Manumission in Late Eighteenth-Century Jamaica

Abstract

Manumission touched comparatively few slaves, but it proved to be an essential institution for the growth of Jamaica's free population-of-color. Heretofore, there have been no systematic studies of manumission records for the eighteenth century. This paper analyzes manumission deeds filed as official records in the island's Secretary's office during the 1770s. These documents are scrutinized in light of Edward Long's 1774 discussion on the free population and the manumission process. Despite white anxiety over the growth of the free-population-of-color, the data show that a wide cross-section of Jamaica's free-population liberated enslaved people for a variety of reasons, including cash payments that reflected market imperatives. While most enslaved people could never hope to find freedom in this fashion, the constancy of manumission had an enormous bearing on the makeup of the free population.