When Henry Dickerson purchased a slave named Rody from John Butler for $600, he agreed to pay $300 in six months and the balance in twelve months. While he has made the first payment, Dickerson says he will not pay the balance. Butler represented the slave as "industrious & attentive to business" and as "sound healthy active and sensible trusty & honest," Dickerson says. But since the purchase, he has discovered those claims to be "altogether false & fraudulent;" she requires a great deal of looking after and runs away for weeks and months at a time with no provocation. Dickerson alleges that when he tried to have the contract rescinded, Butler responded that "he would not take her back that he got his living by trading & that he would be damed if he did not hold your Orator to the contract & make him pay the balance." Dickerson then sent Rody to New Orleans to be sold, but was unable to get more than $240. Now Butler has won a judgment against him for the balance, but fearing Dickerson's suit for the fraud, has been "shy of the sheriff" and has left for Tennessee. Dickerson asks the court to restrain the defendant from collecting the judgment and to compel him to refund the unrecovered part of the initial $300 with interest.
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Repository: Kentucky Division of Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky
