Description:

Slavery

Amazing slavery case for freedom of a woman "poor + illiterate woman entirely deprived of her liberty ... "

2pp bifold ALS with integral address leaf inscribed overall and signed by Kentucky lawyer Alexander Dunn as "Alexd. Dunn" in bottom right corner of second page. Docket information and handwritten philatelic markings on address leaf inscribed "His Excellency The Governor of Pensylvania, Harrisburgh, Penn. [sic]". In very good to near fine condition. Expected paper folds, toning, isolated foxing, and scattered edge tears. Minor professional repairs, notably to gutter and area corresponding to seal. Each page measures 7.875" x 9.875".


On December 20, 1820, ex-soldier and lawyer Alexander Dunn begged the Governor of Pennsylvania to provide him with a copy of Pennsylvania anti-slavery legislation instrumental to his defense of an enslaved woman on the Kentucky border. Dunn wrote the Governor from Henry County, Kentucky (near the Newcastle post office), an area located halfway between modern day Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. All the excerpts from Dunn's letter include his original and untouched spelling.


The crux of Dunn's defense was Pennsylvania's 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, that prohibited the importation of slaves, mandated their registration with municipal authorities, and declared that slaves born in the state after the passage of the law would be manumitted on their 28th birthday.


Dunn's client was a 39-year-old "poor … + illiterate woman entirely deprived of her liberty + without funds". The woman had been born after the passage of the law, in February 1781."About the year 1785 [she and her] famaly of negros were run from Pensylvania to the disputed land of country that afterward fell to Virginia + from then in 1787 to Kentucky + have been so sold + disposed of that but few of them can now be found." Even though Pennsylvania statute had granted the enslaved woman her freedom around 1809 (on her 28th birthday), the lack of a copy of the law had so far stymied her case. Dunn fumed, "… nothing has prevented her giting her freedom 15 or 18 months ago but the want of the act of the Pensylvania Legislature declaring all negros born in that state after a certain day in 1780 to be free at certain ages … ".


Dunn's writing to the Governor represented his "last chance" to obtain the document before the slave's case was dismissed in April 1821. He understood that the Governor was a busy man, but trusted that he would serve the "cause of the wretched" and ensure that the enslaved woman's "retched strugles for liberty" had not been in vain. Dunn further emphasized that if the woman was manumitted, her five children and three grandchildren would also gain their freedom. The docket recorded that a copy was forwarded to Dunn in late January 1821, but it is unknown if the woman was liberated.


Emancipation was strictly a states' rights issue up until the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, yet States were hyperaware of the legislative decisions of their "Sisters". Vermont passed complete emancipation legislation in 1777; Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey passed gradual emancipation laws in 1780, 1784, 1799, and 1804 respectively. The question of slavery only inflamed regional divisions between the North and the South leading up to the Civil War. Kentuckians later supported both the Union and the Confederacy.


The changing geographical boundaries of territories that later became separate states, such as in this case with Pennsylvania and Kentucky, further complicated the issue of who was a slave and who was free.


An incredible antebellum ALS exploring slavery and emancipation in one of the border states!

 


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