John Hasbrouck
The history of Black people in New Paltz isn’t just the story of enslavement. A goal of the second grant was to conserve and digitize the papers of John Hasbrouck, born free to an enslaved mother, but bound by gradual manumission laws to serve the family of his mother’s enslaver. Gaining his full freedom between 1820 and 1830, his records help tell the story of emancipation and what lay beyond it for Black citizens in New York.