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

He could not in Alabama legally manumit his slaves.

From The Abolitionists Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights by John F. (John Ferguson) Hume

At an early period, it became an established rule of discipline for the Society to disown any member, who refused to manumit his bondmen.

From Isaac T. Hopper by Lydia Maria Francis Child

"How was it possible that Mr. Royal neglected to manumit her?" inquired the young man.

From A Romance of the Republic by Lydia Maria Francis Child

Friend Hopper cherished some hope that this preaching and praying slaveholder would eventually manumit his bondmen; but I had listened to his conversation, and I thought otherwise.

From Isaac T. Hopper by Lydia Maria Francis Child

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

Some years ago the Rev. William King, a slave owner in Louisiana, manumitted his slaves and removed them to Canada.

From Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject by E. N. Elliott

“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

Nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery.

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

This practice received highly favorable social sanction, and masters often celebrated national holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and other special events by manumitting one or more of their favorite slaves.

From The Black Experience in America by Norman Coombs

Manumiss′ion, act of manumitting or setting free from slavery.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various

No wonder human forbearance was strained to its greatest tension when masters, thus liberating their slaves, assumed the lofty air of humanitarians who had actually done a noble act in manumitting a slave!

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