Where slaves used to build the erie canal?

Question

Where slaves used to build the erie canal?

Answer 1

No. Slavery was not legal in New York in the 1820s when the canal was built. Most of the physical labor was done by Irish immigrants, under sometimes very bad conditions. Particularly, in cutting through the Montezuma Swamp, there was lots of malaria.

Answer 2

the eerie canal was built long before slaves came to america...most of the people that built the canal were frontersmen and lowlife peons...i am sure there might have been a few blacks involved...but back in those days blacks werent really cared of as slaves and actually had freedom

Answer 3

No, the canal was built after slaves were made illegal. Slaves were used to build the Panama Canal though.  

Answer 4

they never did.

Answer 5

the erie canal was built after revolutionary war. duh

Answer 6

There may have been some, but they were not a significant portion of the workforce.  Most of the construction workers were Irish immigrants, many of whom settled in the towns that grew up along the completed canal.  The canal was some 360 miles long, and was built by multiple contractors, each of whom contracted to build a small segment of the canal.  Hiring workers was the responsibility of the contractors.  Some may have leased slaves from their owners.

The Canal was built between 1817 and 1825, and by this time there were not too many slaves remaining in New York to be hired out.  In 1799 the New York Legislature passed "An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery".  It provided for gradual manumission on the Pennsylvania model, which allowed masters to keep their younger slaves in bondage for their most productive years, to recoup their investment. The law freed all children born to slave women after July 4, 1799, but not at once. The males became free at 28, the females at 25. Till then, they would be the property of the mother's master. Slaves already in servitude before July 4, 1799, remained slaves for life, though they were reclassified as "indentured servants." The law sidestepped all question of legal and civil rights, thus avoiding the objections that had blocked an earlier bill.  The activity of kidnappers and cheats in selling slaves out of the state in spite of the laws fostered the 1817 statute that gave freedom to New York slaves who had been born before July 4, 1799 -- but not until July 4, 1827. Slavery was still not entirely repealed in the state, because the new law offered an exception, allowing nonresidents to enter New York with slaves for up to nine months, and allowing part-time residents to bring their slaves into the state temporarily. Though few took advantage of it, the "nine-months law" remained on the books until its repeal in 1841, when slavery had become the focus of sectional rivalry and the North was re-defining itself as the "free" region.

The Panama Canal was completed in 1909 and was not built by slaves.