Eliza Burks, a free woman of color, seeks compensation from Thomas Clark and Samuel Locke for the loss of her slave Eliza. Burks represents that she hired out twenty-four-year-old Eliza to Captain Thomas Clark, in 1835, to serve as chamber maid on his steamboat Freedom. The verbal contract between Clark and Burks stipulated that Eliza would serve for one trip only into the "upper country." Burks instructed Clark to deliver Eliza to her agent, William E. Thorance, upon the boat’s return to New Orleans. Clark refused to do so and, instead, took Eliza to Cincinnati, where she ran away. Not only did Clark fail to inform Burks of Eliza’s disappearance until much later when the boat returned to New Orleans, but he lied about where the escape had taken place, thus causing Burks to incur unnecessary expenses looking for Eliza in the wrong place. Burks therefore prays that both Thomas Clark and his partner, Samuel Locke, be cited to answer her suit. She seeks compensation covering the value of her slave, which she estimates at $1,000, the value of her hires, which she puts at $20 per month, and expenses incurred in looking for Eliza, for a total sum of $1,250, plus costs of suit. She also claims a privilege on the engine of the steamboat Freedom.
Result: Granted; appealed.
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Repository: University of New Orleans
