Betances believed in the abolition of slavery, inspired not only on written works by Victor Schœlcher, John Brown, Lamartine and Tapia, but also on personal experience, based on what he saw at his father's farm and in daily Puerto Rican life. Based on his beliefs, he founded a civic organization in 1856, one of many others that were later called the "Secret Abolitionist Societies" by historians. Little is known about them due to their clandestine nature, but Betances and Salvador Brau (a close friend who later became the official Historian of Puerto Rico) describe them in their writings. Some of these societies sought the freedom and free passage of maroons from Puerto Rico to countries where slavery had been abolished already; other societies sought to liberate as many slaves as possible by buying out their freedom.