Charlotte, a free woman of color, presents the following facts in support of her petition to emancipate her twenty-one-year-old mulatto son named Joseph, a shoemaker. In 1820, Pelagie Derneville, a free woman of color, sold Joseph, then thirteen years of age, to a free man of color named Jean Belaire, on the condition that he would free Joseph as soon as the laws of the state would permit. In 1826, by an official act passed before the very same notary who had presided over the first sale, Jean Belaire legally delivered Joseph, still a slave, to his mother Charlotte, on condition that she would emancipate him; thus passing unto Charlotte the contractual obligation he had entered into with Pelagie Derneville. Invoking the law of the 31st of January 1827, Charlotte now asks the court to grant her permission to seek the police jury's approval to emancipate her son before he has reached the age of thirty. She also asks the court, praying that the police jury will indeed give their consent, to order the sheriff to post up the notices of emancipation required by law.
Result: Granted.
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Repository: New Orleans Public Library, New Orleans, Louisiana
