{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"11281010","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/11281010","state":"North Carolina","county":"Wake","location_type":"County","file_day":11,"file_month":12,"file_year":1810,"filing_court":"Legislative","result":"House, Senate: read, referred","enslaved_count":0,"fpoc_count":0,"total_people_count":1,"repository":"North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina","abstract":"Young Utley seeks a divorce from his wife Mary Woodward Utley, whom he married \"about three years ago.\"  Utley reveals that \"some time after intermarriage the said Mary was delivered of a black child.\"  He further reports that she is currently living in Tennessee where \"she cohabits with a man of Colour, (the supposed author of her shame) in the character of a wife.\"  At twenty-five, Utley considers himself to have \"sustained an upright character\" but he \"is now oppressed with a burthen which none but a sufferer can feel.\"  The petitioner therefore prays that \"your Honorable body will pass a law divorcing him from his said wife.\"","subjects":[{"subject":"Adultery"},{"subject":"Divorce"},{"subject":"Interracial relationships"},{"subject":"Abandonment "}]}]}