I seem to remember in my history lesson that the slaves that were sold to the Jamestown settlement in 1619 were sold by the Dutch from New Amsterdam. Those slaves came from somewhere and were not native to the Americas so who did the slave trading of that day?
How is it that New York gets a pass on the slavery issue when in fact it started there, not in Virginia, and was (I believe) the largest slave owning state in 1787, due to the need to work the docks there, when the Constitution was written and adopted, and Manhatten is the location of the largest known slave cemetery anywhere in the United States. If New York wasn't the largest slave owning state then, it certain was right up there with those states.
New York was the most critical state necessary for the formation of the "new" United States with the abolishment of the Articles of Confederation? It was not necessary for any of the Southern states, including Virginia, to ratify the new 1878 Constitution for the present United States to be formed. That ratification only required 9 of the then 13 states. But, had New York not ratified that Constitution then the "new" United States would have been divided into two parts, those states north of New York and those south of New York. So contrary to state mottos New York, not Pennsylvania, was the KEYSTONE State. In fact New York was one of the LAST states to ratify that Constitution.
I am tired of this fault history that the slavery clause was placed in the Cosnstitution for the sole benefit of the 4 or 5 southern states in order to get them to ratify that Constitutuion. The southern states could have, and should have, formed their own country at that time and it would not have effected the formation of the United States under the Constitution. But the loss of the State of New York would have destroyed the entire concept.