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Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
"THE KNOWN WORLD" (MANUSCRIPT SLAVE DOCUMENTS.) Group of five documents in the case of Grief Cook, a free person of color, wherein the state of Georgia is taking 15 slaves from him. 12 pages, on six 4to leaves; creased where folded. Pike County, 19 August-2 December 1850
A complex and sad case. Grief Cook was a free man of color with 15 slaves. One document is from the sheriff's office and the court ordering the formation of a jury of twelve freeholders to determine whether Cook has "escheated" or "turned over" to the state 15 slaves in his possession, as had been previously ordered. Cook is then ordered to turn over the slaves and the court to advertise the sale of those slaves. Another document quotes John Lee, an "informant" as saying that Cook had obtained these slaves from "some white person." Other documents order one William Watson to produce his or any other person's bills of sale to Grief Cook for the slaves. The last document states that the court is seizing the slaves from Cook on the ground that "Grief Cook, purporting to be a free person of color, had in violation to the statutes in reference to the owning of slaves by free persons of color, attempted to own and had purchased said slaves." In the end, the court determined that Grief Cook was not a free person of color at all, but in fact "the slave of James Mitchell, deceased." It would appear that Cook might well have been freed by Mitchell upon his death. And what was apparently an attempt by Cook to free these 15 other people ended up with their, as well as his own, return to slavery.
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