# 2: The Shakers’ Caveat or, the Muslin Manumission of George
“_____[The Shaker trustees shall deliver ] .. a true Copy of this Agreement well secured on muslin or other good material for convenience; and shall also as they shall see cause, deliver into the hands of the said___George the true Original Release on Parchment...””
Agreement between Thomas McClean and Samuel G. Whyte, George Rankin, and John McComb (trustees for the “United Society called Shakers”) regarding the manumission of “a black boy named George” at South Union, Logan County, KY. Image taken from Archives, Eastern Kentucky University
Manumission documents are the rare and often joyful finds in what can be dark excavations in my work. This particular one from 1819 stands out in so many ways as a document hinting at what must have been a tremendous story and one which I’d like to linger on here to apprehend it as an item of beauty and reckoning.
I first stumbled across this when doing research for a JSTOR Daily article I wrote assessing a powerful collection of slavery-related documents held by Eastern Kentucky University. While I discuss it a bit in that article it merits unpacking as a stand-alone artifact.
It’s beautiful. Right? And I’d wager it was drafted not by a stalwart law clerk but instead by one of the Shakers involved in this transaction. Its tidiness, its broad and wide spacing, its even hand with perfectly measured indents all signal that this wasn’t written in haste by someone who saw it as a purely financial transaction. The person who drafted it saw it for the monumental thing that it was.
Thomas McClean is manumitting George in the clearest possible legal terms but unlike regular manumission papers, this has some intriguing caveats
It seems that Thomas McClean (a Shaker) exchanged money with the three men who represented the Trustees of the United Society of Shakers to liberate George
While they appear to assume that George will relocate to Illinois, Indiana or Ohio, likely to abide with the Shaker communities there, they do not wish to make his liberation conditional upon remaining a Shaker and thus note that in his manumission. (perhaps I am misreading the document?)
This is obviously one of several copies made - indeed it mentions that George should receive a copy on Muslin (!) for convenience and portability. This is critical because paper is a vulnerable artifact and even though presumably other copies are being held elsewhere, George’s safety and perhaps even his life might be in jeopardy if he were to wander a slave state without documentation of his freedom and white his patrons. A muslin copy was a genius move.
While I don’t know what happened to George, what’s compelling here is the Shakers’ careful conditions: they want him to move to a free state where he will be safer. And they want to make it clear that he is always welcome a part of their community and his liberty was not purchased, literally or figuratively in bad faith.
*************
CHALLENGE: Are there any extant copies of muslin manumission or freedom documents out there in the world? I’d love to fold a discussion of these muslin freedom documents into a consideration of liberty and textiles as explored through the work of Tiya Miles and the significance of Ashley’s Sack. It also echoes some considerations of mine concerning slave passes but that will await a future post.
For further reading check out: Cress, Kit Firth. “Black Shakers at South Union, Kentucky,” The Kentucky Review Volume 12, double issue 1/2 Fall 1993
To learn more about The Runaway Chronicles and what to expect in future installments, check out my preview here. Installments will be posted each week on Mondays
To Cite:
Ashton, Susanna. "The Shakers’ Caveat or The Muslin Manumission of George,’" The Runaway Chronicles. Squarespace. 05/20/2024. https://susannaashton.squarespace.com/config/pages/65c93bd35c81e32bb1a08098/content
Click here to pre-order A Plausible Man. The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin