Case ID: f-cas_25/html/1086-02.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. 16,101.
    UNITED STATES v. FISHER.
    [1 Cranch, C. C. 244.] 
    
    Circuit Court, District of Columbia.
    July Term, 1805.
    Witness—Free Negro—Slavery—Presumption.
    1. A free negro is a competent witness against a free white man Quaere.
    [Cited in U. S. v. Muliany, Case No. 15,832.1
    2. General reputation of freedom is sufficient to rebut the presumption of slavery arising from-color.
    
      
       [Reported by Hon. William Cranch, Chief Judge.]
    
   [This was an indictment against Henry Fisher, a free white man.]

Indictment for beating prisoner’s wife. The assault having been proved by Mr. Threlkield. Lucy Butler, a black woman,, was offered as a witness on the part of United States. Mr. Threlkield having sworn that’ she had always passed for a free woman for many years, the court permitted her to be-sworn to the jury.

Quaere. See the act of assembly of Maryland (1717, c. 13, § 2).