Freedom papers and certificates of freedom were vital documents that formally declared the free status of Black people in America. For “free people of color,” these papers were not symbolic they were a matter of survival. Without them, Black men, women, and children lived under the constant threat of being kidnapped, jailed, or sold into slavery. Freedom papers, along with manumission and emancipation documents, served as legal proof that a person was not property, but human, in a society that l