers a lot of the same ground as Gateway to Freedom. Most interesting part is seeing merchant capital consistently side with slave holders until secession when it becomes unclear how they’ll get payments on debts planters owe them. Then merchant capital crawls to Lincoln begging him to collect payments for them.
December 11, 2020
This author put into perspective the mistrust of NYPD as a whole. There has been corruption for a long time. The whole mess was not covered in depth in the history books in school. Great read. Now if the cover current slavery called human trafficking that would be a fascinating read as well.
February 20, 2021
I definitely learned something from this book. You want to believe that the north (particularly New York) didn't really have a part in the evils of slavery but it turns out that's just not true. Wall Street has always been a greedy SOB. It was an educational read for sure.
Grade: B
Grade: B
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