manumissions

Updated: June 22, 2025

Dorsey, of Maryland, in a speech in Congress, December 27th, 1826, speaking of manumissions under that act, said, that "The progress of emancipation was astonishing, the State became crowded with a free black population."

American Anti-Slavery Society - The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4

However abundant allowance we make for increase by the excess of births over deaths, by immigration, and by manumissions, it is absolutely impossible to reconcile with the narrow limits of a territory of hardly 650 square miles the traditional numbers of the census, according to which the number of Roman burgesses capable of bearing arms in the second half of the third century varied between 104,000 and 150,000, and in 362, regarding which a special statement is extant, amounted to 152,573.

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome, Book II : From the Abolition of the Monarchy in Rome to the Union of Italy

In particular the rise of the Garrisonian agitation and the quickly ensuing Nat Turner's revolt occasioned together a wave of reactionary legislation the whole South over, prohibiting the literary instruction of negroes, stiffening the patrol system, restricting manumissions, and diminishing the already limited liberties of free negroes.

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips - American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime

They shall also procure and preserve a regular record of the marriages, births, and manumissions of all free blacks. IV. The Committee of Employ, who shall endeavor to procure constant employment for those free negroes who are able to work; as the want of this would occasion poverty, idleness, and many vicious habits.

Carter Godwin Woodson - The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the: United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War

The assembly on the other hand set to work at once on a more elaborate negro law which restricted manumissions, prohibited free negroes from holding real estate, and increased the rigor of slave control.

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips - American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime

Ibid., p. 39. "In Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting, a committee was kept steadily under appointment for several years to assist in manumissions, and in the education of the negro children. Religious meetings were frequently held for the people of color; and Haddonfield Monthly Meeting raised on one occasion 131 pounds, for the education of negro children.

Carter Godwin Woodson - The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the: United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War

An example occurred in the case of Rhame vs. Ferguson and Dangerfield, decided by the South Carolina Court of Appeals in 1839 in connection with a statute enacted by the legislature of that state in 1800 restricting manumissions and prescribing that any slaves illegally set free might be seized by any person as derelicts. George Broad of St.

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips - American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime

As the minds of men are at that time awakened to sentiments of humanity and piety, these deeds proceeded from religious motives. The same author remarks, That there are several forms of those manumissions still extant, all of them founded on religious considerations, and in order to procure the favour of God.

Anthony Benezet - Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants: An Inquiry into the Rise and Progress of the Slave Trade, Its Nature and Lamentable Effects

Whatever restraints of age, or forms, or numbers, had been formerly introduced to check the abuse of manumissions, and the too rapid increase of vile and indigent Romans, he finally abolished; and the spirit of his laws promoted the extinction of domestic servitude.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4

The ancient manumissions were those of individuals only, generally of but one at a time, and only now and then; whereas the emancipation, which we contemplate in the colonies, will comprehend whole bodies of men, nay, whole populations, at a given time.

Thomas Clarkson - Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies : With a View to Their Ultimate Emancipation; and on the Practicability, the Safety, and the Advantages of the Latter Measure.