A Hudson Valley Reckoning

Available now!

Order now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Cornell (email me for a special discount code), or through my local independent bookstore, Politics & Prose.

A book about slavery, friendship, and a hidden history, A Hudson Valley Reckoning is published by Three Hills at Cornell University.

Both Eleanor Mire and I grew up knowing nothing of the history of slavery in the Hudson Valley. When we learned that New York’s two hundred years of slavery began in 1600s New Netherland and extended well into the 19th century, we were shocked. Even more surprising was what happened next. We realized we shared an ancestral home in the river towns of Greene County on the west bank of the Hudson. We also shared more than place. My ancestors enslaved Eleanor’s ancestors. That hard fact sent us on a dive into more research, and the truth that our connection was probably genetic.

I told our story in a 2020 Washington Post Magazine article, “History Lessons.” Now it’s a book, with an afterword by Eleanor, telling the story of our families what that legacy means today. I trace the Vanderzees, the Colliers, the Van Valkenburgs, the Van Bergens, and many others whose history has been only partially told until now. My friendship with Eleanor and the other descendants of the Vanderzee family brings our story full circle.

Praise for A Hudson Valley Reckoning

“An enthralling story and an important work of history, impressively researched and beautifully told. In reckoning with her own family’s history, Debra Bruno helps us better understand ourselves.”—Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life 

“In this fascinating and moving work, Debra Bruno reckons with the myths and realities of her family and our nation.  In doing so, she demonstrates the possibility of racial reconciliation on new ground: the hard-won truths of the histories of slavery and race that so many have tried to conceal. As we accompany her on her investigations into the Hudson Valley of colonial New Netherland and New York, to Civil War Georgia, Curaçao, and back to twenty-first century New York, Bruno brings alive the families and communities, black and white, and their difficult and inspiring stories.  Bruno's courage and empathy shine on every page. A necessary work of historical repair.” Leslie M. Harris, author of In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863.

“Debra Bruno takes her audience on a journey of discovery, exploring the erasure of the history of slavery in New York and among her ancestors in order to bring the impact and legacy of its omission from the historical record close to home. A Hudson Valley Reckoning will read like a cannon blast for those unfamiliar with this difficult past, grounding her family history in a deeply felt and lived understanding of the experience of slavery in the North.” Myra B. Young Armstead, author of Freedom's Gardener

"Debra Bruno has given us a heartfelt exploration of her own past, and ours. A woman with whom she corresponded during her research said she was once warned by her mother, “Be careful what you dig into. You might not want to know the answer.” Bruno wanted to know. Many people she encountered along the way told her they didn’t care to hear what she had learned. That attitude only made her want to dig deeper. She has unearthed a story of slavers and enslaved, a New York story, an American story." Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World

"There are important things to discover about America, things that often were not passed down by families.  Debra Bruno dug deep to find a complicated history in New York that goes back to the 17th century, back to the old Dutch families who came to the New World. This is an important account of the complexities of slavery that came with these people—and remained in place until a great Civil War ended it."—Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco and, most recently, Everyone Knows But You

“A Hudson Valley Reckoning tells an important story of erasure and recovery…This is a valuable contribution to the conversation about slavery in the American North and, perhaps even more critically, about the deliberate efforts to hide or forget this past.” Andrea C. Mosterman, author of Spaces of Enslavement

“This is a well-researched and fascinating history of Debra Bruno's extended family and their slaveholding past in the Hudson Valley, written in an accessible and engaging manner. If you have Dutch or African-American ancestors in New York, it is most likely part of your family history as well." Michael Douma, author of The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York