Introduction

Between 1777 and 1782, members of the Hopkins family of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, manumitted 88 enslaved people, freeing some of them immediately and others after further terms of service.[1] By 1801, all of these individuals were free Black citizens of the United States. By comparison, in the same year of 1801, many of America's celebrated founding fathers – such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison – held hundreds of people of African descent in bondage. Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, and William Lloyd Garrison were not yet born. Johns Hopkins, the renowned merchant and philanthropist, was six years old.

One of the first of the Hopkins family manumission deeds was filed in 1778 by Johns Hopkins’ grandfather, who was a Quaker and had the same name as his famous grandson. In this essay, I will refer to the grandfather as Johns the Elder to distinguish him from his better known descendant, Johns the Founder.

Johns the Elder was born in the Province of Maryland in 1720. Like his father and grandfather, he grew and sold tobacco in the Western Chesapeake, living most of his life at the head of the South River on a plantation named Whites Hall (aka White Hall). He married three times and had thirteen children. Elizabeth Thomas Hopkins (1737-1804), his third wife and grandmother of Johns the Founder, survived her husband by two decades. By all accounts, Johns the Elder was an active member of the West River meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, the oldest Quaker congregation in Maryland.

Five years before his death in 1784, Johns the Elder manumitted 42 enslaved people in a deed dated July 21, 1778, and recorded by the court on August 1, 1778. In the deed he declared one group of nine people "each and every one of them absolutely free" immediately. A second group of enslaved people were to be discharged when they “shall arrive to the age hereafter: that is the mailes to be free at the age of twenty five years and the females to be free at the age of twenty one years." For this group of 33 individuals freedom was promised but delayed. Here is the key text (see also the image below and full transcription at bottom):

"...And do for myself my executors and administrators release unto the said Negroes all my right and all claim whatsoever as to there persons or to any estate they may acquire hereby declaring the said negroes – namely Fill, Dick, Joshua, Dafny, Nann, Flory, Cassy, Bett, Rachel, and each of the young negroes namely Merriah, Polly, Bess, Sall, Pheby, Lucy, Phillis, Jenny, Nell, Suckey, Dinah, Debby, Affy, Rachel, Priss, Tamer, Nann, Sall, Abraham, Billy, Oneas, Season, Benn, Jerry, Ned, Solomon, London, John, Frank, Tom, Jenny, Harry and Daniel - each and every one of them absolutely free without any Interruption from me or any person claiming under me."

Despite these delays, which were common in Quaker manumission contracts from this period, it is important to realize that all of the people mentioned in the 1778 deed were technically manumitted in 1778. Manumission, a term that dates back to the Roman Empire, refers to the act or the promise of releasing a person from bondage, regardless of the conditions attached. According to Maryland law, a person was considered “manumitted” once a deed like the one agreed to by Johns the Elder in 1778 was filed with the court, even if the date of ultimate release was delayed. Later, the new United States Constitution would consider "those bound to Service for a Term of Years" to count among the "whole Number of free Persons."

The Society of Friends encouraged members to sign manumission deeds in the presence of the enslaved people whose futures would be governed by the contract. In 1782, for example, Johns the Elder's brother Richard Hopkins “signed a manumission for nine negroes, whom we had to sit with us in the morning," according to the journal of Quaker missionary Margaret Cook (see image and link at bottom). 

What were the factors that led Johns the Elder to file his manumission deed, in the way that he did, and when he did?

Quitting Slavery

Antislavery Quaker missionaries had been visiting Maryland's Western Shore for decades before 1778. One of the most important of these traveling Friends was John Woolman, the pious Philadelphia Quaker who made preaching about the evils of slavery his life's work. His memoir, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, was required reading in many meeting houses. "I believed," wrote Woolman regarding the rights of Black Americans, "that liberty was the natural right of all men equally." In May 1768, Woolman visited the West River Yearly Meeting where it is likely that he met Johns the Elder.

