Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) apparently needs a refresher on the  history of her borough, after she suggested on “The Colbert Report” that slavery  persisted in the United States until 1898.

“Some have called Brooklyn’s decision to become part of New York City ‘The  Great Mistake of 1898,’ ” Colbert said, asking her about the history of her home  borough. “If you could get in a time machine and go back to 1898, what would you  say to those Brooklynites?”

“Knowing what I know now… I would say to them, ‘Set me free,’ ” Clarke responded.

“From?” asked Colbert, giving her an out that she didn’t take.

“Slavery,” she replied.

“I’m pretty sure there wasn’t slavery in Brooklyn in 1898,” said the comedy  show host.

“I’m pretty sure there was,” said Clarke, without any hint that she might be  joking.

“It sounds like a horrible part of the United States that kept slavery going  until 1898,” said Colbert.

Clarke went on to say that if she was enslaved, she would have been enslaved  by the Dutch.

Slavery was outlawed in 1865 by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And  the Second Peace of Westminster, which ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War, ceded  New York (once New Netherland) to the British hundreds of years before  that.