manumit

If they were faithful and hardworking, the master would set them free, manumit them, when he died.

From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry

Mr. Darg testified of himself during the trial, that he never intended to manumit Thomas, and had made the promise merely as a means of obtaining his money.

From Isaac T. Hopper by Lydia Maria Francis Child

All persons who do voluntarily manumit their slaves, as mentioned above, are undeniably actuated by principles of pure patriotism, justice and humanity; and so believing, we delight to do them honor.

From The Impending Crisis of the South How to Meet It by Hinton Rowan Helper

Now that provision was made for the freedmen the slaveholder felt at liberty to manumit his slaves.

From The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 by Various

I felt that I owed my life to her faithful care, and I resolved to take her North, manumit, educate, and marry her.

From Iola Leroy Shadows Uplifted by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

A comparable process took place in Cuba after the Spanish-American War, when American sugar companies acquired 60% of rural properties across Cuba, reducing independent farmers—largely manumitted slaves and their descendants—to the level of low-wage labor.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026

Instead he’s manumitted by a combo platter of teen love and Paul Williams ballads.

From Salon ● May 29, 2017

But Tubman had plotted with Kessiah’s husband, who had been manumitted, to free his family.

From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2017

A slave woman and her children were manumitted by her husband, who had probably bought them to set them free.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 17, 2017

The united societies of New York and Philadelphia first took 120 slaves who had been manumitted by the late Dr. Hawes, of Va., and formed them into a colony.

From Discussion on American Slavery by Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge

“The evidence is pretty strong that Johns Hopkins was an abolitionist,” Crenson said, and the possibility exists that he owned enslaved people for the possibility of manumitting them.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 5, 2021

There is in existence a document manumitting his slave, which, I am happy to say, is the only existing evidence that any ancestor of mine ever owned one.

From Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 by George Frisbie Hoar

The next year, 1769, a mercenary spirit inspired and secured the passage of another Act levying a tax upon imported slaves, and requiring persons manumitting slaves to give better securities.

From History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

The cruel practice of manumitting aged and helpless slaves became so general in this plantation, that the General Assembly passed a law regulating it, in February, 1728.

From History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

The trial and equity courts contain records of litigation about slaves; of advice of chancellors to trustees seeking to make or change investment; of wills manumitting slaves; and a thousand other relevant matters.

From The Brothers' War by John Calvin Reed