{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"11681904","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/11681904","state":"Virginia","county":"Nottoway","location_type":"County","file_day":20,"file_month":12,"file_year":1819,"filing_court":"Legislative","end_day":3,"end_month":1,"end_year":1820,"ending_court":"Legislative","result":"bill drawn","enslaved_count":1,"fpoc_count":1,"total_people_count":4,"repository":"Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia","abstract":"About 1801, free-born black Charles Cousins, a \"professor of religion,\" shoemaker, and plantation manager, \"took to himself\" a slave wife, Aggy, who in 1810 was put up for sale as part of an estate.  Cousins arranged for Thomas Howlett, a white man, to purchase Aggy, and about 1812, he repaid Howlett the full purchase price, receiving a \"release or bill of sale\" and full title of ownership.  At age about sixty, Cousins worries that if he were to die before his wife she would not retain her freedom, nor can he now emancipate her and have her remain in the state more than one year.  He asks permission to emancipate his wife and for her to remain in Virginia.","subjects":[{"subject":"Purchased own family (FPOC)"},{"subject":"owner(s)\/citizens manumit\/free slave"},{"subject":"Education and literacy (FPOC)"},{"subject":"Occupation (FPOC)"},{"subject":"Enslaver (FPOC)"},{"subject":"State residency issues (FPOC)"},{"subject":"Skills (enslaved)"},{"subject":"Overseers"},{"subject":"Auctions"},{"subject":"Purchase\/Sale prices (enslaved)"},{"subject":"Purchased for emancipation "},{"subject":"Frees own family (FPOC)"},{"subject":"Family kept together (Black)"}]}]}