Crossed Paths

I have been listening to the Librivox edition of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. In the final chapter he introduced a brief autobiographical moment with "My grandfather's grandmother was seized by an evil Dutch trader two centuries ago; and coming to the valleys of the Hudson and Housatonic, black, little, and lithe, she shivered and shrank in the harsh north winds...." I thought, "I wonder..."

We have traced one branch of my wife, K's, family back to Hugo Freer, one of the twelve patentees of New Paltz, New York, in the late seventeenth century. They were French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution. They obtained their patent from the Dutch colonists. When we visited the Huguenot Street Historic Site in New Paltz we were shocked to learn that the original families kept slaves, whom they obtained in trade with the Dutch. Du Bois is obviously a French name. I wondered if K's ancestor and Du Bois's ancestor crossed paths.

There is this: Per Wikipedia, "W.E.B. Du Bois is said to be grandson of a loyalist descendant of Louis Du Bois' brother who left for the West Indies." Louis Du Bois is another New Paltz patentee. Louis Du Bois, himself owned six slaves, according to records. So, maybe. K's ancestor and Du Bois's ancestor may well have crossed paths.

Strange to think that people fleeing oppression would turn to oppressing others. Strange to think this occurred in the "enlightened" north. New York did not completely ban slavery until the 1820's.

- J