Lewis Johnson, a young man of color, seeks the court's protection. In 1860, he was apprenticed to William Chaney, who sold his term to T. T. Martin, who sold his term to M. Emmanuel, a German farmer on the Eastern Shore. After eighteen months, upon Emmanuel's orders, a constable stripped Johnson naked, tied his hands to a stick passed behind his knees, "pinning me down with my hed to the ground sticking my bare backside up." The constable then "struck me 30 licks with a hevey hickey paddel with a number of holes bored thrugh it, brusing me in an offel manner." Afterwards, the constable and Emmanuel whipped him with a cowhide. Johnson fainted and lay on the ground for two hours, "when I cum too I maid out to get to the house my privits wore very much ingered and swollen very large I was Confined to the hous for 2 weeks my back is very much schared at this time." Johnson escaped but was shot in the hand. He eventually "succeeded in getting to the Jail" and now brings this suit.
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Repository: Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland
