A Slave Named Juris Prudence

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