Saratoga National Historical Park
Schuyler House: Patriot, Enslaver, Landowner
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Philip Schuyler was an American patriot, major general, politician, entrepreneur and one of the wealthiest landowners in New York.
He was also an enslaver.
A serious guide has to say both.
The Saratoga estate operated as a large agricultural and industrial complex.
NPS documents sawmills, grist mills, a linen mill, fisheries, farms and leased lands.
Enslaved men, women and children performed essential labor here and at the family's Albany mansion.
The first federal census recorded fourteen enslaved people at this Saratoga estate in 1790.
The house standing today was built after the battles.
Retreating British troops burned the earlier house and outbuildings.
Schuyler rebuilt quickly in late 1777.
The present house is therefore both Revolutionary landscape and a statement of postwar wealth and recovery.
Americans often want the founding generation to resolve neatly into heroes.
They do not.
Schuyler helped the Revolutionary cause.
His prosperity depended in part on enslaved labor.
Recognizing the second fact does not cancel the first.
It changes the meaning of a Revolution fought in the language of liberty.
There is also a regional New York story here.
Slavery in the North disappeared gradually, not immediately after independence.
New York passed gradual-emancipation legislation at the end of the eighteenth century, but people remained enslaved for decades.
The Schuyler estate belongs inside that history.
For visitors from northern states, this can be uncomfortable precisely because it disrupts the simple sectional map many Americans learn: slavery South, freedom North.
The actual boundary was never that clean.