Sarah and her descendants ask the court to recognize a deed of manumission executed by her former master, Samuel Robinson, on 24 May 1803, "wherein & whereby he liberated Yr Oratrix Sarah ... at the expiration of Seventeen Years from the date of Sd deed." Sarah contends that by the terms of said deed all her children born after 24 May 1820 are "entitled to their freedom without being subject to any term of servitude whatever." She confesses, however, that the "benefit intended & provided for her by her old master, she has been deprived up to the present time, on account of her ignorance of her rights." Sarah reports that she and her family are currently claimed by "the heirs at law & distributees" of the late Jane Robinson Fitzgerald, the divorced wife of James Fitzgerald, due to "the decree of Yr Hon. Court in Sd divorce case [which] vested the title to sd Complts in the Sd Jane Fitzgerald dec." Stating that said heirs "are threatening & intending to divide them amongst themselves as slaves without the aid or intervention of a Court," the petitioners pray that an injunction issue "restraining & prohibiting the sd Defts ... from selling, removing, or disposing of any of the sd Complts;" that the court "will make a decree declaring their right to freedom & emancipating them;" and that they be compensated "for their services during the time for which they have been wrongfully held in bondage."
Result: Granted.
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Repository: Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee
