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The Rise and Influence of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief, 1808-1865
The history of the African societies of New York City shows that early African aid associations performed critical social functions in the black communities of Manhattan and Brooklyn.(2) The ephemeral New York African Society (ca. 1784) established the tradition of African-American cooperative institutions and its influence was a motivating factor in the formation of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief (NYASMR). The NYASMR quickly became black New York's leading secular association and it helped to guide the organizational life of the black communities of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Partly because of the African Society for Mutual Relief's success, black people turned to aid associations to meet specific charitable, social, and educational needs.
On 6 June 1808, a meeting of black men at the Rose Street Academy in Manhattan gave rise to the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. In the preceding months, a group of black men -- led by William Hamilton and William Miller -- began "devising means to administer assistance to those of their friends, whom the vicissitudes of time or the freaks of fortune might reduce to want." Several sessions were held to plan the organization's structure, and the original agreements limited membership to mechanics of color. That focus was intended to avoid the fate of the earlier African society which was in the process of folding under financial strain. "But after more mature deliberation, the gentleman concluded, that to open the door for the admission of all moral characters of color, would be to lay a good foundation for the improvement of morals among us," wrote an officer.(3)
On June 6, the constitution was adopted and the officers were elected. William Hamilton was to be president, John Teasman was vice-president, Daniel Berry was named treasurer, Henry Sipkins was secretary and Adam Carman his assistant, while Daniel Brownhill, Adam Ray, James McEwen, Henry Rouse, Samuel Charley, Richard Tankard, Samuel Clause, Benjamin Slighter, and Peter Vogelsang served on the first Standing Committee. With a clear sense of the uncertain future of black people in the Northern states, they declared:
We the undersigned subscribers, duly reflecting upon the various vicissitudes of life, to which mankind are continually exposed,...