Rachel, a twenty-year-old mulatto woman, represents that her master, J. B. W. Stockton, took her to the Michigan Territory about five years ago and established residency in Prairie du Chien on the east side of the Mississippi River. During the two years that Rachel served the Stockton family in Michigan, she bore a son named James Henry. Stockton brought Rachel and her son to St. Louis, where they were eventually sold to William Walker, a slave trader. Fearing that Walker is planning to sell her and her son in New Orleans, the petitioner prays that she and her child "may be allowed to sue as a poor person in the St. Louis Circuit Court for freedom and that the said Walker may be restrained from carrying her or said child out of the jurisdiction of the St Louis Circuit Court till the termination of said suit."
Result: Petition granted; plea of trespass filed; judgment by default; judgment set aside, denied; motion for new trial denied, appealed, reversed and remanded.
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Repository: Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri
