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Jan Rodriguez didn't know it at the time, but in many ways, he was an early American version of Robinson Crusoe.
A sailor of Afro-Portuguese descent, Rodriguez was abandoned on what is now Governor's Island by his shipmates following a shipboard dispute in 1613 and is thus considered the first non-indigenous resident of New York. He learned the local language, and married into the Rockaway Indian tribe. When the Dutch returned several years later, interested in setting up what would become Nieuw Amsterdam, he functioned as their guide, helping them get settled.
Rodriguez's story was being told on a dreary November afternoon by Debra Wexler, director of public programs at the South Street Seaport Museum, as she stood along the East River, a few blocks from her office. She was previewing a two-hour, already tightly booked walking tour that begins this Sunday, designed to highlight the contributions of Africans in lower Manhattan in the 17th and 18th centuries.
"In fact," she says, pointing down to the wharf, "the land we're standing on was created by slaves and indentured servants. In the 17th century the water line was Pearl Street." Africans did the landfill work that extended lower Manhattan to its current eastern end.
For many New Yorkers, the dominant historical image of a thriving African-American district is Harlem in the 1920s. But back when "uptown" meant somewhere near what is now Canal Street, there was a vibrant African community in the city, centered in lower Manhattan. The walking tour touches on aspects relating to slavery, the entrepreneurial activities of free blacks, and the abolitionist movement. It reveals a fascinating history that came before many well-known city landmarks.
The guided tour - which has been scheduled once a month through February - is offered in conjunction with the upcoming exhibit, "Captive Passage," a co-presentation of the South Street Seaport Museum and the Museum for African Art. It will be the inaugural show at the Seaport Museum's new 30,000- square-foot, five-floor, $21- million facility on Schermerhorn Row. The exhibit will feature artifacts from the slave trade, ranging from implements of oppression such as branding irons to aspects of resistance, such as the logbook of the ship Unity, which endured a slave...