Samuel Badger states that "he is a free man of color but that he is held in bondage as a slave unjustly and unlawfully" by David M. Perine and John McKim Marriott, executors of the estate of William H. Marriott, and by Jane Marriott and William Marriott. Badger asks that the defendants be subpoenaed to answer these charges and that he be released. Badger claims his freedom based on the emancipation of his mother Hess by her former owner William Hammond, William Marriott's father. Hammond's will emancipated certain slaves "on their finishing the different crops on hand" at his death, and he devised "one large hogg with three barrels of corn" to each manumitted slave. His will provided that the remainder of his slaves would be free twenty-five years after his death.
Result: Granted; appealed; reversed; remanded.
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Repository: Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland
