If you ask Wanda Avis McClinton of the 339 Manumissions and Beyond Project to define manumission, her immediate reply will be that it is “okey doke,” which is a slang term that means “to go along with something until you are in a position to get your way.” In this case, the enslavers used manumission, according to McClinton, as a “tool of slavery to keep [slaves] in line and obedient” instead of as it was intended to be a promise to deliver “freedom to the enslaved, either immediately or at a later date.”

The 339 Manumission Project is a reparative, genealogical search to find, acknowledge, and provide closure to the formerly enslaved of the Pennsylvania Quakers–and over time, North America–who gained their freedom from the abolishment of slavery within the Society of Friends. The project hopes to identify and tell their stories instead of leaving them lost to time. The project’s board, or “A-Team,” is comprised of Quakers and non-parishioners: Dennis Gregg, Stephanie Leonard, Catherine Nnoka, Brittany Lewis, Kitty Mizuno, David Lopez, and McClinton. The group are determined to repay “a debt that is owed to those people and their descendants.”

McClinton said that “God told her to go to the Upper Dublin Meeting House on the hill.” After visiting the location, she had meetings where she was told about the burial ground and the enslaved buried there. It was at that moment she had her “epiphany” about finding all of the formerly enslaved who were once owned by Quakers. To her and the other members of the restorative project, it has become a passion project that they hope finally tells the stories of the Quakers and their enslaved ones.

Wanda Avis McClinton. | Photo: 339 Manumissions and Beyond Project

Commencing in 2022, Haverford College intended to find additional information about the individuals within their Quaker archives, which are composed of collections from Abington, Exeter, Gwynedd, Haverford, Philadelphia, Blackwater, and both the Northern and Southern Districts’ Meeting Houses. McClinton was asked to join due to her 2013 work that helped established a historical marker at the Upper Dublin Meetinghouse for the unnamed enslaved and Quaker Hannah Atkinson buried in their cemetery. Since then, the project has become more than only McClinton who, over time, reached out to friends and other individuals who also feel strongly about the research on a personal level.

Mizuno, formerly from the Haddonfield, New Jersey Friends Meeting, learned through the project that her ancestors signed two manumission documents. Nnoka was born and raised in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and Swedish American mother who was a Quaker. She finds the work to be a “priority to help make it possible for those descended from the enslaved to have access to their family tree.”

Manumission of Celia, an enslaved woman, from 1779. | Photo: 339 Manumissions and Beyond Project

Who were these enslaved individuals? Thus far, the most complete story goes to Dinah, her daughter Bess, and her grandchild Cyrus from Stenton, which was the home of James Logan, the colonial secretary to William Penn. Dinah recently received a monument to her memory. Some of the other individuals found within the records include Cesar, who was enslaved by the Evans family, Jack, enslaved at age 11 and freed at age 21 by Benjamin Mather of the Abington Meeting House, and Phebe, whose age of enslavement and freedom are unlisted, but she was owned by Rebecca Steel of the Northern District. The list continues with James, Ann, Rose, Cicely, Robert Venable, Violet London, Sancho, Hagar, Cassandra (Cassy), Eleanor Sneed, Mary Amy, Exeter, Glasgow, and others all making up the initial 339 found in the manumission records. To date, the number is close to 400 and climbing as the research scope expands to encompass New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.

Gregg explained that “the 339 is the beginning.” Over time, the project members plan to increase the scope to include everyone who was manumissioned by Quakers across the United States. This end goal is likely to outlast the A-Team, but team members hope that the project is continued by the B-Team consisting of historians, researchers, academics, history majors, retirees, enthusiasts, and any other interested persons.

Genealogist Shamele Jordon and a volunteer searches the archives for information on Dinah, who was enslaved at Stenton, and her children. | Photo: 339 Manumissions and Beyond Project

At the moment, the biggest obstacle is gaining access, reviewing, and finding all the records related to the formerly enslaved. This task is made even more difficult due to census records not fully acknowledging Blacks until about 1870. McClinton added how “unique the reparative research is” and mentions that the Quakers had remarkable records and resources that detail names, slave ships, the companies who insured them, and their destinations in Africa. “Paper, paper, paper. All of these papers are in these archives somewhere, and no one has looked at them and decided to try and make order of it all,” McClinton remarked on how long it has taken for a project such as this to take form. The group has faced obstacles from other Quakers and institutions that feel that the past should stay there. In response, McClinton stated that they are not assigning blame to anyone, and it is important to remember that history of the enslaved is interwoven with Quakers history. Doing something like the project is long overdue.

The collected works will be gathered and made digital at Howard University’s newly-minted Center for an Equitable and Sustainable Society (E2S2). The collaboration will allow the work to be easily accessible to future generations.

For now, the focus is on finding researchers and funding because the work is being done voluntarily. The project would like to change that status to help staff devote more time to conducting research. Until then, the volunteers are relying on support from the Friends Fiduciary, but they plan to apply for a PEW research grant in the near future.