Later, Johns the Elder was twice visited by the abolitionist Quaker minister Isaac Jackson. During one of these visits, according to Jackson's journal,  Johns the Elder was “convinced of [the] inconsistency” of keeping slaves yet “thinks it difficult to release them.” Perhaps, Jackson speculated, he was not “enough in the Faith" (see image above).

Ultimately, in 1777, the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends “called for the expulsion of all owners of slaves from the Society without unnecessary delay.” Now, members had to manumit their enslaved laborers or face disownment from the religion. Johns the Elder complied; many others, including some close family members, did not. However, his deed demonstrates a degree of resistance to the Society's antislavery stance. Instead of releasing his enslaved people at ages 18 (women) and 21 (men) as the Society directed, he would only go so far as 21 for women and 25 for men (more on this below).

Clearly, Quakerism played a part in Johns the Elder's (apparently reluctant) denunciation of slavery. Aside from the religious convictions he may have felt, leaving the Society of Friends would mean cutting ties with his closest family members and business associates.

But religious obedience is not enough to explain Johns the Elder’s actions. In 1778, the colonies were at war with England and the tobacco trade was in turmoil, with no guarantee of recovery. Downturns in the global tobacco market were nothing new to Johns the Elder. But this time was different. Depending on the outcome of the conflict, the family's primary cash crop might become permanently unmarketable. Johns the Elder may have viewed manumission with delayed release as a way to gradually adjust his agricultural operations, introducing new crops and a free labor system that was more flexible. If ever there was a time to diversify White Hall, this was it. 

Perhaps Johns the Elder was also moved to act by the lofty revolutionary rhetoric of freedom and liberty, as many Quakers were. Talk of liberty, equality, and natural rights permeated the debates of the day. How could the patriots accuse King George of treating colonists like slaves, when they themselves robbed others of their God-given freedom? The hypocrisy was obvious and frequently cited by Quaker abolitionists of the day.  [2]

Whatever the reason, almost every Quaker manumission contract during this period was structured the same way. Older slaves were released immediately, while younger slaves were kept until they reached adulthood. Why? The Society of Friends may have thought that demanding the immediate release of all slaves would lead more members to quit the religion rather than quit slavery. A heavy dose of Christian savior syndrome and paternalistic notions of slave stewardship were no doubt also involved. 

It is important to keep in mind that if Johns the Elder wanted to quit slavery, and did not care about losing his religious affiliation, he could have sold his slaves, as other planters did. If Hopkins had chosen this pathway, he would have made a fortune. Then, he could have passed this wealth down to his children or devoted the recovered capital to various kinds of agricultural improvements at Whites Hall. On the tobacco coast of the mid-Atlantic, planters tended to invest in their farms during economic downturns in order to be prepared when the markets rebounded. This is how the boom-and-bust tobacco economy had functioned for more than a century, and it was a rhythm very familiar to Johns the Elder and his kin.[3] Of course, if he had sold his bondspeople, he would have been disowned from his meeting and ostracized from the Quaker community. For Friends, selling a slave was more sinful than owning a slave.

Johns the Elder was also sick with tuberculosis in 1778 and nearing the end of his life. He may have wanted to quit slavery and put his family's assets in order before he died. However, prior to 1790, it was illegal in Maryland (1) to free enslaved people by last will and testament and (2) to free enslaved people beyond 50 years of age. These policies were designed to prevent slaveholders from abandoning old and infirm slaves, leaving them homeless or to be cared for by local authorities. Thus, the only way to legally manumit enslaved persons under 50 in Maryland between 1752 and 1790 was by property deed.[4a]

It was probably a variety of factors, therefore, that led Johns the Elder to submit his deed in 1778. Facing disownment from his meeting, pressure from his peers, the precarity of economic life during war, and his own mortality, he agreed to manumit all 42 people and to release "all claim whatsoever as to there [sic] persons or to any Estate they may Acquire."[4b] (Forty-six others were manumitted in deeds filed by Johns the Elder's siblings.) Once filed, the 1778 deed became a binding contract.[5] To rescind it, Johns the Elder, or one of his heirs, would have had to appeal to the Maryland Assembly to pass a bill revoking the agreement. No such effort was ever undertaken.

