Abolitionist Brooklyn (1828 – 1849)

…and laborers, mostly from Germany, transformed Williamsburg from a village (1827) to a town (1840) to a city (1852) that was eventually annexed to Brooklyn in 1855. Home to the second largest black community in Kings County, Williamsburg was a bastion of anti-slavery activity. [Public School 191]. Eugene L. Armbruster. 1929. Eugene L. Armbruster photograph and scrapbook collection. V1991.106.125. Brooklyn Historical Society. Teacher’s Manual Sec…

Crisis Decade (1850 – 1860)

…lyn industrialists, including the Pierrepont and Havemeyer families profited from the nation’s sweet tooth. In 1807, William Havemeyer, a German immigrant, opened a sugar refining business in Manhattan. Sugar was still a luxury commodity enjoyed by the city’s elite. By 1857, changes in technology allowed sugar to be cheaply produced. The Havemeyers relocated their business to Williamsburg, where they began to store and refine sugar on site and th…

Timeline

…the New-York Manumission Society, – a grassroots campaign for equality initiated by Brooklyn’s free black community. Their work was frequently met with hostility from Brooklyn’s landowners and farmers whose wealth was built on slavery. 1810 [Cover of Constitution of the Brooklyn African Woolman Benevolent Society] adopted March 16, 1810, published in 1820 by E. Worthington. Negative #85470d. Collection of The New-York Historical Society. Te…

A Gradual Emancipation (1783 – 1827)

…rooklyn’s anti-slavery movement. Through assistance, education and faith they created an independent and strong community foundation, on which free black Brooklynites built lives of self-determination and dignity, despite significant oppression. [Cover of Constitution of the Brooklyn African Woolman Benevolent Society] adopted March 16, 1810, published in 1820 by E. Worthington. Negative #85470d. Collection of The New-York Historical Society. Tea…

Abolitionist Biographies

…avery Activist, homeowner, businessman, downtown Brooklyn resident. Robert Cousins was born in Virginia around 1800 and moved to Brooklyn in 1840. There, he joined the AME Church and the Brooklyn African Tompkins Society, a mutual aid organization committed to the “improvement of the members in morals and literature, by forming a library and other appropriate means.” By 1850, Cousins, his wife Sarah, and their children Emaly, Charles, and Joseph…

Civil War & Beyond (1861 – 1867)

…n of the Anglo-African world, and much of the Anglo-American in the bargain.” Read more… Close The organizing committees consisted of Elizabeth Gloucester, Mary J. Lyons, Christiana Freeman, Mary Wilson, Sarah Morel, and Sarah Tompkins, all anti-slavery activists, whose husbands were prominent abolitionists as well. The fair raised $1,100 (or about $30,000 today) for the Colored Orphan Asylum. [Borough Hall with Montague Street on right]. 1880….

Games

…& Co. Sugar Refinery Havemeyer,Townsend & Co. Sugar Refinery opened on the Williamsburg Waterfront in 1856. Sugar was the largest luxury commodity to emerge from Brooklyn that relied on the labor of enslaved people. Freeman Murrows Freeman Murrows, an inventor, secured a patent for his “adjustable brush” for whitewashing and painting varnish in 1854. He is one of Brooklyn’s many African- American business owners that had to overcome many…