Crisis Decade (1850 – 1860)

…4: Lesson 13 A generation of Brooklyn 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 st…

Abolitionist Biographies

…ommittee of Thirteen, a vigilance committee also opposed to emigration. The organization formed some time after 1850 and attracted other Brooklynites Junius C. Morel, John N. Still, and a number of other anti-slavery activists from New York. Towards the end of his life, Wilson died in poverty and relative obscurity. Mary (née Marshall) married William on November 2, 1837 in New York. She owned her own crockery and clothing store on Atlantic and w…

Timeline

…He detailed his experiences in the Life, History, and Unparalleled Suffering of John Jea, the African Preacher (1811). His autobiography offers a rare glimpse into the brutality of slavery in Brooklyn from the perspective of an enslaved person. * Jea states that his slaveholders were Oliver and Anjelika Treibuen in his autobiography. But historian Graham Hodges found no evidence of this couple living in Flatbush at that time. It is possible that…

Games

…African- American children and adults his home near James Street. Anna Maria Weems Anna Maria Weems, a fugitive from Maryland who was disguised a man during her escape, arrived at the home of Lewis Tappan on her way to Canada, a well- known abolitionist. Her escape was funded by an international anti- slavery network across Britain and the United States. African Methodist Church By the end of the 19th century, Brooklyn had a number of independent…

A Gradual Emancipation (1783 – 1827)

…He detailed his experiences in the Life, History, and Unparalleled Suffering of John Jea, the African Preacher (1811). His autobiography offers a rare glimpse into the brutality of slavery in Brooklyn from the perspective of an enslaved person. * Jea states that his slaveholders were Oliver and Anjelika Treibuen in his autobiography. But historian Graham Hodges found no evidence of this couple living in Flatbush at that time. It is possible that…

Walking Tours

…rification and a changing waterfront that mix remnants of its industrial past with modern luxury condos. But in 1838, Williamsburg was merely a village or small independent town within Bushwick (one of six towns in Kings County). It quickly transformed from a village to a town to a city before it was finally absorbed by Brooklyn in 1855. During this growth, it was home to a number of German immigrants and the second largest African American commu…

Abolitionist Brooklyn (1828 – 1849)

…n’s rapid urban transformation in the early nineteenth century. Following the Anti-Abolition Riot in Manhattan (1834), white abolitionists moved to the emerging city. While they focused on building a national campaign, black Brooklynites sustained the city’s anti-slavery movement by continuing to build strong communities. By 1834, Brooklyn evolved from Manhattan’s agricultural neighbor to a flourishing urban center with a city charter. Land specu…

Civil War & Beyond (1861 – 1867)

…eutenant Peter Vogelsang. Copy photograph of a carte de visite, originally taken by unknown photographer, circa 1863-1865. From the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment Photographs. Photograph number 72.64. Massachusetts Historical Society. Peter Vogelsang was among the thousands of ordinary black men who demonstrated their courage and patriotism while being subject to difficult conditions including ongoing discrimination, segregated ra…