From: Judith Wellman
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 12:12:47 -0500
To:forum@afrigeneas.com

Thanks so much for your quick reply and very helpful questions. I am so glad that others know of the very wonderful work that Weeksville's board and staff have done to preserve the legacy of this community. It is truly a remarkable story, both in its nineteenth century historical phase and in its rediscovery in the twentieth century. I am using the term "intentional community" because I can't think of a better or more accurate term. It does have overtones of such utopian experiments as the Oneida Community and the Shakers, but Weeksville was not like them because it was based on property ownership, entrepreneurship, and a capitalist economy. But it was deliberately created by African Americans, who purchased land for sale directly to African Americans. And it was created by people who were very politically aware. One of the earliest land speculators was Henry C. Thompson, president of the anti-colonization meeting in Brooklyn in 1832. It was also created in the context of race riots in NYC in 1834, the Vigilance Committee and anti-kidnapping efforts of the the mid-1830s, the rise of abolitionism in the 1830s, efforts in New York State to abolish the requirements that African American men own $250 worth of property in order
to vote (and people in Weeksville held a meeting to protest that
requirement). All of these, plus the high proportion of southern-born
residents (suggesting that Weeksville may have formed a haven both for free African Americans from the South and quite likely also for freedom seekers), the very high proportion of property holders, continuing debates about emigration to both Liberia and Canada, the presence in Weeksville of Junius C. Morel, who was a nationally-known correspondent for the North Star, Frederick Douglass's Paper, and the Christian Recorder, makes it seem as if Weeksville was created (and successfully became) a conscious alternative to living in European American dominated cities.

There are advertisements in the North Star and the New York Times in
1841, 1852, and 1855 directed to "colored people," advertising land for sale in Weeksville, and the community was almost entirely African American, as measured by residents listed in the censuses, until the late 1850s, when it began to be more mixed race.

Other African American communities that I know about (such as those in the Hudson Valley, on Long Island, and in New Jersey) seem to be much
smaller, generally rural, often made up of clusters of related families.

Any other examples would be much appreciated! Thank you so much for your response. It is so good to know there really are people out there who care!

Best, Judy Wellman

Judith Wellman
Historical New York Research Associates
2 Harris Hill Road
Fulton, New York 13069

315-598-4387
wellman@twcny.rr.com

Discovering extraordinary places in time.