Case ID: f-cas_23/html/0591-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Case No. 13,713.
    SYLVIA v. CORYELL.
    [1 Cranch, C. C. 32.] 
    
    Circuit Court, District of Columbia.
    July Term, 1801.
    Slavery — Bringing into State — Suit por Freedom.
    If the owner of a slave in Virginia send his slave out of the state for three years, and bring the slave back, it is not such a bringing into the commonwealth as entitles the slave to freedom, under the second section of the act of 17th December, 1792
    Assault and battery, to try the right of the plaintiff [Negro Sylvia] to her freedom.
    Verdict for the plaintiff, subject to the opinion of the court on the following case: The plaintiff was born a slave in Virginia, in 1779, and became the property of the defendant [George Coryell], a citizen of Virginia. In June, 1789. the defendant sent her to New Jersey, where she remained three years in the service of the defendant’s mother, but continued all that time the property of the defendant. At the end of the three years, the plaintiff returned to Virginia, to the service of the defendant, and has so remained until the time of bringing her action.
    Judgment for the defendant, by MAE-'SHALL, Circuit Judge, and CRANCH, Circuit Judge. KILTY, Chief Judge, doubted.
   See Act Assem. Va. December 17, 1792 (Ed. 1832) p. ISO.