For example, the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi prohibited all in-state manumissions unless legislative approval was granted. These three states eventually took the route of South Carolina again and banned all out of state manumissions as well. The state of Arkansas also banned all manumissions both in-state and out of state. In the South, then, five states completely stripped masters of the right to manumit their slaves and deprived their slaves of virtually any hope for manumission. While many southern states stripped masters of the power to manumit their slaves, other states placed heavy restrictions on manumission making it very difficult if not impossible for masters to manumit their slaves. For example, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Maryland, Kentucky, and North Carolina all evolved to a no in-state manumission position by 1860. Thus, in these states, manumission was possible only through an out of state manumission. Out of state manumission, however, came with its own set of difficulties. During the nineteenth century, many states enacted laws which forbade the entry of free blacks into the state. For example, the state of South Carolina in 1820 declared that, “it shall not be lawful for any free negro or mulatto to migrate into this state.” The state of Georgia in …show more content…
The Jubilee declaration of Leviticus 25 did not arise ex nihilo but drew upon practices which were already in existence in the surrounding cultures with which Israel came in contact. In the ancient Near East, a phenomenon known as debt slavery became a significant issue between 2050-1955 BCE and continued to be a major problem throughout the history of this region. The primary cause of this phenomenon can be attributed to the monopoly of resources amongst both the state and private elite coupled with high interest loans. Debt slavery most commonly arose as free citizens lost control over their means of production and increasingly became dependent upon large landowners, merchants, and the state for resources. Once the aforementioned dependency was established, small landowners found themselves forced to acquire loans in order to pay for the resources they needed. These loans often came with high interest rates. If the crops of small farmers failed or were below what was expected, then for these small farmers it became difficult if not impossible to pay back high interest loans. When this occurred, small farmers often found themselves having to sell or give up dependents into debt-slavery. Eventually, these small farmers would even be faced with selling their land, families, and ultimately