Nathaniel Allen states he is unjustly held in slavery by Richard Higgins "when he is entitled to his freedom being descended from a free Woman." Allen requests that Higgins show cause, if any, why he should not be released. Jane Allen, the petitioner's mother, states in a deposition that she "had [Nathaniel] by a Negro Man that She is the Daughter of Hannah Allen a Mulatto and that she always understood and heard from general report that her said Mother was the Daughter of a White Scotch Woman named Hannah Allen and that the said Hannah Allen had the Deponents Mother by a Negro." The court record reveals that in 1772, Jane Allen was prosecuted for and convicted of "Molatto Basterdy." She was sentenced to be "a Servant for and during the Term of seven Years after the expiration of her present Servitude and that she serve her present Master Nine Months for the Trouble of his House." The five-month-old "Bastard Child," then called Natt, was adjudged a "servant untill he Arrive to the Age of Thirty one Years." He was then "immediately sold" to the highest bidder, the defendant Higgins, for "One Hundred and Ten pounds of Tobacco."
Result: Granted; appealed; revoked; appealed; affirmed.
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Repository: Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland
