Comments on the significance and context of the manumission
documents
Note: The following comments are excerpted from E-Mail exchanged with
Mr. David Diamond during his search for these documents. He has kindly granted
us permission to use his comments to provide a historical context. At the
time of this writing, Mr. Diamond is still searching for information in
connection with the Lewelling/Luelling family and their role in this portion
of history. Anyone who is able to supply more information may contact Mr.
Diamond at dhd@dana.ucc.nau.edu.
You may not know what these records represent, and I'll pass along
a few comments. All of these manumissions are dated November 13, 1835, and
they record the purchase of slaves in and around Perquamins County, North
Carolina by a remarkable group of anti-slavery Quakers in that southern
state.
Because of their historic rejection of slavery, most of the Quakers from
that Piedmont Carolina county departed and moved north into Indiana, settling
mainly in Wayne, Henry and other counties. Althea Coffin, one of this group,
recorded 400 Quaker families who left that part of NC for your part of Indiana,
roughly in the period 1820-1840. Considering that families were large and
multi-generational, we may assume that some few thousands made the move.
Before and during this exodus (which has been studied by Indiana historians
and others), some of the Friends Meetings (the local Quaker congregations)
actually purchased slaves from their owners and cared for them until they
could be transported into a free state. David White, who signed all the
certificates on your website, was an agent for the Yearly Meeting of the
Society of Friends in North Carolina, and he brought the black individuals
and families named in the documents, filing certificates of manumission
in an officially free state--Indiana. Note that by this time, freeing slaves
was not legal in North Carolina.
I am researching one of those North Carolina families which left for Indiana
about 1822. The familiy's informal history (I am not related) says that
they brought slaves north and freed them. My original contact to you was
to determine if records existed that might confirm or deny the claim. Their
name does not appear in these records. You may note that on page 4, that
the certificate that manumits Willis Perry, was witnessed by Levi Coffin
and John Fellow. Levi Coffin has achieved everlasting fame for his work
with the underground railroad, of which these emancipations may have been
a part.
You can see by these documents that David White liberated 26 persons from
slavery in North Carolina by these instruments of manumission. The date
Nov. 13th 1835 that precedes each document probably represents the date
each was recorded at the courthouse. The documents were executed on the
3rd and the 11th of October, 1835. We cannot conclude from these documents
that all twenty six arrived in Indiana together (one baby was born after
arrival in Indiana), but considering the distance and time of transit involved,
it is likely that White led the group northward as a unit. Note also that
the five transactions resulted in the reunion of three families which had
been split apart by sales to different owners in North Carolina.
I should also add that it is likely that David White's stated personal purchase
of Willis Perry and Job Felton--heads of two of the families--was probably
accomplished with church (North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends) funds.
There is a bit of literature on these abolitionist North Carolina Friends.
Cecil Eaton, some decades ago, concluded that their departure significantly
depleted that state of a force for freedom of thought that led to the closing
of the southern mind regarding slavery. But the fact is, the Quaker form
of "liberation politics" was not aggressive and would not have altered the
trend toward increasing inflexibility.
The value of slaves increased significantly after 1800 with the technological
advances that made cotton king. States like Virginia and NC ended up exporting
these poor workers into the deep South where the cotton industry especially
flourished.
Indiana turned out not to be such a fine place for free blacks, for the
state passed a law requiring they each post a $500 bond on entry. Other
unfriendly laws were passed, and Quaker Meetings petitioned the state legislature
to change them. Folks like Henderson Luelling, the subject of my study,
left Indiana for freer territory. Many of those who remained did work in
the underground railroad and it is my impression that less than a quarter
of them are known to us today. They were not crusaders and they did their
work with stealth and secrecy. Luelling moved on to Iowa (then part of Wisconsin
Territory) in 1837 and became a public antislavery activist, assisting a
branch of the underground railroad that bore new freemen out of Missouri--a
much more violent state than North Carolina.
It is still my hope to uncover documentation that Henderson's father Mesheck
Lewelling freed some slaves on his arrival in Indiana about 1822. If you
run across anything or anyone that might illuminate this please pass the
information on. Regarding Earlham College--the time will come when I shall
have to visit there to examine Quaker records for your area for the period
I am studying. Though I do not know him personally, I am acquainted with
the work of Dr. Thomas Hamm, archivist there who has written several valuable
studies on Quaker antislavery activities before the Civil War.
The Friends of Wayne County should be proud of their heritage, so much of
which was built upon the principles of freedom and personal empowerment.
The history of many religions is marked by conflict and battle. The Friends's
faith emerged in the context of religious supression in Britain and they
brought to North America a stubborn committment to the ideal of human brotherhood.
If your area does not have a large monument of some sort to the life-and-death
careers of these quiet champions of liberty, it may be time to awaken the
region from over a century of sleep.
-David Diamond August, 1998
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