“The Little Stairway under the Bell”

Abstract

The Lott House in Brooklyn, one of the few remaining Dutch colonial farmhouses in New York City, was a place of multiple and transforming identities in encounters between persons of Dutch, English, and African descent. At one time the family was among the largest slaveholders in Brooklyn, yet they may have become abolitionists and used their house as part of the Underground Railroad. This chapter looks at the Lott family in the first half of the nineteenth century and how they fashioned and adapted their identities within the changing environment of antebellum America, particularly in relation to the people of African descent whom they owned, employed, or otherwise encountered. Making use of the built environment and archival evidence, the author argues that identity formation for the Lotts was a troubled endeavor, made difficult by the contradictory and sometimes clashing facets of their ethnic, religious, and social identities.