(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Documents on the state's confiscation of 15 slaves owned by Grief Cook, a

(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Documents on the state's confiscation of 15 slaves owned by Grief Cook, a free man of color in Georgia. Manuscript document, 12 x 7¾ inches, signed by the state "escheator," with docketing on integral blank; and two other one-page documents, all with folds and minimal wear. With typed transcripts of all 3 documents. Pike County, GA, August-September 1850 A very small number of free Black men in the antebellum South were the owners of slaves. In some of these cases, they may have purchased family members for the purpose of securing their freedom--or they may have simply been the beneficiaries of slave labor. In either case, their membership in the slave-owning class was tenuous. These three documents trace the case of one such man, Grief Cook of Pike County in central Georgia. He was recorded as a "free man of colour" and substantial property owner in the historical record from 1844 to 1850, aged upwards of 50 years, but always under the care of a trustee or guardian. The first and most substantial document in this collection spells out the issue on 19 August 1850:
"Grief Cook, a free person of color . . . is possessed of and claims to have purchased & acquired the following slaves, to wit Milly, a woman about forty five years of age; Benjamin a man aged about twenty seven years; Jim Anderson, a man about twenty one years of age; Albert, a boy about nineteen years of age; Randolph a boy about seventeen years of age; Lewis about sixteen years old; Nancy a girl about fifteen years of age; Charles a boy about thirteen years of age; Mary a girl about eleven years of age; Sarah a girl about nine years of age; Harriet a girl eight years old; John a boy about seven years of age; William a boy about five years of age; Thomas a boy about three years of age; and Milly a girl about one year and six months old." This group might plausibly be a mother and her 14 children.
The document explains that the chain of title to Grief Cook was unclear, possibly through a trust, and "contrary to the statute." It thus invokes the state's "escheat" laws which basically allow the state to take ownership of abandoned or illegally held property, and orders the sheriff to "seize the aforementioned slaves and confine them in the common jail of Pike County until they are sold under the escheat laws of this state or are otherwise determined by due course of law." The sheriff notes that the arrests were made on 21 August, and his deputy asserts that they were placed in jail the following day.
The other two documents are notices served to Grief Cook and his guardian William Watson on 3 September, regarding a pending court date, "determining whether certain slaves now in the common jail of said county lately in your possession have become forfeited and escheated to the state of Georgia. You can appear and defend or claim if you see fit."