Philip Hopkins - Like His Father But Bolder

As noted above, Johns the Elder did not abide by the Society’s directive regarding the ages of eventual freedom. His meeting was not pleased about this violation and recommended him for sanction. We don’t know what, if anything, happened to Johns the Elder for this breech of protocol. He may have lost his status as an elder in the West River meeting, but he was not disowned. 

We do know that at least one of Johns the Elder’s sons, Philip, sought to make amends for his father's intransigence. Philip Hopkins (Johns the Founder's uncle) had inherited one enslaved person from his father in 1784, a “boy named Francis.” If he had followed the terms of his father’s 1778 deed, Francis was scheduled to be discharged in 1803. Instead, in 1791, Philip went to the Justice of the Peace for Anne Arundel County and filed a new deed freeing Francis at the Quaker-approved age of 21 (see image below). Philip’s witnesses were his mother, Elizabeth Hopkins, and his brother, Samuel Hopkins, the father of Johns the Founder.

Other males included in the 1778 deed were not at Whites Hall in 1800 based on the census. This documented absence suggests that they too were released at the age of 21, like Francis, and were allowed to “live out” the final years of their term contracts. Living out was a practice whereby enslaved people were permitted to reside off the plantation and beyond the immediate supervision of their masters. This was a relatively common custom in states that did not permit unfettered slave manumission. Sally Hemings, for example, was never freed by her enslaver, Thomas Jefferson. Instead, she lived in Charlottesville in unofficial freedom along with two of her children (who were legally emancipated).

Regrettably, we know far too little about the fates of those who were freed by the 1778 deed. But by the year 1801, there were no enslaved people living with the widow of Johns the Elder nor with his children on or near Whites Hall. Two of those children, Samuel Hopkins and Gerard T. Hopkins, were devout Quakers, both rising to leadership roles in the Society. And both were active in the Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and for Relief of Poor Negroes and Others Unlawfully Held in Bondage, which was founded in 1789.

Conclusion - "Those checks and dictates of conscience"

Johns the Elder’s deed of manumission is best understood in the context of the Quaker antislavery movement of the mid- to late-eighteenth century and of the laws governing Maryland in 1778. As Manisha Sinha explains in The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition, Quakers were among the first organized and vocal abolitionists in North America. Indeed, the Hopkins family and related manumissions of the 1770s and 1780s marked a turning point in the history of Quakerism and of slavery in Maryland. As imperfect as they may have been, these deeds, of which Johns the Elder's is a single example, freed hundreds of enslaved people and ensured that many of their descendants would never experience slavery.[6] 

What happened to the 42 people manumitted by Johns the Elder in 1778 and freed before 1801? Many of them remained in Anne Arundel County, working for wages as field hands or domestic servants at Whites Hall or other farms. Life was not easy, and they faced many obstacles - racism, poverty, and lack of opportunity. Some would eventually relocate to Baltimore, which was beginning to emerge as a major urban center at the end of the eighteenth century. By 1820, Baltimore’s free Black population, which supported an array of vibrant churches and civic organizations, had grown to more than 10,000 residents. 

Johns the Elder finally succumbed to tuberculosis in early 1784. Only one of his letters has survived, a note to his son Richard, then studying medicine in Philadelphia. "My Dear Child," the letter dated February 16, 1782, begins. “Our family are all well at present, except myself, who still continues in a poor declining state of health, no prospect of ever getting better in this world, though I submit with patience and resignation to him who orders all things, and knows what is best for me.” He then writes, "I have nothing particular to say to thee at this time, having often given thee the best advice I was capable of." But do not forget, he tells Richard, "those checks and dictates of conscience, by attending to which will lead and guide thee in the way thou shouldn’t go."[7]

Notes

_______________________

[1] View these and additional Hopkins family manumission deeds on the OSF Johns Hopkins History Project site at https://osf.io/b6ys3/. Go to the Files window, then navigate to Primary Documents -> Manumission Deeds in AA County Land Records. I would like to thank Johns Hopkins University student Hardy Williams for his work locating these documents in the Anne Arundel County land deed records. See also https://mdlandrec.net/. 

