This congresswoman made a century mistake. Apparently she meant the 1700s / 18th century, not the 1800s. There was slavery in New York state, including Brooklyn and the rest of New York City, until 1826. There were Dutch slave auctions beginning in the 1600s; at one point, nearly half the households in the state, including that part of New York, owned slaves - 47%. During the Revolutionary War, the British offered freedom to any slave who would fight for the royalist side, and after the end of the war many of those freed slaves continued to live in New York City. The state of New York phased out slavery by declaring children born to slaves would be free, but had to serve a period as indentured servants first, compensating slave owners for giving up their claims on them as property, until slavery was outright abolished.
What the Congresswoman is getting wrong about the significant date of 1898 (I had to look it up) is that was when Brooklyn was annexed into the rest of New York City as one of the five boroughs. It had nothing particularly to do with slavery or freeing slaves. At the time, Brooklyn was the third or fouth largest city in the U.S.. and had the largest population of black people of any northern colony / state during the 17th, 18th and well into the 19th centuries. That might have something to do with the otherwise imexplicable mistake about the facts of slavery, as part of getting her centuries mixed up here by the Congresswoman. I expect this poor woman is going to be mortified when her office and her constituents call her on this; it is a big thing about her district to get wrong.
An interesting historic observation, the Brooklyn flag dates back to those Dutch settlers, including the slavers, with the motto, still in the original Dutch, Eendraght Maeckt Maght, which translates into Unity makes strength, relating to the unity among the different Dutch cities, which at the time New York was under the authority of the Dutch included the Bronx which was a spelling variant for Jonas Broncks, the Dutch founder. The Bronx were annexed to NYC at the same time as Brooklyn in 1898, so I guess you could say they continued their earlier unity, in a new 19th century adaptation.
It looks like Cobert did his homework; all things considered, he could have been rougher on her. But he did work her mistake pretty thoroughly. It underlines the importance of knowing history, or you might be doomed to worse things than repeating it.
What the Congresswoman is getting wrong about the significant date of 1898 (I had to look it up) is that was when Brooklyn was annexed into the rest of New York City as one of the five boroughs. It had nothing particularly to do with slavery or freeing slaves. At the time, Brooklyn was the third or fouth largest city in the U.S.. and had the largest population of black people of any northern colony / state during the 17th, 18th and well into the 19th centuries. That might have something to do with the otherwise imexplicable mistake about the facts of slavery, as part of getting her centuries mixed up here by the Congresswoman. I expect this poor woman is going to be mortified when her office and her constituents call her on this; it is a big thing about her district to get wrong.
An interesting historic observation, the Brooklyn flag dates back to those Dutch settlers, including the slavers, with the motto, still in the original Dutch, Eendraght Maeckt Maght, which translates into Unity makes strength, relating to the unity among the different Dutch cities, which at the time New York was under the authority of the Dutch included the Bronx which was a spelling variant for Jonas Broncks, the Dutch founder. The Bronx were annexed to NYC at the same time as Brooklyn in 1898, so I guess you could say they continued their earlier unity, in a new 19th century adaptation.
It looks like Cobert did his homework; all things considered, he could have been rougher on her. But he did work her mistake pretty thoroughly. It underlines the importance of knowing history, or you might be doomed to worse things than repeating it.
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