CUNY Academic Commons

We have already completed many searches based on questions we are often asked. In these essays and lists, records on a topic are instantly presented to you with accompanying explanations. The first group of essays […]

Welcome to CUNY Academic Commons. Welcome to our freedom dreaming site!We need dreams where everyone can exist as they are, regardless of whatever makes us unique. We need to stretch the limits of […]

We have created easy and fast “TAG” searches that produce interesting topical results, such as the names of slave ship investors, records of slave sales, or the slaveholding status of NY State Senators. We also […]

by Ned Benton
How did John Cox and Andrew Cole escape from slavery in Mamaroneck Township during the 1770s and end up on Nova Scotia? The story of these two men, whose connection to Mamaroneck had been lost for […]

The Louisiana Slave Trade Database consists of more than 100,000 records of slave trade transactions from 1719 through about 1820.

We have indexed in the NY Slavery Records Index the records of trades of 32 […]

By Ned Benton

In the 1790s, slavery abolitionists faced a major political and legal barrier: many of the members of the New York State Senate were slave-holders. We have set up two search tags – “SEN1790” and […]

By Ned Benton (draft 7/4/2017)

Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and advocate for rights for women, was born as an enslaved person and named Isabella Baumfree. She endured slavery in New York from 1797 to 1828 […]

The New York Slavery Records Index (NYSRI) is moving to a new site – the Northeast Slavery Records Index. (NESRI) All of the records and features of the NYSRI are available at the NESRI. However, the Northeast […]