Michael Crawford presents the compelling story of colonial manumission movements among North Carolina Quakers in this illuminating volume. Embedding complete primary documents within the context of his own interpretive analysis, Crawford effectively shows how the consequences of this group's antislavery activism radiated out from a few individuals to the region, the state, and, eventually, the nation.

Students and scholars will be able to draw their own insights from the important documents presented in , many of them obscure or recently discovered. Through diaries, petitions, legislative debates, and letters, well-known as well as unknown players in the struggle for manumission are allowed to tell their own stories in their own words. This approach has the effect of highlighting the personal motivation of figures both prominent and obscure in the movement.