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 Child, Lydia Maria Francis

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

From A Romance of the Republic by Child, Lydia Maria Francis

I have entreated him, for the sake of our unborn child, to manumit me, and he has promised to do it.

From A Romance of the Republic by Child, Lydia Maria Francis

When he agreed to manumit the man for one hundred and fifty dollars, he expected these suits would be dismissed, of course, as a part of the bargain.

From Isaac T. Hopper by Child, Lydia Maria Francis

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

Enslaved people who had been manumitted and allied fighters in times of conflict were likely to be granted citizenship.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

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

There were in them all about 4,000 colonists, a great portion of whom were manumitted slaves.

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

“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

Much as he had blamed Mr. Duncan for negligence in not manumitting her mother, he had fallen into the same snare.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 by Various

I am not the man who enslaved them; they are indebted to Englishmen for that favor; nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery.

From A Social History of the American Negro Being a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia by Brawley, Benjamin Griffith

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 Coombs, Norman

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 Williams, George Washington