![]() Her slaveholder finally agreed to a sum of $1200, but her plans to go to New York and raise money as a seamstress were thwarted when she was unable to acquire enough signed guarantees that she would return. Louis, Missouri, Elizabeth Keckley sought to purchase freedom for herself and her son. Resolutely determined to become free, he purchased his own freedom by 1765, and, by 1775, he earned and saved enough money to purchase his entire family-his wife, son, and two daughters. Born in west Africa, Venture Smith was enslaved as a child and brought to Barbados in the Caribbean and later to Rhode Island and Connecticut in New England. In 1839 almost half (42%) of the free blacks in Cincinnati, Ohio, had bought their freedom 1 and were striving to create new lives while searching for and purchasing their own relatives. Many ran away to free territory, and some of these "fugitives" succeeded in avoiding capture and forced to the South (see Theme II: ENSLAVEMENT: #8, Runaways, and Theme III: COMMUNITY: #7, Fugitives.)Ī rare option was "self-purchase" (the term itself revealing the base illogic of slavery). A few were bought by Quakers, Methodists, and religious activists for the sole purpose of freeing them (a practice soon banned in the southern states). ![]() Some were freed by their owners to honor a pledge, to grant a reward, or, before the 1700s, to fulfill a servitude agreement. ![]() Opportunities for most enslaved African Americans to attain freedom were few to none. "I paid an enormous sum for my freedom," selections from 18th-19th c. ![]()
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