Manumissions in the Brooklyn Old Town Records Collection, 1797-1825

This dataset contains records of enslaved African Americans manumitted between 1797 and 1825 by residents of Kings County, New York, better known today as the New York City Borough of Brooklyn. Prior to being incorporated into New York City in 1898, the independent towns and villages in Kings County maintained their own records, including some relating to the county’s significant population of enslaved Blacks. Beginning in the 1790s, the clerks of these towns recorded the manumissions of individuals enslaved by residents of Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flatlands, and New Utrecht. Recently digitized by the New York City Municipal Archives, the record books for those four towns contain a total of 121 manumissions documenting the emancipation of 134 individuals ranging in age from infant to older adult. In addition to basic biographical information (name, age, sex, etc.) regarding the manumitted individuals, some records contain information about their trade or occupation, special circumstances relating to their manumission, and the occupation of their enslaver. There are also records of manumissions which will occur on a specified future date and manumissions which were written into wills and occurred at the death of the enslaver.