Case ID: f-cas_17/html/0437-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "DUCKETT, Circuit Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Case Mo. 9,628.
    MINCHIN v. DOCKER.
    [1 Cranch, C. C. 370.] 
    
    Circuit Court, District of Columbia.
    Dec. Term, 1806.
    Witness — Negko—Competency—Presumption.
    1. A free black man, bora of £t white woman, is a competent witness against a white man.
    2. Evidence that a black man has, for many years, publicly acted as a free man, and been generally reputed to be free, rebuts the presumption of slavery arising from color, and is evidence that he was born of a white woman. .
    Slander.
    Charles Cavender, a black man, was admitted to testify for the plaintiff, after witnesses had been examined by the court on oath, and testified that Charles had acted publicly for eleven years as a free man, and was generally reputed as such.
    
      
       [Reported by Hon. William Cranch, Chief Judge.]
    
   DUCKETT, Circuit Judge,

said that persons bom free, that is, descended from a white woman, were not, in Maryland, held to be ne-groes; and were permitted to testify against white persons. And although color is prima facie evidence of slavery, yet the fact that the witness had, for a long time, publicly acted as free, turned the presumption the other way, and was prima facie evidence that he was born of a white woman.

CRANCH. Chief .Judge,, concurred.

PITZHUGH, Circuit Judge, absent.

See Acts Assem. Md. 1717, c. 13, § 2, and Acts 1796, c. 67, § 5.