Case ID: mart-os_1/html/0183-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ADELLE vs. BEAUREGARD.
    
    Fall, 1810.
    First District.
    The plaintiff a woman of colour, claimed her freedom.
    Persons of colour are presumed free: negroes otherwise.
    
      Paillette for the defendant.
    The plaintiff must prove that she was born free, or has been emancipated.
    
      Ellery for the plaintiff
    Even if the defendant could prove his possession of the plaintiff as his slave, still the Spanish law would require him to produce some written title, or at least that he acquired possession of her without fraud. Partida 3 tit. 14, l. 5.
    
   By the Court.

Although it is in general correct, to require the plaintiff to produce his proof before the defendant can be called upon for his, it is otherwise, when the question is slavery or freedom. The law cited by the plaintiff is certainly applicable to the present ease. We do not say that it would be so if the plaintiff were a, negro, who perhaps would be required to establish his right by such evidence, as would destroy the force of the presumption arising from colour: negroes brought to this country being generally slaves, their descendants may perhaps fairly be presumed to have continued so, till they show the contrary. Persons of colour may have descended from Indians on both sides, from a white parent, or mulatto parents in possession of their freedom. Considering how much probability there is in favor of the liberty of those persons, they ought not to be deprived of it upon mere presumption, more especially as the right of holding them in slavery, if it exists, is in most instances capable of being satisfactorily proved. Gobu v. Gobu, Taylor 115.

The defendant then proved he had brought the plaintiff from the West-Indies; had placed her in a boarding school in New-York, and in a few years after sent for her to New-Orleans, where she resided a few months with him, and left his house, and in a few days after brought the present suit.

The plaintiff claimed wages for the time she had resided with the defendant, but the court, inclining to view her services as the return of gratitude for the trouble and expense attending her education, withdrew her claim therefor.

Judgment for Plaintiff.