Thornton Kinney seeks a writ of habeas corpus and the opportunity to reestablish his freedom, a state "prized beyond life itself." Kinney, whose father was a slave, explains that his mother, Amy Kinney, was a free woman of color "of Indian descent." After completing an apprenticeship, he obtained freedom papers, which he took to "the Colony of Liberia on the continent of Africa." When they became "worn and mutilated," he threw them away. Kinney returned to his native land and has worked on "divers Steam Boats running on the Ohio & Mississippi" since 1837. While aboard the steamer Caddo, the captain "declared that he intended to hold him as a slave," whereupon he was confined to the jail of a negro trader and "placed" up for sale. Narrowly escaping, he "commenced his old occupation going up and down the Mississippi." Kinney married a former slave, who was able to purchase her freedom, and together they bought her youngest child and are "labouring" to buy others. Rearrested "as a runaway slave" belonging to John F. Hatcher, Kinney assures the court that he can produce "incontrovertible evidence" from his Virginia acquaintances that establishes his right to freedom. He asks the court to protect him from the "chains of slavery, fastened by strangers, who feel not for him, but only desire to 'put money in their purses.' "
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Repository: Civil Courts Building, St. Louis, Missouri
