Beacon Hill and the West End were home to the largest Black communities in Boston before the Civil War. Black Bostonians began to settle on the north slope of Beacon Hill in the late eighteenth century, and the population rose to over 1,000 people. Many of the Black activists who fought against both local racial discrimination and national slavery lived on Beacon Hill and in the West End. The African Baptist Church and African Meeting House, both constructed in 1806, were central to the community and served as venues for events and antislavery activism.