Crisis Decade (1850 – 1860)

…succeeded in escaping. She traveled from Washington, DC to Philadelphia and onwards to Brooklyn disguised as a young boy named Joe Wright. She spent two days at Lewis Tappan’s home, where his wife Sarah used $63 from the Weems Ransom Fund to buy Ann Maria new clothes, so she could discard the boys clothing she had used to escape. On November 30, she traveled by train to Canada with Amos Freeman, pastor of Brooklyn’s Siloam Presbyterian Church. W…

US Department of Education Resources

…tudents, grades 4-12; an original theater piece that premiered at the Irondale Theater in May of 2012; a new website; a public memorial in downtown Brooklyn to honor the anti-slavery movement in Brooklyn; walking tours of Brooklyn’s abolitionists’ and URR sites; and a series of public programs scheduled for the next five years. Legacy of Slavery in Maryland preserves and promotes experiences that have shaped the lives of Maryland’s African…

Civil War & Beyond (1861 – 1867)

…ter. Few could have foreseen its immense and devastating consequences. At the end of the War, emancipation came without equality. During Reconstruction, African Americans in Brooklyn and beyond faced intense hostility and difficulties with education, employment, housing, and voting. Nevertheless, Brooklyn’s abolitionists and anti-slavery activists continued the struggle for equality, using their proven organizing skills to help rebuild the nation…

Timeline

…of slaveholders. And people assisting fugitives could be fined or imprisoned. The pamphlet, issued by the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society led by Lewis Tappan, sold 13,000 copies within three weeks of its first printing. 1859 John Brown. ca. 1865. Civil War veterans portrait albums. V1981.5.89. Brooklyn Historical Society. We consider you a model of true patriotism.” (Female Brooklyn Residents to John Brown) “The Lawless & Unchristi…

Abolitionist Brooklyn (1828 – 1849)

…The Panic of 1837 led to a decade-long economic depression that ended Brooklyn’s rapid growth. Reduced property prices enticed black New Yorkers to buy land. In doing so they confronted an 1821 amendment to New York State’s constitution which introduced a $250 property requirement for black men to vote while removing all qualifications for white men. Owning property became a political tool that allowed black men to be counted as full citizens wit…

A Gradual Emancipation (1783 – 1827)

…. Teacher’s Manual Section 1: Lesson 4 Gradual emancipation laws favored slaveholders not the enslaved. Sine, a young African American girl living in Brooklyn in 1825 was not legally enslaved. But her indenture to Jacob Duryee of Flatbush required that she work uncompensated from the age of eight to ten. Her service should have ended on July 4, 1827, when slavery was abolished in New York State. However, it is difficult to say whether Sine was ev…