{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"11485701","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/11485701","state":"Tennessee","county":"Williamson","location_type":"County","file_year":1857,"filing_court":"Archives","result":"referred to Judiciary Committee","enslaved_count":11,"fpoc_count":1,"total_people_count":13,"repository":"Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee","abstract":"David Sayers, executor of the will of the late Ben McCutcheon, represents that his testator died in 1851 possessed of a thirty-one-acre tract of land and sundry \"chattel property.\"  Sayers further states that McCutcheon, a free person of color, \"directed his just debts to be paid & then that his aged mother, be supported during her natural life by his estate\"; he \"then gave the Surplus left to his eleven children.\"  He points out that \"the Testators children, at his death were, & now are slaves & without any existing right to emancipation.\"  Being \"advised that said tract of land, under the laws of the state was escheated & is without the control of your Honorable body,\" Sayers prays that a special law be passed \"authorising the sale of said land & the distribution of the proceeds under the Will of said Testator.\"","subjects":[{"subject":"Property owners (Black)"},{"subject":"Bequest (enslaved)"}]}]}