Courtesy of the Library of Congress, the Manatus Map is the earliest map to fully depict Manhattan Island and its environment, which shows the extent of Dutch and Native American settlement. Captured from historical land deeds by the Greenwich Village Historical Preservation Society, the outlined polygons are farms that belonged to former ‘company slaves’ of the Dutch West India Company. Considered among the first African-owned settlements in North America, the Lans of the Blacks was composed of farms were used by the Dutch colonial administration to be a defensive buffer between the city in the south and First Nations up north. The last image illustrates where these African-owned farms were located on a present-day aerial of the West Village and surrounding neighborhoods. #PracticingDemocracy #ViewFromTheHighLine #DesigningForDemocracy #LandOfTheBlacks