[2] Three key sources here are David Brion Davis's books The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823; Slavery in the Colonial Chesapeake; and, edited with Steven Mintz, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery through the Civil War.

[3] Arthur Pierce Middleton's Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era (a classic!) and Carville V. Earle's The Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System: All Hallow's Parish, Maryland, 1650-1783 are the books to consult here. For a similar and equally excellent treatment of slave life and the tobacco economy in Virginia and South Carolina, see Philip D. Morgan's Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry.

[4a] In some states in 1778, like Virginia, slaves could only be manumitted by decree of the governor and only for "meritorious service." This changed in 1782 when manumission by deed and will was legalized. See https://www.novaparks.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Sept%202004.pdf. In Maryland, as mentioned in the text, slaves over the age of 45 could not be manumitted. At Whites Hall, there were at least four enslaved men who met this criterion - Cesar, William, Dover, and Eaus. They were thus not part of the 1778 deed but were named in Johns the Elder's will.

[4b] This phrase is critical because it meant that, once the deed was recorded, neither Johns Hopkins nor his heirs could claim ownership of any children born to those who were manumitted. 

[5] If Johns the Elder, or any of his descendants, had reneged on the contract, the people to be freed could have filed suit. See A Question of Freedom: The Families Who Challenged Slavery from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War by William G. Thomas, III. Hundreds of freedom suits were initiated in Maryland by enslaved people against their owners, and a significant number were successful. 

[6] In fact, Johns the Elder's 1778 deed was one of the largest mass manumissions carried out by Quakers in Maryland. One other, quite a bit larger, was submitted by the Quaker proprietors of the Patuxent Iron Works, owned by the Snowden and Cowman families of Prince George's County. My research group is in the process of collecting and counting the Quaker manumission deeds in Maryland. Haverford College has undertaken a similar project for the Pennsylvania-based meetings, see https://manumissions.haverford.edu/. N.B. It is possible that men freed by the 1778 deed subsequently married enslaved women whose children, according to Maryland law, would have the status of slaves. The offspring of the women manumitted in 1778 were born free.

[7] Johns Hopkins Collection, Correspondence of Hopkins family members and others, Copies of letters to and note by Richard Hopkins, Series 2, Item 300552. See https://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/collection/johns-hopkins-collection/. 

Transcription of Deed

_______________________

Johns Hopkins Senr

Manumission

I Johns Hopkins Senr of Ann Arundel County in

the State of Maryland do hereby set free from 

Bondage my nine Negroes Viz*: my Negro Man Named Dick aged 

about forty five years also my Negro Man Named Fill aged about 

thirty three years. also my Negro Man Named Joshua aged about 

thirty one years. also my Negro Woman Named Dafny** aged about 

twenty five years. my Negro Woman Named Nann aged about 

twenty eight. my Negro Woman Named Flora aged about 

twenty six years. my Negro Woman Named Cassy aged about 

thirty eight years. One Negro Woman Bett aged about 

thirty six years. One Negro Woman Named Rachel aged about 

twenty two years and I do likewise discharge from my service 

the following young Negroes when they so(?) Either of them shall

arrive to the Age hereafter exprest that is the Mailes to be free 

at the age of twenty five years and the females to be free at the 

Age of twenty one years, Viz: One Negroe Girl Named Meriah 

aged about twenty years One Negroe Girl Named Polly aged 

about twenty years. One Negro Girl Named Bess aged about Nine

=teen years and eight months. One Negroe Girl Named Sall 

Aged about seventeen years and eight months One Negro girl

Named Pheby Aged about Eleven years and Eight months, 

One Negro Girl Named Lucy Aged about nine years & eight 

months, One Negro Girl Named Phillis aged about Eight 

years, One Negro girl Named Jenny Aged about Eight years

One Negro girl Named Nell Aged about Eight years. One Negro

Girl Named Suckey Aged about Six years and Six Months. 

