Petition #20284905

Abstract

Five of the seven children of the late William Cook of Bedford County, Virginia, sue one of their siblings for the possession of two slave children, Jim and Bett, who had belonged to their father during his lifetime. They contend that their sister Mildred Hopkins and her husband, Francis, illegally retain the slaves from their father's estate. All debts have been paid, they assert, and the property, including "divers" slaves, has been divided up and disposed of, except for twelve-year-old Jim, "a mulatto boy," and ten-year-old Bett, a "black" girl, both the children of a woman named Eliza. At issue is whether the two slaves had been delivered to Mildred and Francis Hopkins as a gift from William Cook or whether they had only been placed under their control on William's Arkansas plantation where Hopkins was the overseer. The petitioners ask that the court "take said slaves into possession, and hold them under the order and direction of the Court." In a related document, corroborated by other deponents, Mildred and Francis Hopkins assert that the two children were a gift from Cook. In fact, they explain, Edwin Cook, representing his siblings, had come to Arkansas sometime in 1848 to settle the estate and had agreed to let them claim title to Jim and Bett provided they return another slave named Nice to the estate for division among the heirs.

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Citation information

Repository: University of Arkansas at Little Rock, School of Law, Little Rock, Arkansas

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