In an amended bill of complaint, Sarah Jett asks the court to perpetually bar her estranged husband, Starke Jett, and three other men from selling her slave named Richard to satisfy certain debts owed by her husband to creditors. Sarah explains that, from the time of her marriage until the said judgment, she had the "entire controll and management of said negro boy," who was part of her allotment from her father's estate. Starke "renounced" all rights to Richard and signed a marriage contract stipulating that Sarah "should have the exclusive control benefit and use of the said negro boy." She has since "left the house of her said husband" due to his "cruel and intolerable ill-treatment," and has filed a bill for divorce in the circuit court. One of Starke's creditors, Jacob Merchant, has caused multiple levies to issue against Richard, upon certain lands of hers in Virginia, and property in her father's estate. She asks the court to "stay the insatiable hand" of Merchant, who is trying to force "a quadruple payment of said debt." She also prays "that the said negro boy be by a decree of your honourable court restored to the absolute control of your Complainant."
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Repository: Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee
