Billy, a free man of color, joins nine other free people of color, in representing that "by the will of Jane Barr ... they were all emancipated." They further declare that "it was made the duty of the Executor of the said will, if your Petitioners could lawfully remain in the state to purchase a piece of land for each of your Petitioners equal in value to one hundred dollars each"; if it were now lawful to remain in Virginia, the executor "should remove them to some other state where they might be free and purchase" said land for them there. The petitioners report "that Mrs. Barr's will was admitted to record in the year 1823" and that said Executor "has failed to give them the lands devised to them." Lamenting that "they are mere tenants at will of liberty and may be deprived of it at any moment by the Overseers of the Poor," the petitioners assert that, "should the General Assembly in its mercy think proper to permit them to remain in this State" after receiving their due legacy from said executor, "they will be able to reach the settlement on the coast of Africa of Free people of Color where they will most assuredly go if that settlement should continue to prosper & increase as it has heretofore." They therefore pray that they be permitted "to remain in this State as free persons until they can accomplish this."
Result: Rejected; bill drawn.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
