User:Adjoajo/guinea

Guinea Town Settlement, Hyde Park - Hudson Valley, New York was a thriving African American settlement in the 1790s to 1850 built by free Blacks and runaway enslaved Africans. The settlement is the oldest freed Black and runaway slave community in Long Island from the 1790s-1800s. It was a settlement of over 60 families at its' peak. Guinea Town was part of the underground railroad that assisted in the transport of runaway slaves to Nova Scotia, Canada.

Eliakim was a leader in the Black community of Guinea Town, in New York. Eliakim was a conductor on the Underground railroad. Guinea Town played a part in the underground railroad of transporting runaway enslaved Africans to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, which was a Quaker community. Eliakim worked with the Hicksite's on the Underground railroad. Hicksites were Quakers who were followers of Elias Hicks. Elias was an early Quaker abolitionists.

Drakeford Levi is a historian and researcher. His work is the reconstruct of Long Island and Guinea Town history, and to uncover its' role in the Underground Railroad.

In 2005 Drakeford Levi, George and Darril Fosty, created The Black Ice Project/Underground railroad project. Drakeford is also the founder and president of Dan San. His work is to identify connections between slavery, Downtown Brooklyn, and ice hockey. These projects and organizations are organizations of historians working towards identify Quaker families, free enslaved Africans, and runaway slaves that were part of the 1800s underground railroad network.

Primus Martin was another leader in the settlement of Guineatown. His home site is an archaeological site in Hype Park. Ceramic data has been found at the site. Ceramics that suggest by archaeologists that Primus had communal dining and tea drinking at his home. Which suggest that he was well established socially and possibly politically in the community. As stated by archeologists Christopher R. Lindner and Trevor A. Johnson in the book 'Guineatown in the Hudson Valley’s Hyde Park' in the chapter titled The Archaeology of Race in the Northeast.

In the 1860s, John Hackett bought land in the area of "Guinea" and built the Crum Elbow Farm. The community gradually dissolved.

There was a dispute as to who owns the remains that were excavated from the excavation site by Bard College Professor, Dr. Christopher Linder, and the Dutchess County Historical Society of New York. The area was home to free blacks that owned small farms and who worked for "elite' families along the Hudson river. The area where Primus and Elizabeth Martin stayed was the first area of the excavation project. They were community leaders of Guinea community.

Dr. Christopher Linder is the Director of the Bard Archaeology Field School, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bard Archaeologist in Residence, Bard College.

On December 22, 2017, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced 23 properties to be sites recommended by New York State Board of Historic Preservation for the state and national registry as a historic place. The New Guinea site located at East Market Street in Hyde Park, New York was one of them.