By Roger N. Kirkman

With chapter by Thomas D. Hamm

In BREAK EVERY YOKE, Roger Kirkman tells the story of the North Carolina Quakers who conscientiously opposed slavery through the Civil War and helped many of those in bondage to gain their freedom. In Kirkman’s remarkably detailed history, this story of Southern resistance to the South’s “peculiar institution” is fully chronicled for the first time.

This work utilizes the Quaker Manumission Society’s minute book, census data, minutes from Friends meetings and oral histories, for a narrative of these anti-slavery advocates and the challenges they faced. The book begins with a discussion of the founding and growth of North Carolina and describes features of its diverse populations from other colonies. The main part of the book describes the Society’s activities and challenges in the Federalist era and into the Age of Jackson. The narratives follows the anti-slavery activities of both the emigrants to Indiana and those who stayed in North Carolina. The final chapters include accounts of Manumission Society members and their descendants as they navigated the Civil War and its challenge to the Quaker peace testimony.

An included appendix contains articles on the location and history of each local abolition group.

In addition, this work includes a second section of 420+ pages which identify the 600+ delegates of the Manumission Society minutes. These names include the representatives of the female auxiliary manumission societies, and as many details for named ex-slaves associated with Manumission Society delegates. These names are indexed, including approximately 6000 names of family members who intersected the lives of the Manumission Society delegates.

The text of BREAK EVERY YOKE is extensively illustrated with explanatory sidebars, figures, graphs, and maps, with a selected bibliography and index appended.

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• Side-sewn, Library Binding, 750 pages ISBN: 978-0-9658721-1-9

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• 750 pages ISBN: 978-0-9658721-02

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