Underground Railroad Teaching Partnership of Long Island

The story of the Underground Railroad on Long Island depicts heroic deeds — deeds that can be woven together to reconstruct some of the earliest actions taken by enslaved Africans and the search for religious freedom by Quakers.

In 1626, the first enslaved Africans arrived in New Amsterdam. They were brought from Africa by the Dutch West India Company to work on their farms.

In 1664 the British defeated the Dutch in a war and acquired New Amsterdam. Charles II granted this settlement to his brother the Duke of York, who renamed it New York.

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