Primary Sources
This legal act outlawed the importation of enslaved Africans to the colony of Rhode Island in 1774.
https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/texts/hard-history/an-act-for-prohibiting-the-importation-of-negroes |
Slaves’ Petition for Freedom to the Massachusetts Legislature (1777)
www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/texts/hard-history/slaves-petition-for-freedom-to-the-massachusetts-legislature
An Act to Authorize the Manumission of Slaves (1782)
www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/texts/an-act-to-authorize-the-manumission-of-slaves-178
www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/texts/an-act-to-authorize-the-manumission-of-slaves-178
These documents tell the stories of three enslaved individuals who were manumitted by their owners around the turn of the nineteenth century.
glc.yale.edu/VoicesFromTheArchive/WhatdidFreedomMean/ManumissionByOwner
Manumission certificate for a slave named George, signed by Radcliffe and Riker, New York City, 24 April 1817. Reproduced by permission of the New York Public Library, Slavery and Abolition Collection. Text of certificate (written words italicized):
By Jacob Radcliff Mayor, and Richard Riker / Recorder, of the City of New-York, It is hereby Certified, That pursuant to the statute in such case made and provided, we have this day examined one certain [illegible] --- Negro Slave named George ----- the property of John [Delaney?] --- which slave is about to be manumitted, and he appearing to us to be under forty-five years of age, and of sufficient ability to provide for himself we have granted this Certificate, this twenty fourth day of April in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and seventeen [Signed] Jacob Radcliffe P Riker nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/identity/text2/manumissionlrg.htm |
The New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves
columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu/content/6-columbians-and-manumission-society
columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu/content/6-columbians-and-manumission-society