[ENSLAVEMENT]. Indenture related to an important VA Circuit Superior Court freedom suit, 1819.

Manuscript indenture of apprenticeship between William Thompson and John Robinson, "two of the Overseers of the Poor for the County of Campbell [Virginia] of the one part and Mahlon Cadwallader of the aforesaid county of the other part," binding as an apprentice unto Cadwallader "a certain Patrick Davis a boy of couler [sic] until he shall arrive at the age of twenty-one being [now] about two or three years old...." Cadwallader, a white cooper, agrees to care for the free African American child and "teach or cause to be taught to the said apprentice the coopering business...and to pay him at the expiration of said time and servitude twelve dollars...." Campbell County, Virginia, 15 April 1819. Approx. 7 1/2 in. x 12 in. Signed by Mahlon Cadwallader, William Thompson, and John Robinson.

Lynchburg, Virginia, court records show that approximately thirteen years after this indenture of apprenticeship was executed, [William] Patrick Davis, joined by his mother Kitty Davis (acting as his agent because he was underage), filed suit against Cadwallader. The petitioners sought an injunction to prevent Cadwallader from taking Patrick Davis on a westward emigration to Indiana. Davis asserts in the suit that there is little doubt that Cadwallader "has designs upon his freedom, and from his intemperate habits and reckless course of conduct of late" will sell Patrick "as a slave in foreign servitude." The petitioners ask the court to "vacate and annul the recognizance under which he [Patrick Davis] is held (if any)" and issue an injunction preventing Cadwallader from transporting the young Davis out of Virginia. This indenture is the authority under which Davis was held. In January 1834, Patrick and Kitty Davis's petition was granted, vacating this agreement and resulting in an injunction preventing Cadwallader from transporting Davis out of Virginia.

The Kitty and Patrick Davis case provides a scarce example of ways in which a "free person of color" could seek standing in a Virginia court of law against a white. The case remains relevant, and is taught in some modern law school classes.

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American Historical Ephemera & Photography, including African Americana

[ENSLAVEMENT]. Indenture related to an important VA Circuit Superior Court freedom suit, 1819.

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