Abolitionist Brooklyn (1828 – 1849)

…membership]. 1849. Colonization Society of the State of New-York membership certificate to A. Hamilton Bishop. 1985.029. Brooklyn Historical Society. Prominent white men founded the American Colonization Society in 1816. The society received support from James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Brooklyn Savings Bank President Adrian Van Sinderen. Their aim was to send free people of color, born in the United States, to a col…

Crisis Decade (1850 – 1860)

…vania around 1810. By 1837, he had moved to Manhattan, where he ran a grocery and tea store stocked with “goods free from slave labor.” He moved to Williamsburg around 1841, when Willis Hodges, William Hodges and others began buying land and building a community. Nelson operated a “Hair Dressing & Shaving Saloon” at 45 4th Street which was also his place of residence. Like many black barbers, Nelson also had a long career as an activist. He s…

A Gradual Emancipation (1783 – 1827)

…annot account for it. Read more… Close May 18, 1815 My negro Will ran away. June 10, 1815 Bought a negro Jack from J. Mead. June 12, 1815 Negro jack who is free at 21 years or 28 according to law. Early Free Black Community Francis Guy. Winter Scene in Brooklyn, ca. 1819-1820. Oil on canvas, 58 3/8 x 74 9/16 in Brooklyn Museum, transferred from the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences to the Brooklyn Museum, 97.13. Brooklyn itself is a beaut…

Timeline

…ion called 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…

For Educators

…anti-slavery activism in Brooklyn. These documents are in PDF format and require Acrobat Reader. In Pursuit of Freedom outlines the development of the abolition movement in Brooklyn, a city on the rise, from the end of the American Revolution to the early days of Reconstruction. Three of Brooklyn’s leading cultural and educational institutions—Brooklyn Historical Society, Weeksville Heritage Center, and Irondale Ensemble Project—have come togeth…

Games

…by heirs or circumvented by lawyers and lawmakers. The establishment of an informal, self-reliant anti-slavery network, some members of the black community purchased their own freedom, with the intention of emancipation. Represented one of the everyday acts enslaved people engaged in to resist their bondage. A risky road to freedom, slaveholders regularly placed advertisements for the capture of “runaways” in local newspapers. From the early 180…

US Department of Education Resources

…rs that made Maryland a politically divided slave state, frequently impelling Marylanders of color to escape to freedom. From Slavery to Freedom at the Senator John Heinz History Center features a new 3,200 square foot long-term exhibition, an anthology The Civil War in Pennsylvania: The African American Experience (Heinz History Center, 2013), groundbreaking research displayed in the exhibit and online microsite, scholarly lectures at the museum…

Abolitionist Biographies

…xander Crummell and began his career as pastor of Abyssinian Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. In 1852, Freeman moved to Brooklyn, where he succeeded James N. Gloucester as pastor at Siloam Presbyterian Church. His tenure there lasted more than thirty years. established a flourishing Sabbath school at the church. In the 1860s, he led the African Civilization Society, in Weeksville, working to shift the organization’s focus from emigration…

Walking Tours

…new window WEEKSVILLE The financial panic of 1837 halted Brooklyn’s rapid urban transformation. One year later, free black New Yorkers took advantage of low property prices to intentionally establish the community of Weeksville as a self-sufficient haven for African Americans. Located in Brooklyn’s ninth ward, Weeksville was the most distant and secluded anti-slavery base from the city’s downtown area, thus it offered safety, refuge, and freedom…