From 1663 until 1939, eight generations of the white Bronk family farmed their extensive holdings in this town on the Hudson. Slaves were for generations an important part of the Bronk labor force. Unverified local knowledge maintains that former slaves’ descendants continued working on the Bronk farm into the 1930s, after which all of the “black Bronks” moved west. In 1939 the last owner gave the original Bronk dwellings and surrounding land to the Greene County Historical Society, which maintains them as the Bronk Museum.
New York’s abolition of slavery was accomplished through a tortuous process of shifting and halting laws. One law decreed that those born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1799, while not enslaved, would be bound to 25 to 28 years of servitude. A later law freed all remaining slaves as of 1827, yet ironically some persons of color continued as bound laborers into the 1830s. In the years leading up to 1827, many owners voluntarily freed their slaves or sold them, rather than navigate the complexities of a dying institution. Collectively these manumissions and states of partial freedom created a perceived crisis for the authorities charged with maintaining public order.
A startling document entitled “The free-born slaves of Coxsackie” lists 95 persons born from 1800 to 1827 under the servitude law. Its primary purpose was as a reference for Coxsackie’s Overseers of the Poor, who were charged with ensuring that the many persons of color of varying and uncertain status would not become a perceived burden on the town. Surviving documents demonstrate the complexity of this task, as the Overseers arranged indentures, held masters responsible for their servants’ upkeep, solicited affidavits attesting to the responsible character of persons of color, and exiled others deemed vagrants. Such efforts foreshadow attempts to control black labor and mobility in the post-emancipation South.
Today visitors to the Bronk Museum can tour the original house, as well as the family cemetery. Broken headstones in this cemetery are said to be those of Bronk slaves. A stone pillar erected in the 20th century purports to divide the white from the black burials. Ezra Bronk, a black Civil War veteran, was buried in this cemetery in 1888. Though his actual relation to the white Bronks is as yet unknown, they are believed to have paid for his burial. In the archives of the historical society we find two daguerrotypes said to be images of the first Bronk freedpersons. In displaying these materials, this poster will encourage viewers to contemplate the interplay among these evocative visual and material remains, what is conveyed to the public about the Bronks, and what the very fragmentary historical record (such as the “free-born slaves” document) can tell us.