Mary, a slave, beseeches the court to grant freedom to her and her five children. Mary claims that she is "ipso facto free" according to the terms of her former master’s will. Mary contends that John Marshall "conscienciously believing that civil and religious Liberty is the natural right of all men," willed Mary and her children to his daughter, Miriam Morris, for a term of five years, after which they were to be declared free. However, Mary charges, Miriam and her husband, Gerard, left her in "complete ignorance of the existence of the will and provisions thereof, and did illegally and fraudulently detain" her in the "bonds of slavery." After Gerard’s death, his administrator sold Mary and her two children, now deceased, to Tyre Morris as "slaves for life." Mary charges that, by this time, she had been free for "upwards of six or seven years, though illegally deprived" of her liberty. Mary also states that the children born to her since her emancipation were "freeborn children and not slaves." She therefore prays that she and her children be declared free. Furthermore, she seeks $2,000 in damages for services "rendered during the eight or nine years of her illegal detention."
Result: Granted; appealed; denied.
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Repository: East Baton Rouge Parish, Clerk of Court Archives, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
