Escape and Emancipation of Enslaved Laborers

Routes to Freedom

• Quicker routes to freedom for enslaved people included escape or direct emancipation by enslavers
• However, escape was dangerous, and voluntary manumission was rare

Legal Barriers

• Congress made harboring a freedom-seeking enslaved person a federal crime in 1793

Manumission in the North

• Few northern enslavers emancipated their own enslaved laborers
• In New York City, roughly one-fifth of white families owned enslaved laborers, but fewer than eighty enslavers voluntarily freed their enslaved laborers between 1783 and 1800

Slavery in the North

• By 1830, census data suggests that at least 3,500 people were still enslaved in the North
• Elderly enslaved people in Connecticut remained in bondage as late as 1848
• Slavery endured in New Jersey until after the Civil War

Census Data

• The 1830 US Census enumerates 3,568 enslaved people in the northern states, including:
  • Connecticut
  • Illinois
  • Indiana
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New York
  • Ohio
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • Vermont