Journal article
Hereditary Term Slavery and the Pursuit of Restitution in Antebellum Pennsylvania
Journal of the early Republic, Vol.45(2), pp.189-212
07/01/2025
DOI: 10.1353/jer.2025.a963424
Abstract
In 1831, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned a lower court order granting Sampson Johnston $370 in damages for work he had performed throughout his twenties while being held in a legally suspect form of bondage. Although the court conceded that Johnston had possessed a justiciable freedom claim during the years he was compelled to labor, this was irrelevant to the present circumstances. Their unanimous decision meant that Thomas Urie, the attorney who had purchased Johnston fifteen years earlier, did not need to compensate his former servant. Men and women like Urie would be protected from these kinds of lawsuits going forward. This article is a history of the court cases that dismantled Pennsylvania's system of hereditary term slavery without providing restitution for those who survived it. For decades after Pennsylvania enacted its gradual-abolition program in 1780, a decentralized coalition of enslavers, lawmakers, and jurists with a shared interest in protecting property rights in people were not working toward Black liberation, but rather toward the creation of a novel system of chattel bondage predicated on birthright servitude.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Hereditary Term Slavery and the Pursuit of Restitution in Antebellum Pennsylvania
- Creators
- Cory Young
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of the early Republic, Vol.45(2), pp.189-212
- Publisher
- The University of North Carolina Press; PHILADELPHIA
- DOI
- 10.1353/jer.2025.a963424
- ISSN
- 0275-1275
- eISSN
- 1553-0620
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/01/2025
- Academic Unit
- History
- Record Identifier
- 9984825536702771
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