After watching 12 Years a Slave Last night my eyes were opened up to the true horrors of slavery. It's was easy for me to finally see how horrific slavery was through a visual depiction. My question is are there any accounts of slave owners who realized that slavery was wrong in every sense and freed their slaves/recanted their actions? If there are accounts of this happening, did those former slave owners speak out against slavery and actively try to change the ways of others?
My understanding is that such an act would have been illegal. Like a farmer opening his/her pens today and allowing their cattle free. There were strict rules of slave ownership and return of escaped slaves that may have made such a nobel act truly backfire and put you in jail.
John Woolman, an 18th century Quaker, was able to convince some slave owners (mostly other Quakers) to emancipate their slaves.
Unfortunately, I don't know whether there are primary accounts from the perspective of those he convinced to emancipate their slaves. I find it hard to imagine that none of them recorded diaries or wrote letters about such a great change in their lives, but I don't know any accounts offhand.