New Guinea Online Trail
Follow the footsteps of those who broke the chains of enslavement in New Guinea, but found expression of their newfound freedom elsewhere.
[You may scroll through from beginning to end, or jump to either of the two main sections with the tabs above].
This trail allows you to walk in the steps (virtually or literally) of two to three generations of persons of color who, in the words of Dr. A. J. Williams-Meyers "... were steadfast in weakening the molding of a materially dispossessed and dependent African by nurturing a materially affluent African."* Williams-Meyers was referring to any number of such free Black, mixed-race communities that sprang up and down the Hudson Valley prior to the Civil War, but then quickly receded.
These men, women, and children navigated a dangerous and uncertain path on the brink of the deadly Civil War in a community known as New Guinea, in the Town of Hyde Park, Dutchess County, New York. The name of the West African country was used in a broad and general way to refer to all persons of color. The community receded after the Civil War, but the name remained, at least in part. References to Guinea Bridge are found in newspapers into the 1960s.
Hyde Park was home to the nation's elite, slave owning families, and some of the most aggressive, pro-slavery arguments in the nation. The Crum Elbow Creek was an important tributary of the Hudson River that brought wealth to great estate owners who built and operated mills along its path.
By contrast, Hyde Park was also home to the Crum Elbow Meeting House, part of Dutchess County's large Quaker community (the largest such community outside of Philadelphia). Quakers at the Oblong Meeting House in the Town of Pawling, also in Dutchess County, were the first in the nation to call for a national ban on slave ownership by Quakers in 1767.
A Bright Spark Emerges
The New Guinea community emerged literally in the middle of the debate over slavery. To the west, great estate owners owned slaves, and James K. Paulding in particular was an outspoken national voice in favor of perpetuating the institution. By contrast, to the east, Quakers like the DeGarmo family assembled (and some are buried in the cemetery there) who were outspoken national voices calling for the abolition of slavery.
The rise and disappearance of the community is directly affected by conditions of freedom. The gathering of the community, it can be argued, was a result of the power that came from their collective engagement. It dispersal, certainly in large part, was due to the wish of newly empowered free persons to pursue a range of personal and family ambitions that could be better expressed and realized elsewhere. The second section of the trail, Where They Went Next, illuminates the variety of paths that rural Dutchess County persons of color took, including persons just outside of New Guinea.
We can consider the beginning inflection point as the 1776 publication of the Declaration of Independence, with its expressed principle and promise that all are created equal.
We can establish the end inflection point as the 1870 adoption of the 15th Constitutional Amendment, the third of three consecutive Amendments adopted after Civil War saw the death of 8% of the US population. The three amendments established, respectively: the abolition of slavery (13th); the guarantee of equal protection under the law regardless of race (14th); and the promise that voting rights will not be denied or abridged based on race (15th).
Before we begin on the trail, let's look at a few more comments from Dr. A. J. Williams-Meyers who expands on the role of this type of community, "In spite of what England intended the new cultural landscape to look like, Africans were steadfast in their input to the design. Free Africans with their landholdings in rural areas or owners of urban property and/or renters, carved out that 'social space' for themselves and family away from the prying, white eyes. They created caring, nurturing, and religious communities up and down the Hudson Valley… If not a predominantly African community (enslaved or free), many of them were mixed communities of African, European, and Native American descendants. Because they were caring communities, free of racial strife, interracial couples were attracted to them."
The trail begins just a few miles west of New Guinea at the US Post Office, which has many dimensions beyond what is visible on the surface.
You will walk in the footsteps of Quock QuockenBush, Betty Prime, Sol Garnett, Pompey Brown, and many others, who lived, worked, socialized, built their homes, and died and are buried here.
*Dr. A.J. Williams-Meyers, Contested Ground: Hinterland Slavery in Colonial New York, 2009.
