Introduction

Hello! Please allow me to introduce myself! My name is Amy Brickey and I am a Public History graduate student at Wright State University.
As a graduate student, I am required to do a capstone project to graduate, and this blog serves as a record of my journey through my graduate capstone. The project I have the pleasure of doing is quite exceptional! The Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board (OHRAB) received a small grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to identify, locate, and record the locations of Manumission, Emancipation, and Free Paper records in 11 counties in Southwestern Ohio.
In 1804, Ohio enacted the Ohio Black Codes which mandated that free Black and Mulatto individuals had to register with their local court to gain freedom, or, Manumission papers. To be granted these papers the individual either had to produce Emancipation papers from the person who had formerly enslaved them, or they had to bring a white character witness with them to guarantee the Black or Mulatto person's good behavior. The individual seeking Manumission papers was also expected to pay a fee. At first the fee was only fifty dollars, but it soon rose to five hundred. Unfortunately, there was no standard practice in Ohio's 88 counties and these records could be located at any record-keeping county repository.
While these codes were active throughout Ohio, I am starting with only five counties: Greene, Montgomery, Logan, Clark, and Champaign. During my tenure as an OHRAB fellow I will be visiting probate and common pleas courts, recorder's offices, auditor's offices, records and archive centers, and county historical centers looking for any trace of these papers. This is an amazing project, one that has happened throughout some southern states, but has never been done before in the northern states. I hoping that this initial discovery phase will help OHRAB to secure a larger grant in the future to search all 88 Ohio counties. These records are an important part of American history and Black history. Finding these records will help researchers and genealogists uncover more and more information pertaining to our intricate past and the building of America. I hope you will join me on this journey to discover these amazing historical documents!