{"petition":[{"petition_analysis_number":"21184426","petition_url":"https:\/\/dlas.uncg.edu\/petitions\/petition\/21184426","state":"Missouri","county":"St. Louis","location_type":"County","file_day":21,"file_month":10,"file_year":1844,"filing_court":"Circuit","end_date_circa":"y","end_day":21,"end_month":10,"end_year":1844,"ending_court":"Circuit","result":"petition granted; plea of trespass filed","enslaved_count":1,"fpoc_count":1,"total_people_count":7,"repository":"Civil Courts Building, St. Louis, Missouri","abstract":"Twenty-four-year-old Mary Ann Speaks was indentured by her free mother to Susan Blunt for ten years to learn \"the art and mystery of a good house wife.\"  Eight years into said apprenticeship, Blunt died intestate, and her administrator, James Quissenburry, claimed Speaks as a slave in Blunt's estate.  Speaks alleges that Quissenburry \"without the order or authority of the St. Louis Probate Court ... has advertised your petitioner as the property of his said intestate, and intends to sell her to the highest bidder for cash at the Court House in said County on Monday the twenty first day of October instant.\"  Currently \"held in close confinement in the Common Prison of the County aforesaid,\" Speaks believes that she \"will be in danger of loosing forever her freedom.\"  She therefore prays \"that your honor will allow her to sue as a poor person for her freedom.\"","subjects":[{"subject":"Sues for freedom (enslaved)"},{"subject":"Enslaver (FPOC)"},{"subject":"Westward migration"},{"subject":"Jails\/Workhouses"},{"subject":"Skills (enslaved)"},{"subject":"Apprenticeship\/Indenture (FPOC)"},{"subject":"Assault"},{"subject":"Slave trade (domestic)"},{"subject":"Fear of enslavement"},{"subject":"Term slavery"}]}]}