I
spent much of the last week trying to understand what will probably be
my last case study for the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project.
Following a review of my techniques in the Schweninger Collection
reappraisal I found a handful of potential case studies for myself and
one for a colleague.
I
re-examined a few reels to check for errors or omissions on my part as I
picked out cases from LOSIM’s geographic zone of interest. Only a few
hundred records originated from agencies or bureaus pertinent to the
five Eastern Shore counties of Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Dorchester,
and Caroline, which are the subjects of the Department of Education
grant. Following my first pass, the reappraisal, I combed through them
again: I wrote down citations for cases clearly marked from county,
circuit court, or other bureaus from these five counties but also cases
at the state level in the Court of Appeals for the Eastern Shore.
Sometime later I examined my reference spreadsheet of these handpicked county cases and realized
there could well be Eastern Shore people involved in non-Eastern Shore
lawsuits. Using the URLs I collected for every case, I read each target
card to discover Eastern Shore connections in the case descriptions.
Although only a few were revealed themselves in the Court of Appeals for
the Western Shore cases, it was completely worth it.
The case was
of Julia Ann Bailey. Although the case starts in Baltimore City and
thus eventually to the Court of Appeals for the Western Shore, it truly
begins in Kent County on the other side of the Chesapeake; that was why I initially missed it since the Kent County connection was not evident by the record's provenance. Bailey was
born in 1816 of a 24 year old Kent County slave named Lucy. Although
Lucy's previous owner Gideon Longfellow recorded a delayed manumission
in 1803 and stipulated that her future children would not be slaves,
John Anderson claimed ownership of Bailey in the Baltimore City Court
and the Court of Appeals for the Western Shore.
Longfellow’s
manumission for his eleven year old slave read, in part, for "divers
[sic] good causes and considerations...[I] release from slavery liberate
manumit and set free my Negro Girl named Lucy...when she shall arrive
at the age of thirty years; and in case the said Negro Girl Lucy shall
or may hereafter have any child or children before she arrives at the
age aforesaid that then such child or children shall be free at their
birth." Longfellow then sold Lucy to Henry Taylor; since she was to be
freed in just over fifteen years I expect her value was far lower.
Taylor gave Bailey, then a small child, to his daughter "who took her
into possession and held her till after her father's death." At
seventeen Bailey departed for Baltimore City where Lucy lived; Taylor's
daughter and her husband John Anderson, "supposing her to be free under
the said manumission," did not lay claim to her for another two years.
For reasons unexplained by Anderson he did not press any claim to
Bailey's three sisters.
In 1821, two or three years before Lucy
was freed, Anderson sold a home and farming materials to Mary Ann
Kennard for $950. Some of the items included: Two adult slaves named
George and Rebecca, three juvenile slaves named John, John Harris and
Matthew, six plows, twelve sheep, seven "milch" cows, four weeding hoes,
various kitchen utensils, sixty "barriles" of corn, a wheat fan, and
three beds amongst other goods. Kennard, perhaps out of generosity in
1825, sold back the now eleven or twelve year old boy named "John or
John Harris" to Anderson for $1. It was not unusual for slaves with
common names to be distinguished from each other by using last names
but, if John and John Harris were always the same person as the 1825
bill of sale suggests, the original 1821 sale involved four slaves
instead of five. By 1830 Anderson had no slaves. In 1832 Anderson again
sold various farm animals and furnishings, this time to Samuel G.
Kennard, for $65. Some of the items included: Two cows, nine pigs, ten
juvenile pigs or "shoats," two beds, bedsteads, and beddings, a mahogany
desk, table, and bookcase, a walnut breakfast table, and "a lot of
Kitchen furniture." By 1835 Anderson did not have much in assets; that
year he only possessed $142 in taxable property. Perhaps this state of
relative poverty compelled him to sue for Bailey’s return even though he
never apparently claimed her in his assessable property taxes.
During
the trial, beginning June 1, 1835, Anderson's counsel's argued that
Bailey was born a slave because "the general principle of law that the
issue follows the condition of the mother" and that Bailey was unable to
"procure a living by personal labor" This first argument was based on a
1681 law
and subsequent legislation and jurisprudence stating that the civil
rights of children will be the same as their mother; since Bailey was
born before Lucy's manumission, regardless of what Longfellow's
manumission stipulated, she was a slave. The second argument was based
on a large
1796 law
that, in part, required manumitted slaves to be physically fit enough
to provide a living for themselves and be under the age of 45; since
Bailey was at birth dependent on others for care, her manumission was
invalid.
The Baltimore City Court rejected both arguments. To the
first argument it ruled that Longfellow's pre-emptive manumission of
Lucy's children was valid. Anderson could not defeat the "deed in which
the destiny of that issue has been freed by the only person whose rights
were to be affected by it.” To the second argument it ruled that slaves
were an "entirely a distinct property" and it was "undeniable that the
owner of female slaves, had the same Kind of distinct interest or
property in the future in their future increase that he had in the
increase of his flocks and herds and might dispose of them prospectively
as use or profits to another master or relinquish his ownership to them
as they should be born." The court cited an opinion in the 1823 case
Hamilton v. Craggs (1823), which incorporated the opinion of the 1781 Court of Appeals decision in
Negro Jack v. Hopewell.
I
asked Jennifer Hafner, my supervisor Emily’s office mate, to retrieve
the opinion with her Lexis account. In two minutes I had
Hamilton v. Craggs, commentary on several key precedent creating cases, and portions of
Jack v. Hopewell. In
Hopewell the
issue was the last will and testament of William Cole dated February 7,
1732. He gave slaves to his wife Elizabeth and ordered them and their
increase to be freed and given her lands upon her death. A later
instrument granted his wife one of the slaves named previously in the
will, who was petitioner's grandmother. The St. Mary’s County Court
ruled against the strength of Cole’s will to declare Jack remained a
slave. It was appealed to the General Court, which reversed the
decision. It was then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed
the General Court’s ruling. Jack’s lawyer J.T. Chase argued that Cole
unequivocally granted freedom to slaves not in
esse (existence) and, he went on to say:
“[I]t
is well established, that either real or personal property may be left
to persons not in ease, and who, when born, may receive the benefit of
it as fully as if they had been in existence at the death of the
devisor”
He continued by reading a portion of another decision:
"...not
only that thing may be devised which is truly extent, or hath an
apparent being at the making the will, or at the death of the testator,
but that thing also which is not is
rerum natura while the
testator liveth, as the corn which shall be sown or grow in such a soil
after his death, or the Lambs which shall come of his flock of Sheep
next year…Nor (he said), does any doubt exist respecting the power which
every man possesses to give by will a life estate in a personal
chattel, with a remainder over."
A lot of jurisprudence was cited in
Hamilton v. Craggs.
That case itself denied freedom to the son of a manumitted slave who
birthed him after her manumission was recorded but years before it was
in effect.
Craggs also cited
Negro Anna v. Woodburn Adm’r. of Burroughs
(1817). Anna reached a manumission past the legal age of 45 but also
inherited quite enough property for her maintenance. Anna’s lawyer
argued that the spirit of the law emphasized that the age of 45 was
little more than an arbitrary point where a slave may not be able to
provide for themselves without support. Anna was over 45 but had
sufficient property to meet the spirit of the law. The court saw
differently and explained the age and maintenance conditions must be met
before a manumission is valid regardless of “adventitious”
circumstances. Despite this poor outcome the opinion was apparently
useful to, or benign to Chase in support Bailey’s petition.
The Baltimore City Court awarded Bailey her freedom and $8.83.
Anderson
appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals for the Western Shore,
which reversed the lower court decision. Declaring "[the judgment] be
revoked, annulled and held entirely as void and that the said John
Anderson be restored to all things which by reason of the judgment to
the foresaid he hath lost; and...that there should be a new trial." The
results of this new trial are unknown because the Baltimore City Court
dockets and minutes are not available for this period.
By the 1840
census Anderson's fortunes improved and his twenty person household
included six free persons of color, probably farm laborers, and six
slaves; he is listed as having two female slaves under 10 years old
and one female slave between the ages of 36 and 55. Bailey would have
been 24 in 1840. By the 1850 census Anderson owned a single eighteen
year old female slave.
Alex Champion--Maryland State Archives
