The New York Manumission Society was an early American organization founded in 1785 to promote the abolition of the slavery of African descendants within the state of New York. The organization was made up entirely of white men, most of whom were wealthy and held influential positions in society. Throughout its 71-year history, which ended in 1849,[1] the society battled against the slave trade and for the eventual emancipation of all the slaves in the state; it founded a school for poor and orphaned children of slaves and freemen.
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John Jay had been a prominent leader in the antislavery cause since 1777, when he drafted a state law to abolish slavery. The draft failed, as did a second attempt in 1785. In 1785, all state legislators except one voted for some form of gradual emancipation. However, they did not agree on what civil rights would be given to the slaves once they were freed. In 1799, an emancipation bill passed by not mentioning the subject of civil rights for freed slaves at all.[2][3]
Jay brought in prominent political leaders such as Alexander Hamilton. He also worked closely with Aaron Burr, later head of the Democratic-Republicans in New York. The Society started a petition against slavery, which was signed by almost all the politically prominent men in New York, of all parties and led to a bill for gradual emancipation. Burr, in addition to supporting the bill, made an amendment for immediate abolition, which was voted down.
Jay founded the New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May be Liberated or the New York Manumission Society, and became its first president in 1785.
The organization was originally composed of Jay and a few dozen close friends, many of whom were slave-owners at the time. The first meeting was on January 25, 1785, at the home of John Simmons - who had space for the nineteen men in attendance since he kept an inn. Robert Troup and Melancton Smith were appointed to draw up rules; Jay was elected President. There were 31 members at the second meeting on February 4, including Alexander Hamilton.[4] Several of the members were Quakers.
The Society formed a ways-and-means committee to deal with the difficulty that more than half of the members, including Troup and Jay, owned slaves themselves (mostly a few household servants). The committee reported a plan for gradual emancipation: members would free slaves younger than 28 when they became 35, slaves between 28 and 38 in seven years time, slaves over 45 immediately. This was voted down; and the committee dissolved.[5]
This society was instrumental in having a state law passed in 1785 prohibiting the sale of slaves imported into the state and making it easy to manumit slaves either by a registered certificate or by will. In 1788 the purchase of slaves for removal to another state was forbidden, they were allowed trial by jury "in all capital cases," and the earlier laws about slaves were simplified and restated. The emancipation of slaves by the Quakers was legalized in 1798. At that date there were still about 33,000 slaves statewide.[6]
The Society organized boycotts against New York merchants and newspaper owners involved in the slave trade. The Society had a special committee of militants who visited newspaper offices to warn publishers against accepting advertisements for the purchase or sale of slaves.
Another committee kept a list of people who were involved in the slave trade, and urged members to boycott anyone listed. As historian Roger Kennedy reports,
"Those [blacks] who remained in New York soon discovered that until the Manumission Society was organized, things had gotten worse, not better, for blacks. Despite the efforts of Burr, Hamilton, and Jay, the slave importers were busy. There was a 23 percent increase in slaves and a 33 percent increase in slaveholders in New York City in the 1790s."[7]
The Society lobbied, beginning in 1785, for a state law that would abolish slavery in New York, as all the other northern states (except New Jersey) had done. Considerable opposition came from the Dutch areas upstate (where slavery was still popular),[8] as well as from businessmen in New York who profited from it. The two houses passed different emancipation bills and could not reconcile them. Nevertheless, every member of the New York legislature, but one, voted for some form of gradual emancipation, but no agreement could be reached on the civil rights of freedmen afterwards. Success finally came in 1799, when the Society supported a bill which said nothing about such rights. Jay signed this statement into law as governor.[9]
The Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery 1799 declared that, from July 4 of that year, all children born to slave parents would be free. It also outlawed the exportation of current slaves. However, the Act held the caveat that the children would be subject to apprenticeship. These same children would be required to serve their mother’s owner until age twenty-eight for males, and age twenty-five for females.
The law defined the children of slaves as a type of indentured servant, while scheduling them for eventual freedom.[10] The last slaves were emancipated by July 4, 1827; the process was the largest emancipation in North America before 1861.[11]
Other anti-slavery societies directed their attention to slavery as a national issue. The Quakers of New York petitioned the First Congress (under the Constitution) for the abolition of the slave trade. In addition, Benjamin Franklin and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society petitioned for the abolition of slavery in the new nation; but the NYMS did not act. (Hamilton and others felt that Federal action on slavery would endanger the compromise worked out at the Constitutional Convention, and so the new United States.) [12]
In 1787, the Society founded the African Free School.[13]