VERY RARE 1859 FLORIDA SLAVERY LAWS ESCAPED SLAVE BEFORE CIVIL WAR FIRST EDITION
Item History & Price
OFFERED HERE is a remarkable bound volume of Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Florida, in terms held in 1858-59. By Mariano D. Papy, Reporter. Published in Tallahassee, Florida at the Office of the Floridian and Journal. Sized 9x6 inches, bound in black buckram cloth with two leather spine labels lettered in gilt. With 538 pages. NOTE the remarkable cases involving escaped slaves. One case, Isabella Abernathy, Apellant, vs. Meredith B. Abernathy, Appellee. T...his involves community property--namely the four slaves owned by the Abernathys. Meredith Abernathy states she was "possessed of" four slaves, but because of her husband's debts, he had "disposed of and wasted the whole of her separate estate, except one of the negro slaves named Harry..." In another case, William Clark vs. Thomas N. Gautier, the person at the heart of the case was "Dick, a person of color." Dick is said to have been a mulatto, "held in servitude from early infancy." His mother was a white woman. "The Court decided that Dick was entitles to his freedom and ordered that he be set at liberty, from which the defendant appealed. Lots on the rights of free people of color vs. slaves. A landmark case. A very rare book. NOT a reprint.
