Topic for discussion - manumission

[epeeblade]

(I haven't done one of these in a while, so here goes...)

I was reading the latest bit of A Kept Boy last night when something occurred to me.

In it Jensen vehemently denies being part of any family, and denies any identity other than that of slave. He's not the only one raised from childhood to be the perfect slave.

So what would happen then if the abolitionist movement does pass a manumission clause? Now granted, it's probably not going to cause hundreds of people freeing their slaves en masse, but I can imagine wealthy owners "freeing their slaves" in their will after they pass. What happens to the slaves who can't imagine a life outside of slavery?

(And yes this would probably be AU like whoah, but it's something I'm interested in seeing explored in fic...)

Comments

manumission

[vambrace.livejournal.com]

Actually, this very thing happened in the American South when the Emancipation Proclamation issued. Many slaves were either deeply attached to their families or too frightened and ill-equipped to make it on their own. Many just stayed where they were and shifted from having everything supplied for them to being tenant farmers or being paid wages.