{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"20185206","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/20185206","state":"Alabama","county":"Shelby","location_type":"County","file_month":1,"file_year":1852,"filing_court":"Chancery","enslaved_count":1,"fpoc_count":0,"total_people_count":4,"repository":"Shelby County Archives, Columbiana, Alabama","abstract":"On 8 February 1851, Alfred M. Coldwell and his wife Susan A. Coldwell purchased a \"Certain Negro Woman\" named Mariah, a cook, age about forty-five, for seven hundred dollars.  Coldwell paid Elbert H. Sawyer, Mariah's owner, partly in cash and partly with a $370 note co-signed by his wife.  The note was due on the first of January 1852. When it went unpaid Sawyer brought suit.  Although Alfred was insolvent, Alfred's wife Susan possessed a substantial amount of property.  Sawyer argued that she should be held accountable.  The wife entered a plea of dismissal on the grounds that even if the statements were true they did not constitute grounds for a suit.  She said that her estate was separate from her husband's and making her responsible for his debts would be to put \"the woman upon a platform of Equality and joint responsibility with the husband.\"  The judge agreed, but when Alfred Coldwell died Sawyer instituted another suit for repayment, this one against the widow.","subjects":[{"subject":"Skills (enslaved)"},{"subject":"Purchase\/Sale prices (enslaved)"},{"subject":"Property owners (women)"},{"subject":"Insolvency"}]}]}