User:Jiarong Gong/sandbox

The Hendrick I. Lott House is a historic home located at 1940 East 36th Street between Fillmore Avenue and Avenue S, resting in the neighborhood known as Marine Park, in the New York Cityborough of Brooklyn, there lies one of the oldest Dutch Colonial farmhouses in Kings County. Ph D candidates who grew up in the neighborhood found windowless rooms inside the house. They believed that some slaves had slept in these rooms. Below the floors of these rooms, they found corncobs in star or cross shapes and other spiritual objects that showed mutual religious practices between slaves who worked there and Africans in West Africa. These spiritual objects were believed to serve as a purpose of connecting two worlds between the living and the dead. The Lotts held the most slaves in the neighborhood. Legal documents in 1803 showed that elders who were inefficient at the work field were valued less than those who were children and adults. After 1799 however, the value of all slaves began to decline. New York wanted to free slaves who were born after July 4, 1799 and served their masters until they turned 28 if the slaves were male. Females, on the other hand, can be freed by the age of 25 if they met the same qualifications. Slaves became more difficult to hold due to such actions made by the state. Therefore, the Lotts freed all but one of their slaves by 1805, long before the abolition of slavery in New York State in 1827.