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New York Manumission Society
2 articles on New York Manumission Society
New York Manumission Society
Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass
Word Count: 1374 Includes: BibliographyBetween 1785 and 1849 the New York Manumission Society worked to end slavery and protect free blacks in New York City and across the nation. The organization was founded in 1785 by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton—both already major figures in American politics—along with wealthy Quakers such as John Murray Sr., John Murray Jr., and William Shotwell. Jay served as the society's first president. Although he and Hamilton performed few of the day-to-day duties of the organization, their presence lent prestige to the antislavery cause, expanding it from a narrow Quaker concern, as it had been for much of the eighteenth century, to a broadly conceived effort for the good of both the city and the country. The society's full name—“Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves and Protecting Such of Them as May Have Been ...
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Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 358Antislavery organization of white men who supported the gradual abolition of slavery and the betterment of African Americans. Manumission Societies emerged after the American Revolution to advocate the end of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the gradual abolition of slavery. Manumission, which entailed the formal and legal release of a slave, was the most common path to freedom. It could occur privately, by an individual slave owner, or officially, by state law. One of the most active and organized proponents was the New York Manumission Society, founded by Quakers on January 25, 1785, in lower Manhattan. Although many of its members were slaveholders, the New York Manumission Society actively pushed for better treatment of slaves and pursued legal action on behalf of slaves who had been mistreated or enslaved illegally. ...
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