Emily F. Slater seeks a divorce from her husband, James E. Slater, who, she asserts, has treated her with great cruelty and brutality. He "denounced her as a d-m whore, and ordered her to leave the house," she said, and on one occasion choked her "until she fainted and the blood run out of her mouth." Moreover, her husband is the adulterer "suffering with a venereal disease, contracted by such an adulterous course of life." He took her eleven slaves away with the intention of selling them and depriving "entirely of her property." She would have filed for divorce sooner but felt "an instinctive dread of a public exposure." Emily prays that the court will grant her a divorce, require child support, and prevent Slater from "molesting or interfering with her in said care custody & education" of their five-year-old daughter Kate.
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Repository: University of South Alabama Archives, Mobile, Alabama
