{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"11683902","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/11683902","state":"Virginia","county":"Prince William","location_type":"County","file_day":2,"file_month":3,"file_year":1839,"filing_court":"Legislative","end_day":20,"end_month":3,"end_year":1839,"ending_court":"Legislative","result":"reasonable","enslaved_count":0,"fpoc_count":0,"total_people_count":10,"repository":"Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia","abstract":"One hundred eighty-one citizens from Prince William County object to the petition \"presented to your honorable body by Sundry Fishermen & Salt importers of Alexandria ... permitting the introduction of Free negroes from the north during the Spring season on the ground that labor is too high in this section & because they cannot get hands enough here to haul their 6 & 800 fathom seines.\"  The petitioners offer five reasons for their opposition: 1) that fish have become scarce and expensive; 2) that local employment opportunities would suffer; 3) that the free people of color who would come are \"miserable wretches who vegetate all Summer in the District of Columbia, Baltimore & Philadelphia, and in winter are sheltered and fed in Work Houses Jails & Poor Houses\"; 4) that free blacks “owing to their filthy ... way of life are liable to all manner of contagious disorders\" such as small pox; and 5) that it would not be good to have large numbers of black people in a section where the white population is thin.","subjects":[{"subject":"Occupation (FPOC)"},{"subject":"Jails\/Workhouses"},{"subject":"Diseases (physical)"},{"subject":"White affection (FPOC)"}]}]}