*The first meeting of the New York Manumission Society was held on this date in 1785.
Their full name was 'The New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May be Liberated.' John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Noah Webster, and many slaveholders were among its founders. The term "manumission" is from the Latin meaning "a hand lets go." The members were motivated in part by the rampant kidnapping of free Blacks from the streets of New York and sold into slavery.
Several of the members were Quakers. Meetings were quarterly; the first meeting was at the home of John Simmons. At the second meeting on February 4, 1785, the group grew to 31 members, including Hamilton. The Society formed a ways-and-means committee to deal with the difficulty that more than half of the members owned slaves. The committee proposed a plan for gradual emancipation: members would free slaves younger than 28 when they reached the age of 35, slaves between 28 and 38 in seven years, and slaves over 45 immediately.
This proposal failed, however, and the committee was dissolved. New York ended slavery in 1827. The Society was disbanded in 1849 after its mandate was fulfilled. In 1787, they founded the African Free School to teach children of slaves and free people of color, preparing them for life as free citizens. The school produced leaders from within New York's Black community.
