A Haverford College project is working to determine what happened to 413 formerly enslaved African Americans who were contractually freed by Quaker guarantees known as “manumissions” in Philadelphia between 1765 and 1790.

The project “Manumitted: The People Enslaved by Quakers” is headed up by Avis Wanda McClinton, a Black community activist and Quaker preservationist, writes Julia Shipley for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

She is leading an advisory group that also includes Howard University researchers. The group has signed a memorandum of agreement to uncover the fates of those 413 Philadelphians.

“They were real people, just like me and you,” McClinton said.

They will examine what kind of assistance, such as money or land, the newly manumitted received from the Quakers.

Quakers were abolitionists, but there were Quakers who were slaveholders.

“The process of convincing many slaveholding members to manumit slaves … was a lengthy one,” said Haverford College postbaccalaureate fellow David Satten-López.

Between 1757 and 1776, there were 111 disciplinary proceedings against Quakers who were in the slave trade during that time.

McClinton noted the manumitted documents weren’t enforceable.

“They weren’t safe! Anyone could just click them over the head, and they’d be sold back into slavery!” she said.

Read more about what these manumitted African Americans faced in The Philadelphia Inquirer.