The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 9, Number 1, Summer (June) 2020 | Page 21

James Fenimore Cooper’s Written Works
James Fenimore Cooper, National Portrait
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
In the Mohawk Valley, there was
a unique perspective of slavery. The
Palatine Germans, who eventually settled
in the Mohawk Valley, the Schoharie
Valley, and parts of Pennsylvania,
were formerly indentured servants of
the British government. Various Palatines
amassed wealth as a result of land
grants and trade. With wealth came the
necessity for labor, and the Palatines
used indentured labor, tenant farmworkers,
and the enslaved. The Herkimers—a
local prominent Palatine family—amassed
such wealth that they acquired
a reported thirty-three slaves,
which was an unusually large number in
this region. The will of General Nicholas
Herkimer, who left upon his death the
bulk of his estate to his brother George,