Testamentary Manumission In New Jersey in the Early Republic

Stuart Gold, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, has published The 'Gift' of Liberty: Testamentary Manumission in New Jersey - 1791-1805 in volume 15 of Rutgers Race and the Law Review (2014). Here is the abstract.

This paper explores the process of manumission by will in Early Republic New Jersey between 1791 and 1805. The paper reviews the legal mechanisms available for manumission in New Jersey during this period, and places New Jersey's manumission process in context with its sister states of New York and Pennsylvania. The primary focus of the paper is a detailed analysis of the various schemes of manumission employed by testators, as well as geographical and gender differences in detecting patterns for manumission.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.