One Negro Girl Named Dinah aged about five years. One 

Negro Girl Named Debby Aged four years. One Negro Girl 

Named Affy Aged three years. One Negro Girl Named Rachel 

Aged One year. One negro girl Named Priss Aged about 

two years and seven months One Negro Girl Named Tamer

Aged two years & six months. One Negro Girl Named Nann 

aged One year One Negro Girl Named Sall aged ten months 

also one Negro Boyee Named Abraham Aged Eighteen Years

One Negro Boyee Named Billy aged fifteen years and eight 

months also one Negro Boyee Named Oneas, aged about 

fourteen years and seven months. One Negro Boyee Named 

Season Aged fourteen years and four months. One Negro 

Boyee Named Benn Aged twelve years. One Negro Boyee

Named Jerry Aged twelve years, One Negro Boyee Named

Ned Aged Nine Years. One Negro Boyee Named Solomon 

Aged Eight Years, One Negro Boye Named London Aged 

Seven Years. One Negro Boye Named John Aged Seven years. One 

Negro Boye Named Frank aged four years, One Negro Boye 

Named Tom Aged four years. One Negro Boye Named Jemmy 

aged two years, one negro Boye Named Harry Aged two years

One Negro Boye Named Daniel Aged one year and Eight 

months – And do for myself my executors and 

Administrators Release unto the aforesaid Negoes all my 

Right and all claim whatsoever as to there persons or to any 

Estate they may Acquire hereby Declaring the said Negroes Namely 

Fill, Dick, Joshua, Dafny, Nann, Flory, Cassy, Bett, Rachel, 

and each of the young Negroes namely Merriah, Polly, Bess, Sall, 

Pheby, Lucy, Phillis, Jenny, Nell, Suckey, Dinah, Debby, Affy,

Rachel, Priss, Tamer, Nann, Sall, Abraham, Billy, Oneas, Season, Benn,

Jerry, Ned, Solomon, London, John, Frank, Tom, Jemmy, Harry, 

and Daniel, Each and every of them Absolutely free without 

any Interruption from me or any person Claiming under me In

Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this 21 day 

of July in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and

Seventy Eight.

Signed Sealed and Delivered                             Johns Hopkins Senr  Seal

In the presence of          

James Cadle            On the back of the foregoing Instrument was these [illegible] Viz.

Joshua Ridgley

memo: to wit

Came Johns Hopkins party to this deed before one before one 

the subscriber One of the justices for Ann Arundel County in the 

State of Maryland and did Acknowledge this Instrument of

writing to be his Act and Deed and the Negroes therein

mentioned to the absolutely free

Taken and Acknowledges before me this

25th July 1778

Nic Worthington

Recorded August 1st 1778    

*“Viz” is the abbreviation of videlicet, a Latin phrase that means “that is to say.” Videlicet is generally found in legal documents to advise that what follows provides more explanation about a preceding general statement.  

**Some names are spelled differently in different places in the deed. I used the spelling most likely to be accurate.     

The Journal of Margaret Cook

Revision Log:

1/25/23 - minor stylistic edits

2/20/2023 - previously, this essay stated that the maximum age for freeing an enslaved person in Maryland in 1778 was 45. In fact, it was 50. The age was lowered to 45 in 1796 as part of a new law entitled An Act relating to negroes, and to repeal the acts of assembly therein mentioned. This act sought to bring together and update slavery- and manumission-related statutes passed in 1783 and 1790 (and others). One section of the Act of 1796, proposed by the Senate, lowered the age of legal manumission to 45, making it even more difficult for slaveholders to liberate enslaved people.

3/16/2023 - added the phrase "and to release 'all claim whatsoever as to there [sic] persons or to any Estate they may Acquire'" and the note 4b. The new text clarifies and highlights a key point - that the deed of 1778, like all Quaker manumission deeds of this period, intended to free children born to the women who were manumitted. Between 1752 and 1809, deeds and wills could free the "increase" of manumitted enslaved females using this language. Starting in 1810, deeds and wills had to explicitly state the future status of all children born to manumitted people because before 1810 the "issue seems not to be settled with sufficient legal precision." 

7/3/2024 - added details about Isaac Jackson.