Manuel was an African American man. Enslaved by Governor Thomas Pollock, Manuel and his wife Frank were responsible for maintaining Pollock's plantation on Salmon Creek in Bertie Precinct, North Carolina, seeming without white oversight for at least part of the year. In 1697 Dorothy Steele, William Lee, and several others visited Pollock's plantation while they were on the run. Manuel sold them corn and tobacco. By 1709 Manuel and Frank had four children.