Stephen Etenaud asks that Henry Hattier "be restrained from disturbing your orator in the quiet enjoyment or employment" of certain slaves. He confesses that "dire misfortune" forced him and his family to flee Saint Domingo and to seek refuge in Charleston, where he was "shortly afterwards followed by two families of his negroes ... whose attachment to him induced them to pursue their master in america." Having failed as a baker, he sought to better "his fortune as a Coffee Planter" in Cuba. He reports that said Hattier proposed a copartnership; Hattier would advance him $7000 with the dual condition that $4000 of said sum would be applied to his accrued debts and "that your orator should pledge his negroes seventeen in number as Part of the capital of said association" and liable for the said debt. He asserts that he executed a bill of sale for the said slaves under the belief that he would be permitted to transport said slaves "to a foreign Country ... and by their Labour in a particular culture to endeavor to obtain the means of [paying] the sum for which they were mortgaged." Having been jailed by a creditor, he charges that Hattier intends to force him "to relinquish his right to his Slaves to the ruin of your orator & his family." He prays that Hattier discontinue his "vexatious Suits" and that he be enjoined "from selling or disposing of any of the Slaves mentioned in the pretended Bill of Sale." Etenaud, however, asks that "so many of the negroes named in the Bill of Sale" be sold as will "satisfy ... said demands against your orator" and that he receive "a reconveyance of any which may remain after such Sale."
Or you may view all people.
Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
