“We Shall Never Be Quite Safe”

This chapter investigates examples of insubordination, ranging from the unruly behavior of the city's laboring class in the streets, marketplaces, dock areas, and taverns to the remarkable bids for freedom on the part of runaway servants and slaves. It points out that the largely unregulated population flows moving in and out of the port of New York compounded the problem of policing the city's servile population. It notes that the British war policy marked the abandonment of the long-standing disciplinary mechanism of governing the rulers and the majority settler population by cultivating a shaded interest between the rulers and the ruled in subjugation of the black population.

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