Beverly Dowling states that "he is a free man and entitled to exemption from servitude," but now he "is claimed and detained as a slave" by Sophia Bland and Austin Woolfolk. Dowling requests that the court subpoena the defendants and show cause why he should not be "discharged from confinement." The court transcript reveals considerable information about a family of "virtually free" slaves belonging to Sophia Bland, of whom the petitioner is one, living and working in Baltimore as shopkeepers, waiters on boats, and bootblacks. Dowling claims that he arranged with Bland an installment plan by which he could purchase his own freedom for $200. Letters from James Law, Bland's agent "in the Management Superintendance and Controul of her Negroes in the City of Baltimore," give details about the collection of these installments, including one detailed accounting of Dowling's hires and those of another slave, Eliza. When Law resigns as Bland's agent, he describes his unwillingness to shoulder the "hue and cry ... raised by the blacks that they would be sold to Georgia" if he intervened in locating two of Bland's slaves. These two slaves, a mother and son, are described in vivid terms by their owner Bland when she applies to another agent to locate their whereabouts.
Result: Granted; appealed.
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Repository: Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland
