Brooklyn Village

This chapter traces the history of Brooklyn, which enjoyed the advantage of location over the other five European settlements on the western end of Long Island. It mentions the European expansion into former Lenape land that was considered slow, even with the significant assistance of African slaves in the clearing and cultivation of new farms. The substantial involvement in the slave trade of Manhattan-based merchants in both the Dutch and English eras made New York and its hinterland a major center of African habitation in the northern American colonies. The chapter talks about Joshua Sands and Hezekiah Beers Pierrepont, who had important effects on Brooklyn's future. Their stories gain a glimpse of the city and suburb that flourished during the coming years and the close connection between the individual entrepreneurship and the communal religiosity of Brooklyn's Yankee leaders.