Richard Ballard seeks to emancipate his forty-five-year-old female slave Agatha. Ballard attests that Agatha has rendered "long and faithful services" to him and his father and that she has "ever sustained a fair and upright character." He also "feels confident that in liberating her, under the fair character she has earned herself, and at her advanced age that no evil consequence would result to society." Ballard, in fact, purports that said manumission "would hold out an encouragement to others of her condition to behave themselves properly and be a fair reward for her conduct." The petitioner further notes that Agatha "by Industry and good management has made a small sum of money, that she has deposited in your petitioners hands, to be considered and held as a consideration for her liberation." Ballard therefore prays that an act be passed "Liberating and setting free the said Negro Agatha."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
