Diana diZerega Wall

Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City

African Americans in antebellum New York City followed several different residence strategies in the face of ongoing discrimination. Most lived in enclaves, dispersed throughout poorer neighborhoods that were by no means primarily black. One such enclave was Little Africa. Some lived separately in places like Seneca Village, an African American community just outside of town. This study compares the residents of these two neighborhoods and suggests that the members of these groups were quite different from each other in a number of ways. Aggregation of these differences suggests that the groups represent different socioeconomic classes. This finding runs counter to the views of many commentators and scholars (including archaeologists) who talk about the “African American community,” implying that the African American population formed (and forms) a homogeneous whole.

The Changing Social Landscape of the City

When the Van Voorhis family returned to New York after the Revolution, they opened their silversmith shop on fashionable Hanover Square in the East Ward of the city (see Plate 1), the ward where most of the city’s wealthy families lived. In 1788, they moved to Queen Street, a block to the north in the same neighborhood, where they stayed until the mid-1790s. From then until 1803, when Van Voorhis left the trade, the family moved almost every year. Most years, they lived above the store, but some years, they lived away from it, in less expensive neighborhoods to the west or north of the East Ward. Each year, however, they kept their shop in or near the East Ward so that it would be accessible to their wealthy customers. Perhaps they lived away from the store when they could not find a house they could afford in the East Ward that was large enough to accommodate both their domestic and their work space.

The Ritualization of Family Meals II

In the 1780s, when Daniel and Catherine Van Voorhis had their silver and jewelry store on Hanover Square and lived there as well, their shop was located on the first floor at the front of the building, and their workroom was behind it. The couple and their younger children probably slept on the second floor above the store, the older children, apprentices, journeymen, and help sleeping on the third floor or in the attic. The women in the household prepared meals in the kitchen that was in the building’s back basement, and household members ate them in the combined dining-and-sitting room in the front basement. They started their day with breakfast and had their main meal—dinner—at midday. After evening supper, they often had their friends in for tea.1

Changing Household Composition

Daniel Van Voorhis, the silversmith, and Catherine Richards were married in 1775, just before the Revolution. Over the next quarter of a century, the couple maintained a very large household by today’s standards. They had a total of nine children—six boys and three girls (one of whom died in infancy)—over the 20-year period between 1776 and 1796. Six of them had been born by 1790, the year of the first Federal census. The household then consisted of sixteen individuals: six men 16 years of age or older, five boys younger than 16, and five women and girls.

The Separation of the Home and the Workplace

Daniel Van Voorhis, a silversmith, and his wife, Catherine Richards, were married in New York just before the Revolution. Like many patriots, they left the city during its occupation by the British army. Van Voorhis fought at the Battle of Princeton, where he was promoted to the command of his company by General Washington. He later became silversmith to the Continental Congress. After the war, when the British army had left the city, the couple returned to New York. There, they opened a gold, silver, and jewelry shop on Hanover Square in the East Ward in lower Manhattan (see Plate 1), and they lived above the store with their children, journeymen, and apprentices.