January 1799

New York's Gradual Abolition Act freed no living enslaved person. It provided only that children born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1799, would be freed — men at age 28, women at 25 — after decades of unpaid labor. Existing enslaved people remained property for life. Thousands remained legally enslaved in New York into the 1820s; the 1840 census still recorded a handful of enslaved individuals in New Jersey, which passed a similar 1804 act.

New York's Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery (July 4, 1799) declared that children born to enslaved mothers after July 4, 1799 would be free — but bound as indentured servants until age 28 (men) or 25 (women). Existing enslaved people were not freed. New Jersey followed in 1804. Complete abolition in New York did not occur until 1827. The law reflected the same pattern as Pennsylvania: freedom deferred, labor extracted, the children of enslaved women legally held in a status barely distin