On March 7, 1861, a 22-year-old Kentucky slave, Ambrose
Beauford, gained his freedom. He was manumitted in the will of
his owner, Susan R. Brent. To see Beauford’s freedom papers,
please <click here>. As Beauford’s case demonstrates for some
fortunate slaves freedom came before the Civil War. Some escaped
to the northern states or Canada, managed to buy their freedom,
or like Ambrose Beauford were lucky enough to have it given
them. Yet manumission was becoming legally harder in the late
antebellum years. Increasingly, slave states required newly
emancipation slaves to leave the state forever or risk arrest
and re-enslavement. Beauford was no exception and the heirs of
his owner were required to post a $500 bond to guarantee he left
Kentucky. Increasingly, states without large free black
populations tried through the law to insure that such a
population group never developed. In antebellum South, more and
more, free people of color were seen as a subversive influence
undermining the slave system by their very