Twenty-two-year-old Victoria C. Clement seeks a divorce from her husband, James R. Clement. She confesses that "a few days after said marriage the said James Clement commenced towards her a system of persecution & cruelty." She recounts that he forbade her to "take no part in the amusements of young persons or converse with young men." The petitioner reveals that her husband frequently accused her of adultery and often took "his pistol & bowie knife in bed with him" in an effort to ward off her would-be paramours. She further confesses that his extreme jealousy and anger towards her erupted at times into violent episodes with the slaves. She recounts that on one occasion "he took a negro boy which had been advanced her by her mother, & who was about six years old, stripped him naked, and lashed him unmercifully until the blood ran from him -- at the time he stated to the boy that he whipt him because he had sometime before cut down a plant of tobacco." Victoria confides that James later admitted "that he whipt him only to distress her." Citing that she "has become seriously alarmed for her safety" and that he has shown "a settled purpose to render her life miserable," the petitioner prays for a divorce, ample maintenance, and "the possession & custody" of her infant daughter.
Result: Partially granted.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
