History8510FinalProject

This is my final project for History 8510, spring 2023 semester. I examine the claim that manumissions increased in South Carolina during the American Revolution due to notions of liberty brought on by the conflict. I analyze a dataset containing Charleston manumissions from 1768 through 1802. I take a closer look at the number of manumissions each year of the American Revolution as well as in the years following the conflict. I also analyze the text of the narratives given with each manumission to look for trends and frequently used words. The project includes a closer look at manumissions by race and year. The race by year when paired with the text analysis of motives reveals some interesting possibilities about why manumissions may have been granted at the end of the eighteenth century.