Seneca Village: A Story of Black Freedom and Manhattan Real Estate

About this book

In Seneca Village, Alexander Manevitz showcases the ideas of freedom that underpinned this remarkable community, built in upper Manhattan with the intent to foster Black social, economic, and political self-determination. Between 1825 and 1853, free African Americans bought land and built an innovative settlement that eventually included approximately 300 Black and white residents, three churches, two cemeteries, and a public school. Then, through the 1850s, New York City forcibly evicted the residents, seized the land, and destroyed the buildings, burying this thriving neighborhood under the landscape of the new Central Park. In this most in-depth investigation to date of Seneca Village, Manevitz reconstructs the essential history of the community from the overlooked traces they left behind, focusing on the interconnected lives of Seneca Villagers and the daily work of liberation. Decades before the national reckoning of the Civil War and Reconstruction, they honed a vision of Black freedom on their own terms and fought to create space for themselves and each other in a country that promised liberty for all but denied it to many.

Details

Format

Paperback

ISBN-13

9781501790973

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published

November 15, 2026

Pages

306

Weight

14.6 oz

Subject

History