Fifty-one residents of Roane County join Thomas Clark in representing that the said Clark "agreed to liberate a Negroe man Slave named Peter Hawkins on Condition that he would pay him one Hundred Dollars"; Clark reports that "the slave has at different times paid him that sum but the Law requiring his removal from the State past before he had got the evidence of his freedom." Noting that "the owner wishes to comply with his promise but the Slave wishes to remain in the State," the petitioners pray "your Honourable Body to permit his Emancipation without his removal." They note that the said Hawkins “is an old man ... and believed to be Honest he is a taylor and useful in his Neighbourhood.”
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
