In October 1849, Robert H. Fleury signed a document he thought secured a debt of $550 owed to Lyne Shackelford. A year earlier, he had inherited "a fortune in bonds & notes land stock & negroes amounting to some six thousand dollars," but, having been orphaned at an early age, he tells the court that he "reached the period of manhood without the ordinary inducements to Economy." Also being "too much addicted to drink," he squandered his estate, thereby becoming indebted to Shackelford. Fleury charges that Shackelford deceived him into signing an absolute bill of sale, rather than a mortgage, for some of his slaves and that Shackelford has since sold the slaves and collected on notes due to Fleury. Describing himself as "the dupe of deceit and artifice ... bankrupt in fortune & ruined in credit," he asks the court to require Shackelford to give an account of his transactions concerning Fleury's debts and slaves.
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Repository: Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland
