Catharine Ragland seeks to sell a female slave, who was purchased from "a portion of the funds" that Catharine received as her distributive share of her father's estate. The petitioner charges that Martha is "wholly ungovernable by the said Catharine and altho a good looking woman and could be sold for a fair price yet she is wholly valuless to her for the purpose she desires a Negro woman." Catharine asks the court to authorize her trustee, W. M. McMorris, to sell Martha alone or with her unnamed child and then to reinvest the profits from Martha's sale in the purchase of another "Negro woman alone or with one or two children." Affidavits submitted with said petition allege that "the negro girl held by Mrs Ragland ... made an attempt to run away with a white man -- That she would steal -- was impudent & Idle."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
