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)

…continued to rapidly expand, this time along its extensive waterfront. Sugar, tobacco and cotton – all valuable commodities produced by unfree labor – lined the city’s warehouses. By 1855, Brooklyn was central to the business of slavery. As sectional tension intensified, Brooklynites were divided on the issue of slavery. Residents were tested as a series of crises on slavery unfolded: the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), the Dred Scott Decision (1857)…

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

…n 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 were living at 201 Jay Street. Cousins owned $1500 worth of property making him eligible to vote. Cousins fundraised for various anti-sl…

Civil War & Beyond (1861 – 1867)

…selves, had emigrated to America to escape the horrors of Ireland’s devastating Potato Famine between 1845 and 1852. But they were greeted with discrimination and limited economic opportunities. Irish immigrants and African Americans competed for the same occupations as laborers, waiters, servants and washerwomen. Brooklyn Daily Eagle. July 10, 1863. Brooklyn Collection. Brooklyn Public Library. In March 1863, Congress passed the National Conscri…

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…

Walking Tours

…the heart of the burgeoning city. Brooklyn’s anti-slavery pioneers — free African Americans — lived here from 1810 onwards. They built institutions to combat racism on behalf of all people of color, especially when the end of slavery in New York State in 1827 came without equality. ↗ Open map in new window BROOKLYN HEIGHTS In the 19th century, Brooklyn urbanized rapidly. What began as the small village of Brooklyn, centered around the Fulton Fer…