North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes by Harvey Amani Whitfield

Author:Harvey Amani Whitfield [Whitfield, Harvey Amani]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: UBC Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chipman also recounted the case of a black woman who had been jailed, brought to court on a writ of habeas corpus, and subsequently freed. When her owner protested, Blowers baited him by encouraging him to “try the right.” The master brought an action against “a person who had received and hired the wench.” Although he produced a bill of sale that demonstrated purchase in New York, he could not “prove that the seller had a legal right to dispose of her.” Blowers directed the jury to find for the defendant, which did so.70 In other cases, owners tested their right to hold blacks by filing actions against local whites who had willingly sheltered and/or employed runaway slaves.

DeLancey v. Woodin is perhaps the most celebrated slave case in Nova Scotia history.71 James DeLancey was one of the province’s more hardened slaveholders. According to his junior counsel, Joseph Aplin, “Jack, who was legally the slave of Col. DeLancey at New York, accompanied his master to London on the Evacuation of the former Place. From London [he went with] his Master to this Province.” In 1800, after years of enslavement, Jack fled to Halifax. It seems that he hoped to enlist in the Royal Nova Scotia Regiment or believed that he would become free simply by reaching Halifax.72 After DeLancey learned that William Woodin had employed Jack, he had his lawyer Thomas Ritchie demand that Jack be returned. Woodin’s lawyer, Richard John Uniacke, refused, arguing that because Nova Scotia had no statute law related to slavery, all blacks in the province were free. At this point, “an action of trover [a claim to obtain damages for the wrongful use of his property] was commenced by Mr. DeLancey against Mr. [Woodin] for the Negro Slave.”73 DeLancey won his case in the Annapolis annual circuit court, but the judgment was arrested.74 As it turned out, a new trial set for September 1803 did not occur, and DeLancey did not “obtain execution of his judgment against Woodin.”75 DeLancey died in May 1804. Although no judgment had been entered regarding DeLancey, many slave-owners took his failure to recover Jack as a sign that the courts would not uphold slaveholding in the province. One important aspect of this case is Jack’s role in freeing himself. By running away, he took his own freedom. Of course, the legal system could have returned him to slavery – thanks to the work of Uniacke and others, it did not – but Jack ran the initial risk of absconding and forcing the issue to court. If he had not chosen to run away and attempted to enlist, DeLancey v. Woodin would never have arisen.76

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