11680206https://dlas.uncg.edu/petitions/petition/11680206VirginiaFluvannaCounty13121802Petitionreasonable, reported103Library of Virginia, Richmond, VirginiaIn 1801, Dabney Pettus married Elizabeth Morris, "a woman descended from honest industrous parents, & of unspoled Character." Dabney and Elizabeth lived "with all the affection & tenderness that cou'd possibly exist between husband & wife" for about four months, when, to his "great astonishment & inexpressible mortification," Dabney discovered that his wife was "deliver'd of a Mulatto Child." Dabney claims that the child was "begotten by a negro man slave in the Neighborhood." Dabney and Elizabeth have agreed to divorce and Pettus asks the legislature to pass a law "to divorce him from the said Elizabeth." A testimony reveals that the father of Elizabeth's child was a slave named Bob who belonged to her grandfather.DivorceInterracial relationshipsIllegitimacy