Bill Text: NY J00598 | 2023-2024 | General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Recognizing December 20-26, 2023, as the Week of the Commemoration of the First Black Revolt Against Slavery in the Americas

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2023-03-23 - REFERRED TO FINANCE [J00598 Detail]

Download: New_York-2023-J00598-Introduced.html

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Senate Resolution No. 598

BY: Senator JACKSON

        RECOGNIZING  December  20-26, 2023, as the Week of
        the Commemoration of the First Black Revolt  Against
        Slavery in the Americas

  WHEREAS,  This  Legislative  Body is justly proud to commemorate the
first historically recorded Black Antislavery Rebellion in the  Americas
on December 20-26, 2023; and

  WHEREAS,  On  the  "second  day  of  Christmas" in December of 1521,
African Black enslaved people  working  at  the  Montealegre  cane-sugar
plantation  west  of Santo Domingo City escaped from the plantation and,
with rage unforeseen by their Spanish colonial masters, marched  through
a   number  of  other  plantations  with  the  intention  of  recruiting
additional fellow slaves into their uprising to overthrow  the  colonial
local  regime that kept them in bondage and set enslaved black people in
the island-colony free; and

  WHEREAS, The sugar plantation owner and slave master  against  whose
power  the  1521  rebel  slaves  revolted  was no other than the highest
political authority of colonial La Espanola and of  the  entire  Spanish
empire  as  it existed at the time on the Caribbean islands and parts of
the Mainland,  namely  governor  and  viceroy  Diego  Columbus,  son  of
Christopher  Columbus  and heir of the political titles conferred to his
father by the Spanish Kings in reward for facilitating Spanish  dominion
over additional territories in the Americas; and

  WHEREAS, With the benefit of superior weapons and after about a week
of  chasing  and  fighting,  the  Spaniards quelled the insurrection and
restored the overall order to La Espanola's slaveholding society, but so
much fear was generated by the revolt among  the  colonists'  population
that  colonial  authorities  had  to  quickly resort to promulgating new
ordinances that included very harsh punishments and  death  penalty  for
those who incurred in any form of resistance or disobedience against the
slavery-based political and social order; and

  WHEREAS,  The  Santo  Domingo  black  slaves'  insurrection  of 1521
generated such a great degree of concern among the colonial  authorities
of  La  Espanola that maintained a slave-holding social order as to move
said authorities  to  issue  a  distinctly  severe  and  harsh  code  of
ordinances  to  control  and  punish the enslaved Black population of La
Espanola, the oldest "black code" of the Americas whose  text  has  been
archivally preserved; and

  WHEREAS,  Awareness and knowledge about the 1521 Santo Domingo slave
rebellion and the ensuing 1522 first instance  of  a  "black  code"  has
until  very  recently  remained  limited, and for too long confined to a
miniscule number of people, especially  a  limited  number  of  scholars
specializing  in  the  research  and  writing  about  the  beginnings of
European conquest and colonization of the Americas; and

  WHEREAS, In 2019, the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute at  The  City
College  of  New  York published the first academic monograph devoted to
the black slaves' rebellion of 1521 in Santo Domingo, disseminating  for

the  first  time  images,  transcriptions  and  translations of the 16th
century archival sources about the rebellion,  including  the  chronicle
about  it  and  the  text  of the subsequent "black laws" enacted by the
colonial  authorities  as  a  response;  CUNY DSI continues to engage in
research to further clarify important facts pertaining to the rebellion,
as it has been the case of an archaeological  survey  in  Santo  Domingo
during  the summer of 2021 in search for the probable location where the
rebellion started; and

  WHEREAS, Furthermore, CUNY DSI, the Black  Studies  Program  at  the
City  College  of  New  York and Centro Cultural Eduardo Leon Jimenes in
Santiago, Dominican Republic, have sponsored a  large  academic  virtual
conference  on  December  2nd  and 3rd of 2021, to commemorate the 500th
Anniversary of the rebellion by convening scholars and artists to  share
the  most  recent knowledge about black resistance in the early colonial
Americas, further contributing to public awareness  on  these  important
historical events; and

  WHEREAS,  The  Santo  Domingo  slave  rebellion of 1521 is the first
known direct and open confrontation of  enslaved  Black  people  against
their  enslavers  in  the Americas in modern times on which a historical
archival record exists, and it provoked the production and enacting also
in Santo Domingo in 1522, of the first known set of colonial  ordinances
specifically  targeted at black slaves and black people in the Americas,
initiating a centuries-long trend of production of officially sanctioned
legal systems to further control  and  subjugate  black  people  in  the
Continent; and

  WHEREAS,  The Santo Domingo slave rebellion of 1521 initiated a long
trend of revolts by Black slaves in La Espanola and  the  Americas  that
challenged slavery during subsequent centuries, and it is vivid proof of
the  relentless  struggle  for  freedom  and  dignity by people of black
African ancestry since the earliest  dates  of  their  presence  in  the
Continent; and

  WHEREAS, The pioneering historical significance of the Santo Domingo
1521 Black slave rebellion is a powerful source of inspiration for civic
action  aimed  at the elimination of injustice and the establishment and
consolidation of human freedom and equality, and thus should be part  of
the  collective  historical  memory  of all freedom-loving people in the
Americas, including the people of the United States and the State of New
York; and

  WHEREAS, The public collective memory about the Santo  Domingo  1521
Black  anti-slavery rebellion, together with all other past instances of
people's resistance against slavery and oppression either in colonial or
contemporary times should be facilitated by teaching in  public  schools
at all levels and by instruction and research in our universities; and

  WHEREAS, New York State has traditionally been, and continues to be,
the  largest  hub of Dominican-American population in the United States,
and the collective heritage of Dominican-Americans is an  integral  part
of   the   cultural   and   social   mosaic  of  the  communities  where
Dominican-Americans reside; and

  WHEREAS, New York  State  welcomes  and  embraces  the  legacies  of
fighting  for  the achievement of freedom and equality brought in by its

immigrant citizens and  their  children  from  around  the  world;  now,
therefore, be it

  RESOLVED,  That  this  Legislative  Body  memorialize Governor Kathy
Hochul  to  proclaim  December  20-26,  2023,  as  the   Week   of   the
Commemoration of the First Black Revolt Against Slavery in the Americas.